Sixty-four years ago on this day, on 30 January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. India has several statues, universities and roads named after the Mahatma. Almost every city in India has a Gandhi statue. Mahatma Gandhi roads are found in many cities. Mahatma Gandhi Setu is a bridge over the Ganga connecting Patna and Hajipur, 5.575 km long and was considered the longest bridge in India until the 6 km long Bandra-Worli sea-link was opened in Mumbai in 2009. The government’s flagship rural development initiative falls under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and has generated 120.88 crore person-days of employment in rural areas since April 2011. Even New York, Adelaide, Wellington and Moscow have commemorated the work of Bapu by erecting statues. In 1969, the UK, on the occasion of Gandhi centenary, released a stamp with the picture of the Mahatma.

Gandhiji had a long relationship with the railways. While in South Africa, in 1893 the 24-year-old Mohandas was thrown out of a first-class carriage as a result of discrimination directed at Indians. This happened at the Pietermaritzburg railway station. Today, his bronze statue can be found in the same city. After his return from South Africa, Gandhiji travelled extensively across the length and breadth of India by train. The railways helped the Mahatma in his quest for independent India, playing an important role in the conversion of the lawyer Gandhi into the Mahatma via the exposure he gained regarding the plight of the masses. His book ‘Third Class in Indian Railways’ is an eye-opener on the sad state of the third-class compartments on trains and sufferings of passengers during those days.

The father of the nation was fond of the Indian Railways. So have the railways commemorated the memory of its most famous customer through naming of a train? The railways have done much more. This important institution has given opportunities for its passengers to remember the Mahatma’s work, and the principles he stood for, not merely his name. A few examples are as follows:

Sarvodaya Express runs between Ahmedabad and Jammu. In 1908, Gandhiji translated John Ruskin’s ‘Unto this Last’ and called it Sarvodaya, which means progress of one and all. As a principle, Sarvodaya remained a cornerstone of Gandhiji’s philosophy for the rest of his life and thereafter Acharya Vinoba Bhave and other Gandhians took it forward through a social movement focussing on self-determination and equality in independent India.

Satyagraha Express runs between Delhi and Raxaul in Champaran district of Bihar. In this region, peasants were forced to grow crops that had very little value and they sent a request to Gandhiji at Ahmedabad to visit Champaran. On April 10, 1917, Gandhiji arrived at Champaran and his strategy of non-violent protest took the authorities by surprise. A few days earlier, Bapu visited Motihari also in Champaran. In 1918, the Champaran Agrarian Ordinance was repealed. This resulted in improved financial returns for the farmers, thus signifying the effectiveness of Gandhi’s first Satyagraha. Railways now have the Bapudham Express between Motihari in Champaran district and Varanasi. At Varanasi’s Banaras Hindu University, in February 1916, Gandhiji made one of his famous speeches in which he said, “No amount of speeches will make us fit for self-government”. 

Gandhiji established his first ashram in Ahmedabad in 1915. This was a living laboratory for Gandhiji where he conducted experimental activities such as khadi spinning, farming, animal husbandry, including cow breeding, and other such simple yet constructive activities. The ashram shifted to Sabarmati on the banks of the river and was Gandhiji’s headquarters from 1917 until 1930 and the nerve centre of our freedom struggle. Today, two trains originate from Ahmedabad that remind us of the Sabarmati Ashram. Ashram Express runs on the Ahmedabad-Delhi-Ahmedabad route and the first halt after it departs from Ahmedabad is the Sabarmati station. The second train, Sabarmati Express, runs between Varanasi/Dharbhanga and Ahmedabad.

Swaraj Express runs between Mumbai and Jammu and commemorates Gandhiji’s concept of Swaraj or self-rule. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on April 13, 1919 after which there was violence. For Gandhiji, who was pained by these events, non-cooperation; non-violence and peaceful resistance were the appropriate weapons in the struggle against the British Raj. It was after this that Gandhiji began to highlight self-governance and this matured quickly into Swaraj or complete individual, spiritual and political independence. 

Chauri Chaura Express runs between Kanpur and Gorakhpur. The train stops at Chauri Chaura, a town in Gorakhpur district (UP), with a population of four lakhs. This town has historical significance in our freedom struggle. In February 1922, the police fired in the air to disperse a 2,000-strong protesting crowd. This backfired and an angry crowd burnt down the police station, killing 23 policemen within.  A disturbed Bapu arrived at the scene and went on a five-day fast to atone for the bloodshed. He took it as a personal defeat for his ahimsa strategy for Swaraj and decided to call off the non-cooperation movement.

Gandhiji moved to Sevagram village near Wardha in Maharashtra in April 1936. The focus of Bapu here was on rural industries such as dairy, pottery, bee keeping and so on. The modern-day institution of Khadi and Village Industries Commission owes its existence to Gandhji’s work in Sevagram and earlier in Sabarmati. From 1936 till his end, Sevagram Ashram remained his headquarters. The man, who fought the empire where the sun never set, had also quietly laid the foundation for a new people-centric agricultural and non-agricultural economy through his experiments at Sevagram. The Sevagram Express carries passengers between Nagpur and Mumbai. Wardha, which is not very far from Sevagram, is a station located very close to Nagpur on this line. Sevagram itself is a station 24 km south of Nagpur on the New Delhi-Chennai line.

Ahimsa Express is the name of the train which connects Pune and Ahmedabad. While Ahmedabad was the place where Bapu spent considerable time (at Sabarmati Ashram), after his arrest in Mumbai, he was housed in a specially created jail at Pune’s Aga Khan Palace from August 9, 1942 to May 6, 1944. The core of the Gandhi school of thought revolves around non-violence, i.e., ahimsa. In the words of Bapu: "Ahimsa cannot be dismissed as lightly as you think. Ahimsa is the strongest force known… Let us not, therefore, make light of the strongest force like Ahimsa, and let's try to discover its hidden power with patience and faith."

The All India Congress Committee began its annual session on August 7, 1942 and was concluded after midnight of August 8/9, 1942 at Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay. The historic Quit India resolution was passed and Gandhiji gave the emotive mantra ‘Karo ya Maro’ (Do or Die) which united the citizens against the British. Gandhiji, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad were all arrested. These events only bred greater sympathy for the cause among people. The leaders were in jail, yet large-scale protests and demonstrations were held. Over time, the Quit India movement was also known as August Kranti and the Gowalia Tank Maidan was renamed August Kranti Maidan. In 1992, the second Rajdhani Express between Mumbai and Delhi was inaugurated and to commemorate the golden jubilee of the Quit India movement was named the August Kranti Rajdhani Express.

As mentioned earlier, Gandhiji always travelled in third class, which came to be known as Gandhi Class. The Indian Railways had started four trains, which continue to be completely unreserved (‘general coaches’). These weekly trains are called Jansadharan Expresses (ordinary peoples expresses) linking four places in Bihar which Gandhiji visited – Chhapra, Raxaul, Saharsa and Muzzafarpur to Howrah, Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. The compartments of these trains can be said to be equivalent to the Gandhi Class.

That trains were close to Gandhiji’s heart is evident from what he said during the course of a prayer meeting two months after independence. He said: “The passengers should consider the railways as their own property. They should keep the trains clean. They should not spit and smoke in the trains and should not pull the chain without real need. And not a single passenger should travel without ticket. Then I would be able to say that we have attained true independence.”

On February 12, 1948 Gandhiji’s ashes were carried in a special train from Delhi to Allahabad. It was befitting that a third class coach had the privilege of taking the ashes for immersion at Triveni Sangam. The Indian Railways deserve appreciation from all of us for commemorating Mahatma Gandhi by naming trains after his life’s work, which marks and highlights his contribution to our Independence struggle.