In September 1961, English philosopher and Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell received a seven-day imprisonment in London for “refusing to keep the peace.” The 89-year-old philosopher was then leading a British campaign against nuclear arms.
Several thousand miles away, in Bengaluru, two friends — E.P. Menon and Satish Kumar — were upset by this development. Over coffee, they discussed how to persuade governments to ban nuclear weapons and prioritise peace instead. The conversation resulted in a crazy idea. “Let’s walk from Delhi to Washington, stopping at Paris, London, and Moscow.” To get the world’s leaders to listen to them, this craziness was required.
Menon and Kumar set off for their pilgrimage of peace on June 1, 1962, from Rajghat, a memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.
