With a priest conducting a small ritual outside the platform and a few dozen people inside reciting a devotional Rama song, the little rail station of Kochuveli in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram had the air of a Hindu temple on the morning of Friday, February 9. The first of the state’s Aastha trains, specially introduced to take people from across India to Ayodhya to visit the newly built Ram temple, began its journey from Kochuveli with mostly elderly passengers at 10 in the morning. A few young people were also spotted, mostly accompanying their aged parents on the trip. Local leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) brought together the people going for the trip, who passed through security checks before they boarded the train. Several police personnel were also posted at the station.
The Ram temple was consecrated in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya on January 22, at the same spot where the centuries old Babri Masjid had stood till the winter of 1992, when it was demolished by kar sevaks – volunteers of Hindutva parties. After a 2019 court order allowed the building of a Ram temple at the same site, the BJP-led Union government made it a priority, started construction of the temple, and invited thousands of people for a grand consecration ceremony led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Trains from different parts of the country were also promised to take those who wished to visit the temple afterward.
The Kochuveli-Ayodhya train will only have stops in Kerala and then head straight to Ayodhya, where it is expected to reach on the afternoon of January 12. The package trip will include food and accommodation there for a day and the passengers will begin their return on January 13. “This was arranged by the BJP to help Ram devotees across the country to go to Ayodhya. Two hundred trains will run countrywide, this is the first from Kerala. There will be 10 to 12 more in the coming days. Nearly 90% of seats in the train have been booked and most of the bookings came from people aged 50 or above,” said Aastha state coordinator, Prakash Babu.
Quite a few passengers are either members of the BJP or came to know about the trip from their local BJP councillors. Shalini Harikumar, a BJP mandalam secretary, said that she was going with a few colleagues from the party. A group of women senior citizens from the neighbourhood of the Thiruvananthapuram Engineering College said that the BJP sangham office informed them about a trip to Ayodhya for those above 60. “It is a joy for us old people to go to see the holy land,” said 65-year-old Shanthakumari. In another corner of the platform, an ex-serviceman called Vijayakumar and Sukumaran Nair (78) also said they came for the trip after they were informed about it by their BJP ward councillor. However, Prakash said that the trip was open to people of all ages.
Senior BJP leader O Rajagopal who came to see off the passengers hailed the initiative. “When I was the Minister of Railways, the idea of the Ram temple was not a reality, no one did anything for it. Now it has become one,” he told TNM, minutes before lighting a lamp to mark the inaugural journey. The BJP had installed a makeshift stage to flag off the train.
Among the passengers from Kochuveli are also a Christian couple, who wanted to be on board the first such train from Kerala to Ayodhya. Bindu Philipose and Philipose Padikkal added that they got the first two tickets. “I am a Christian by birth. I believe in god, not in religion. The organisers have also been welcoming of us. At the time of the Babri Masjid demolition, we had thought it was really terrible. But when I read more about it, I understood that there was a mosque that was built in Babur’s time, and that there was Hinduism (referring to the BJP's claim of a Hindu temple there) before that. Every group that invaded [the country] had established their buildings. I am not in any political party, I just think of the Ram temple as a great Indian monument, like the Statue of Unity that was built for Sardar Vallabhai Patel,” said Bindu, who is 58 years old.
Watch: