The Gandhi Circuit Trains

The Indian Railways is the life line of the nation and the engine of growth on nation's march towards balanced development. Simultaneously it plays a pivotal role in promoting tourism in the country, recalling several iconic figures. Special trains have been run periodically to spread the message of Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, and Saint Teresa.

- RAVI VALLURI

Do we recall the iconic blockbuster film Gandhi? The movie was a biopic on the Mahatma and went on to win several Oscars. The movie was dexterously canned by the eminent film maker Sir Richard Attenborough.

There is a sequence in the movie, perhaps etched forever in the alcoves of cinegoers' minds—the ejection of Gandhiji from a train in South Africa.

The year was May 1893, when Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi was travelling to Pretoria with a high-priced first-class coach ticket in hand. An enraged white man objected to the presence of a dark-skinned 'coolie' in the first-class carriage. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was evicted from the train at Pietermaritzburg recompensed for this stoutly act of defiance.

This epochal incident became the bedrock of his unique version of resistance through non-violence, what came to be known as Satyagraha.