It was the first ever action in the city to protest the nuclear tests at Pokhran and the following national celebration of India's new status as the world's sixth nuclear nation. The demonstration was organised by a committee formed at the initiative of the Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal, comprising political activists, artists, economists, professors and others. All of them assembled despite the police denying the demonstration permission. And the two hour long event went through various stages of political militancy as each schools of thought took over the leadership in turn. The demonstration was kicked off by the Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal, whose slogans and speeches appealed to people in the name of humanity to help creating a nuclear free world. ``We all would be together infreeing the world from the nuclear curse,'' their oath said. Next came Dalit activists who refused to believe that Buddha could have ever smiled at the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. ``Stop mocking Buddha'' was their slogan. While the most condemned were PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Sangh Parivar, the socialist lobby was the first to condemn George Fernandes.

Even as all this was on, the militant Marxists' lobby had already planned on converting the demonstration into a morcha. and suddenly many started marching towards Churchgate from Fountain. By the time the police caught on, it was too late to prevent them. Even as all made their way to Churchgate, the cops on the spot pounced on Sarvodaya activist T Somaiya, saying he had `betrayed' them. Somaiya, on his part, pleaded helplessness saying there were too many leaders. As the morcha reached Churchgate, a man emerged to argue and shut up the ``anti-nationals''. A few youngsters took him away in no time. A girl from the Communist GhadarParty tried to convince strangers on how it was important for them to participate in a public discussion on the nuclear policy, to be held on May 30. The day's event turned out to be a big occasion for an obscured side of the city's political consciousness which has almost learnt to live on the fringe of mainstream politics.