A visit to Mysore during the Duessera in 2024 took me to Mysore Rail Museum, a well known museum of Indian Railway history. The museum features the collection of erstwhile Mysore State Railway and many of the major railway artefacts. The museum had a big picture of Mysore State Railway emblem and looking at that emblem I was surprised and curious to know the origin and history of this emblem.
At first glance, the emblem of the Mysore State Railway seems unusual. Instead of the arms of the Maharaja of Mysore, a locomotive, a railway wheel or another distinctly Mysorean symbol, it prominently displays the British Royal Arms—the crowned shield, lion and unicorn, and the famous mottos “Honi soit qui mal y pense” and “Dieu et mon droit.” This apparent contradiction makes the emblem one of the most fascinating pieces of heraldry associated with India’s princely railways.
The Mysore State Railway occupies an important place in the history of railway development in southern India. Established under the Government of the Kingdom of Mysore in the late nineteenth century, it eventually developed into a substantial railway system before becoming one of the constituent railways of the newly created Southern Railway in 1951. Yet its surviving emblem tells a story that goes considerably beyond railway history.
It is a visual reminder of the complicated political world in which India’s princely railways operated—a world in which a Maharaja could govern his own state, finance and own railway lines, and pursue an ambitious programme of modernisation, while simultaneously existing within the wider framework of British paramountcy. And that is precisely what makes this emblem so remarkable.
Reading the Emblem
The emblem is dominated by the Royal Arms of the British monarch.
At its centre is a quartered shield surrounded by a belt bearing the inscription:
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
The shield is supported on either side by the familiar heraldic figures of the crowned lion of England and the unicorn of Scotland. Above the shield is the royal crown, surmounted by another lion. Beneath everything appears a scroll carrying the second famous royal motto:
DIEU ET MON DROIT
The result is unmistakably British imperial heraldry.
What makes it significant in the railway context is its association with an institution called the Mysore State Railway—a railway whose lines were, in important instances, explicitly described in contemporary contractual arrangements as the property of the Mysore State.
This combination of princely ownership and imperial symbolism deserves closer attention.
The Lion and the Unicorn
The two large animals flanking the shield are not generic decorative creatures. They are the traditional supporters of the British Royal Arms. The lion represents England and the unicorn represents Scotland.
The unicorn is traditionally shown restrained by a chain, something that can be clearly seen in the emblem. According to medieval heraldic tradition, the unicorn was regarded as an extraordinarily powerful creature; its chain therefore represented a formidable force brought under control.
Together, the lion and unicorn represented the united monarchy of Britain.
Their presence on the Mysore State Railway emblem therefore immediately placed the railway within the visual vocabulary of the British imperial order.
For a passenger encountering this insignia on railway property, there could have been little ambiguity about the wider political world to which the railway belonged.
The Shield at the Centre
The quartered shield is the heart of the Royal Arms.
It contains the heraldic devices representing the historic kingdoms associated with the British monarchy: the lions of England, the lion of Scotland and the harp of Ireland. The shield therefore has virtually nothing specifically Mysorean about it. And this is perhaps the most important observation that can be made about the emblem.
Unlike the emblems of several Indian princely railways, where local dynastic symbols provided a powerful expression of regional identity, this particular Mysore State Railway insignia foregrounded the authority of the British Crown.
That should not, however, be interpreted simply as evidence that Mysore State Railway was an ordinary British-owned railway. The reality was considerably more complicated.
“Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense”
Surrounding the shield is the inscription:
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
The phrase is the motto of the Order of the Garter, Britain’s oldest and most prestigious order of chivalry. It is medieval French and is commonly rendered in English approximately as:
“Shame on him who thinks evil of it.”
Its presence here is significant because it forms part of the conventional Royal Arms rather than being a motto devised specifically for the railway.
In other words, the designers were not merely borrowing a lion or crown as a general symbol of imperial authority. They were reproducing the wider heraldic apparatus of the British monarchy.
“Dieu et Mon Droit”
Even more prominently displayed beneath the shield is:
DIEU ET MON DROIT
Literally:
“God and my right.”
This is the traditional motto of the British sovereign. The word “right” in this context refers essentially to the monarch’s right to rule. Placed beneath the arms, therefore, the motto reinforces the central theme of sovereign authority.
For an emblem associated with a railway operating within a princely state, this creates an extraordinary layering of political identities: the railway of an Indian Maharaja carrying the heraldic language of the British sovereign.
Why Would Mysore State Railway Use British Royal Arms?
This is where the emblem becomes historically much more interesting than an ordinary railway logo.
Mysore was not simply another district of British India. It was a princely state ruled by the Wadiyar dynasty, possessing its own government and administrative institutions under the overarching system of British paramountcy. Railway development consequently involved several layers of authority.
The Mysore State established railway infrastructure of its own, while various lines were at different periods worked under arrangements involving larger railway companies. A historical account published by South Western Railway, for example, records a December 1899 contract between the Maharaja of Mysore and the Southern Mahratta Railway Company concerning the Hindupur and Birur–Shimoga railways. Crucially, the terms explicitly stated:
“The lines are the property of the Mysore State.”
Yet the political sovereignty within which the princely state existed ultimately remained structured by British paramountcy. The emblem can therefore be read as a visual expression of this layered arrangement.
Mysore owned and developed railways; the Maharaja governed the state; but the state itself existed within the imperial political order headed by the British Crown.
The heraldry captured that hierarchy remarkably effectively.
A Railway Born from Mysore’s Desire for Modernisation
The development of Mysore State Railway was nevertheless very much connected with the ambitions of the Mysore government. Railway development accelerated in the late nineteenth century as the state sought better connections between Bangalore, Mysore and other important centres. The system subsequently expanded through lines towards Nanjangud, Shimoga and other parts of the kingdom.
Railways were especially important because Mysore’s economy was increasingly connected with agriculture, forestry, industry and long-distance trade.
The later Shimoga–Talaguppa line illustrates this developmental purpose particularly well. Construction began in 1930, and the railway helped provide access towards the Jog Falls region while also facilitating the movement of timber from the Malnad forests, including material required for railway sleepers and the Mysore Iron Works at Bhadravati.
Thus, behind an emblem dominated by imperial heraldry stood a railway increasingly associated with Mysore’s own programme of economic development. That contrast is important.
The Emblem as a Symbol of Political Duality
The emblem can therefore be interpreted at two levels.
At the first level stood Mysore.
The railway represented investment by the princely government, the extension of communications, economic development and the increasing administrative reach of the state.
At the second level stood the British Crown.
The Royal Arms visually situated that modernisation within the imperial political framework.
The emblem therefore did not necessarily erase Mysore’s identity. Instead, it expressed the peculiar constitutional arrangement characteristic of princely India.
A railway could simultaneously be:
Mysorean in ownership and purpose, princely in administration, and imperial in political symbolism.
Few objects demonstrate that relationship as clearly as this emblem.
Interestingly, There Is Almost Nothing “Railway” About It
Another fascinating feature is what the emblem does not contain.
There is:
- no locomotive,
- no railway wheel,
- no winged wheel,
- no rails,
- no semaphore,
- no bridge,
- and no obvious representation of engineering.
This is significant.
Many later railway identities would emphasise speed, machinery and transportation. Here, institutional legitimacy appears to have mattered more than technological symbolism.
The message was effectively not:
“This is a modern railway.”
It was:
“This is an institution backed by established authority.”
For nineteenth- and early twentieth-century railway administration, that distinction mattered. Railways exercised considerable institutional power. They acquired land, employed thousands of people, transported government officials and goods, and connected previously distant administrative centres.
Heraldry therefore provided the railway with something machinery alone could not provide—authority and legitimacy.
From Imperial Heraldry to Indian Railways
The political world represented by the emblem eventually disappeared.
After Independence and the political integration of the princely states, India’s numerous company, state and princely railway systems were progressively reorganised into a national network.
On 14 April 1951, Mysore State Railway was combined with the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway and the South Indian Railway in the formation of Southern Railway. Southern Railway itself identifies these three systems as its constituent railways.
With that reorganisation, the old institutional identity of Mysore State Railway disappeared. Its heraldry became railway history.
Interestingly, Indian Railways has continued to recognise the Mysore State Railway emblem as part of its heritage collection; a surviving reproduction is identified as an Indian Railway heritage logo derived from Railway Board heritage material.
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