By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Shankar Gautam, a 35-year-old resident of Varanasi, works in a private firm based in Indore. Once in a month, he has to travel between Varanasi and Indore. And the trains taking the shortest routes between these two stations, sadly, runs through Mughalsarai which is situated in Chandauli district, around 20 kilometres from Varanasi.
Gautam says, “Once I had to come home from Indore for an urgent matter. I had gone to book Tatkal ticket at Indore station, and the man behind the counter asked me in a friendly manner – does Mughalsarai still has Mughalon ki Sarai?”
“Now no one will recognise this place, it will become like no one had heard of it,” added Gautam referring to recent decision of Union Ministry to rename Mughalsarai railway station on the name of Deendayal Upadhyay, a Bharatiya Jan Sangh ideologue who was found dead at the same station under mysterious circumstances in 1968.
The decision was also approved by Union Minister of Home Affairs on Friday. However, the proposal to rename the station is one of the first hardcore Hindu-loving decisions of newly elected Yogi Government in Uttar Pradesh. Yogi Adityanath has already changed the names of localities and townships. The town Ali Nagar in his Loksabha constituency Gorakhpur was renamed as Arya Nagar, Miyaan Bazaar to Maya Bazaar and Urdu Bazaar to Hindi Bazaar.
This is also not the first time when the Indian right wing has tried renaming of this particular railway station. There was one more and rather faint attempt in 1970, two years after the death of Deendayal Upadhyay, to rename the railway station after Upadhyay’s name. That time the attempt went noticed because that was the time when Indira Gandhi was serving the country as Prime Minister.
The name ‘Mughalsarai’ originates from the time when Emperor Shershah Suri was building the Grand Trunk Road in the 16th century following the Mauryan route. He made a temporary shelter in the same area for the workers and the contractors. Sherhshah had acceded to the throne after defeating Mughal emperor Humayun in 1540.
84-year-old local Mohammad Affan tells us, “This place has a lot of stories. But the most appropriate one I heard is what the name refers to. The region was used by emperor’s employees for taking rest before proceeding either to Delhi or to Calcutta.” Sarai meant resting place for the travellers. Shershah was a far sighted ruler and is known for constructing roads and sarais.
However, the place got its name when British railway laid a junction and named it ‘Mughalsarai’ in 1883. Mughalsarai does not have any establishment which could be marked as a Mughal structure. But when one proceeds along the line and follow the ancient Grand Trunk Road route, it may come across many such small Sarais. The closest one is located in Saiyad Raja, a town situated around 24 kilometres from Mughalsarai.
Saiyad Raja has a Muslim locality in the name of Sarai. One resident of Saiyad Raja JP Sharma told us, “We have heard the same stories about the Sarai in our village. It was a Sarai in Mughal era, but a smaller one than Mughalsarai.”
From what it looks from the outside that BJP-led government is trying to establish a ‘Mausoleum’ for Deendayal Upadhyay before its birth anniversary on September 25, but insiders claim that the government is trying to get rid of any kind of Mughal nomenclature. It may sound obvious when one can relate Yogi Adityanath’s recent speeches made in reference to Agra based Taj Mahal.
The decision to change the name of the station with the BJP rivals witnessed opposition from others. Rajya Sabha MP from Samajwadi Party Naresh Agrawal raised some serious objections over the renaming of the 155-year-old railway station and said that the names of those who did not have any hand in country’s freedom struggle are being used to rename monuments and roads.
However, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi from BJP had the strangest explanation for this decision. He said, “They want stations in the name of Mughals, but not in the name of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.” He also cited the example of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus of Mumbai, which was renamed from Victoria Terminus.
Mughalsarai is an important station for almost every route of the Indian railway. Possessing the biggest railway yard in the country, the station serves as connecting route between eastern and north-eastern states to the rest of the India. But the station is fighting hard for the top notch sanitary situations.
In the past one week, several shops on the railway junction were either served notices or closed because their foods failed the tests. Moreover, the station also made the news when a dead lizard was found in Veg Biryani of a passenger of Poorva Express. The food was served in the Mughalsarai itself.
Ramlakhan Verma travels daily between Mughalsarai and Varanasi for his work by passenger train. Verma tells, “I have spent my last 25 years in travelling on the same route. Nothing has been changed at Mughalsarai. It lacked several facilities and still fighting at the same place.”
Meanwhile, the Kashi regional unit of BJP is extremely happy after hearing that the station’s name is being “finally” changed to Mughalsarai, and planning to celebrate the Upadhyay’s birth anniversary on September 25 in a city-wide celebration. MLC Lakshman Acharya of BJP Kashi Prant told TwoCircles.net, “This was a much-awaited decision and not just by us, public too wanted this. So everyone is going to celebrate this decision.”