Category: Heritage Railways

How the Barsi Light Railway transformed pilgrimage to Pandharpur

Every year, as the Ashadhi Ekadashi approaches, the roads of Maharashtra fill with the sound of tal, mridang and devotional singing. The Palkhis of Sant Dnyaneshwar from Alandi and Sant Tukaram from Dehu make their traditional journey towards Pandharpur, accompanied by thousands of Warkaris walking in dindis.

The Wari is one of India’s great living pilgrimage traditions. Its roots long predate the railway. Yet, by the beginning of the twentieth century, another form of movement was beginning to reshape the pilgrimage to Pandharpur. The railway had arrived.

In December 1906, the Barsi Light Railway reached Pandharpur. Built as a 2 ft 6 in narrow-gauge railway, the line was conceived as an economical rural railway, connecting the agricultural districts of the Deccan. But Pandharpur presented the railway with something quite different from ordinary passenger traffic.

It was a pilgrimage centre whose population could increase enormously during the great religious festivals. The railway therefore found itself adapting to an ancient religious calendar. And over the next century, this relationship between railway and pilgrimage would transform both the geography and the scale of travel to Pandharpur.

The Wari before the railway

The railway did not create the Pandharpur pilgrimage.

The worship of Vithoba at Pandharpur and the Warkari tradition are centuries old. The pilgrimage became particularly associated with the devotional traditions of saints such as Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram.

The organised Palkhi tradition itself took its modern form in the nineteenth century. The Palkhis carrying the symbolic footwear (padukas) of the saints became organised processions, accompanied by dindis of Warkaris travelling on foot towards Pandharpur. The essential character of the Wari was—and remains—a walking pilgrimage. This distinction is important. The railway never replaced the Palkhi. Instead, it created a parallel system of mass transportation around the pilgrimage.

A Warkari following the traditional Palkhi continued to walk. Another devotee could now travel hundreds of kilometres by train, change trains at an important railway junction and complete the final journey to Pandharpur by the Barsi Light Railway. The sacred journey remained on foot. The journey to reach the sacred centre increasingly became a railway journey.

The railway reaches Pandharpur

The Barsi Light Railway opened its Pandharpur connection on 2 December 1906. The arrival of the railway was transformative because Pandharpur was no longer dependent primarily on roads, carts and traditional modes of travel for long-distance pilgrims.

Railway connected the town to the wider railway network through Kurduwadi, where passengers could connect with the main railway system. A pilgrim travelling from a distant part of the Bombay Presidency could therefore make a journey that would previously have involved a much greater expenditure of time and physical effort: home → main railway → Kurduwadi → Barsi Light Railway → Pandharpur

This was more than a transport improvement. It changed the geography of pilgrimage. Pandharpur could now be reached by people from places much farther away without undertaking the entire journey on foot.

A railway designed to carry pilgrims

The importance of pilgrimage traffic became apparent almost immediately.

A contemporary description of the Barsi Light Railway published in The Locomotive in January 1907 describes special arrangements for the Pandharpur fairs. The railway operated special “set-trains” of pilgrim coaches. Four coaches could be combined into a set, and the special pilgrim trains could accommodate roughly 1,200–1,500 passengers. This is a remarkable figure for a 2 ft 6 in light railway.

It tells us that pilgrimage was not merely an incidental source of passengers. The railway was already adapting its rolling stock and operating arrangements specifically for the Pandharpur fairs. The railway had discovered that its normal passenger traffic could not simply be applied to the extraordinary seasonal demand created by religious festivals. Pandharpur required a different railway.

When the coaches were still not enough

The special pilgrim coaches were an important innovation, but they did not solve the underlying problem. The demand during major festivals could be enormous. The railway therefore faced a peculiar operational problem. For most of the year, the traffic on a small narrow-gauge railway could be handled with its ordinary rolling stock. However During the great Pandharpur fairs, however, thousands of additional passengers could arrive within a very short period. The railway could not economically maintain enough passenger coaches to handle the absolute peak throughout the year. The result was the controversial use of goods wagons and other supplementary vehicles for pilgrim traffic.

This practice would become one of the most important and controversial chapters in the history of the railway’s relationship with Pandharpur.

The public-health problem

The use of goods wagons for human passengers was not unique to the Barsi Light Railway. Across colonial India, railways struggled with the enormous temporary crowds generated by major religious fairs. The Bombay Pilgrim Committee of 1916 examined the problems associated with pilgrimage and railway travel, including sanitation and the use of goods wagons. The concern was not merely passenger comfort. Overcrowded railway vehicles, inadequate ventilation and poor sanitary conditions could create serious public-health risks.

Railways had dramatically increased the speed and geographical reach of pilgrimage. But the same railway that allowed a pilgrim to travel hundreds of kilometres in a day could also allow infectious disease to travel rapidly between distant regions. The authorities therefore found themselves confronting a new problem:

How could millions of people be moved safely when pilgrimage traffic occurred in enormous seasonal surges?

The Barsi Light Railway’s dilemma

The railway companies had their own argument.

The Barsi Light Railway maintained that its supplementary vehicles were necessary because there simply wasn’t enough passenger rolling stock to accommodate the extraordinary pilgrimage traffic. The railway’s position, recorded in the Railway Board correspondence arising from the 1916 investigation, was particularly striking.

It argued that eliminating this supplementary capacity could prevent as many as three-fourths of the passengers from making the pilgrimage.

In other words, the choice was not necessarily: passenger coach or goods wagon. It could be: goods wagon or no railway journey at all.

This is an important distinction because railway was not claiming that goods wagons were ideal passenger accommodation. It was arguing that they provided an essential additional capacity during exceptional pilgrimage traffic.

The government therefore faced a difficult choice. The practice was undesirable. But abolishing it immediately could prevent large numbers of pilgrims from travelling.

The 1922 debate: an impossible choice

The controversy eventually reached the Council of State.

On 13 February 1922, Lalubhai Samaldas moved a resolution recommending that immediate steps be taken to stop railways from carrying human beings in cattle trucks or goods wagons. The Government agreed that the practice was undesirable on grounds of sanitation and passenger convenience.

But the Commerce Member, C. A. Innes, explained why an immediate prohibition was difficult. During major religious festivals, railway administrations sometimes faced the choice between using supplementary goods vehicles and leaving pilgrims behind. The problem had been aggravated by the deterioration of railway infrastructure following the First World War, when capital expenditure and supplies had been restricted.

Innes gave the example of the 1915 Kumbh Mela at Hardwar, when approximately 195,000 pilgrims were waiting to return after the festival. The railway operated scores of additional special trains, yet the extraordinary traffic could not have been handled without supplementary vehicles.

The Council therefore amended the proposed resolution. The words “as far as practicable” were inserted. The final resolution called for steps to stop the use of goods wagons for passengers “as far as practicable.” Those three words reveal the dilemma perfectly. The government accepted the principle that passengers should not normally travel in goods wagons.

But it also accepted the reality that exceptional pilgrimage traffic could overwhelm the railway.

Pandharpur becomes a railway-policy problem

The controversy did not disappear.

On 10 September 1924, the issue appeared specifically in the Central Legislative Assembly under the heading:

“Pilgrim Traffic on the Barsi Light Railway”

The question was raised by Purshotamdas Thakurdas. The subject was again the treatment of pilgrims and the use of goods wagons for third-class passengers.

The official index to the Legislative Assembly debates places the discussion on pages 3089–3091 of the September 1924 proceedings.

The fact that the BLR was singled out is significant. Pandharpur’s pilgrimage traffic had become sufficiently important to attract attention at the central legislative level.

The problem remained unresolved

The issue was still alive when Thakurdas returned to it on 28 January 1925.

He referred explicitly to his earlier September 1924 question and asked what had happened after the Government communicated with the Agent of the Barsi Light Railway. The complaint concerned the transportation of third-class passengers in goods trucks. The Commerce Member, G. G. Sim, replied that the matter was still under consideration by the Agent and the Board of Directors.

When Thakurdas pressed him further, Sim indicated that a definite statement was expected in approximately two months.

This is a revealing moment in the history of the BLR.

The 1922 resolution had not solved the problem.

Two years later, the Barsi Light Railway was still grappling with how to reconcile:

• enormous pilgrimage demand;
• inadequate peak-season passenger capacity;
• public-health concerns;
• passenger comfort;
• and the economics of operating a small private narrow-gauge railway.

From goods wagons to Pilgrim Traffic Vehicles

The railway’s eventual response appears to have been a gradual move towards more specialised vehicles. By the late 1930s, the Barsi Light Railway was operating specially designated “Pilgrim Traffic Vehicles.” Their existence is documented in the famous case of Shankar Narayan v. Barsi Light Railway Company Ltd.

In November 1939, during the Kartiki fair, Shankar Narayan travelled towards Pandharpur. He held a third-class concession ticket. At Kurduwadi, however, he found the ordinary third-class accommodation insufficient and was directed towards one of the railway’s special pilgrim vehicles. He objected to being carried in a vehicle that was essentially adapted from the railway’s goods stock.

The dispute eventually reached the Bombay High Court.

The 1939 court case

The case provides an unusually detailed glimpse into how pilgrimage traffic was actually handled.

The railway’s Agent and Chief Engineer had designed the special vehicle and submitted its specifications to the Railway Board. The Board sanctioned its use when ordinary passenger accommodation was insufficient. The vehicles were therefore not simply freight wagons casually opened to passengers. They represented an attempt by the railway to create a dual-purpose solution.

During pilgrimage peaks, they could carry passengers. When not required for pilgrim traffic, they could return to ordinary goods service. The solution was economically logical for a small railway. It also represented the railway’s gradual response to a problem that had been discussed since at least the 1910s.

The railway had become part of the pilgrimage calendar

By this stage, the relationship between Pandharpur and the railway had become institutionalised. The railway was no longer merely providing ordinary transport. It had to adapt itself to the religious calendar.

During major pilgrimage periods, it required:

• special trains;
• additional rolling stock;
• special pilgrim vehicles;
• temporary or additional booking arrangements;
• crowd-management arrangements;
• additional staff;
• and arrangements for the enormous flows of passengers arriving and departing within a short period.

The railway timetable increasingly had to respond to the rhythm of the Wari. This was a profound change. A nineteenth-century pilgrimage tradition had effectively become a twentieth-century seasonal mass-transport phenomenon.

The railway did not replace the Palkhi

It is tempting to describe the railway as having “modernised” or “replaced” the Palkhi. That would be misleading. The Palkhi continued—and continues—to follow its traditional walking route. The Warkaris still travel in dindis. The devotional singing, rituals, discipline and communal character of the Wari remain rooted in the walking pilgrimage. What changed was the world around it.

The railway allowed large numbers of devotees who were not part of the traditional walking procession to reach Pandharpur quickly. It allowed pilgrims from distant parts of Maharashtra and beyond to participate in the religious celebrations. The result was not the disappearance of the traditional Wari. It was the coexistence of two very different forms of religious mobility:

The Palkhi

A slow, devotional and ritualised journey on foot.

The railway

A fast, mass and long-distance system carrying devotees towards the same sacred destination.

After Independence, the problem remained

The end of colonial rule did not end the railway’s pilgrimage challenge. In 1952, Parliament again discussed the capacity of the Barsi Light Railway during Pandharpur’s pilgrimage seasons. A parliamentary question referred to inadequate engines, wagons and coaches and reported that 10,000 pilgrims had been held up during the Ashadha Ekadashi festival. The railway was still struggling with the same basic problem:

The pilgrimage peaks were larger than the railway’s normal capacity.

By the 1950s, the Barsi Light Railway was also facing the broader economic and technical limitations of an ageing private narrow-gauge system.

The railway’s role became a question of public policy.

By the 1950s, Parliament was no longer discussing Pandharpur merely as a railway-operating problem. Questions were being raised about:

• passenger fares;
• concessions for poorer pilgrims;
• inadequate platforms;
• station facilities;
• overcrowding;
• rolling stock;
• and the general condition of the railway.

This was an important transformation. The railway had become part of the public infrastructure of pilgrimage. For thousands of ordinary devotees, access to Pandharpur increasingly depended upon the affordability and capacity of the railway. The question was no longer simply: Can the railway carry pilgrims? It was becoming: How can the railway provide an affordable and adequate public service for one of Maharashtra’s greatest religious gatherings?

From narrow gauge to broad gauge

Eventually the limitations of the narrow-gauge system became increasingly difficult to ignore. The Pandharpur–Kurduwadi section was eventually converted to broad gauge. The conversion was particularly significant because the railway’s pilgrimage role was one of the important reasons for improving the route’s capacity along with the Railway’s uni-gauge policy.

The tiny 2 ft 6 in railway that had once struggled to accommodate the pilgrimage crowds was gradually replaced by a railway capable of handling much larger trains and substantially greater passenger volumes. The transformation was almost complete. The railway that had once relied on special pilgrim coaches and supplementary vehicles could now handle pilgrimage traffic using the much greater capacity of the broad-gauge system.

The Bhima Bridge and the pilgrimage railway

One of the most tangible reminders of this history is the Bhima Bridge, also known as the Willingdon Bridge, on the Pandharpur railway route. The bridge was originally constructed for the narrow-gauge railway and became part of the route connecting Pandharpur with the wider railway network. It is particularly significant because the bridge survived the transformation of the railway and continues to carry the broad-gauge railway today. The structure therefore embodies the same historical transition: narrow-gauge BLR → mass pilgrimage traffic → railway expansion → broad gauge → modern pilgrimage trains.

A bridge built for a light railway became part of a much larger railway system serving a pilgrimage whose scale had itself been transformed by the railway.

The railway and the Wari today

The relationship has not disappeared. Every year, as Ashadhi Ekadashi approaches, Indian Railways operates special services to handle the enormous increase in demand associated with Pandharpur. The pattern established more than a century ago therefore continues: normal railway services plus special pilgrimage services to meet the seasonal surge. The scale is now vastly greater than anything the original Barsi Light Railway could have imagined.

Yet the basic relationship remains unchanged. The Warkari walks. The railway carries. Both converge at Pandharpur.

A transformation that worked in both directions

The history of the Barsi Light Railway and Pandharpur shows that the relationship between technology and tradition is rarely as simple as one replacing the other.

The railway did not destroy the Wari. Nor did the Wari merely become another source of passenger traffic for the railway. Instead, each influenced the other. The railway had to adapt its:

• rolling stock;
• trains;
• stations;
• fares;
• operating practices;
• and eventually infrastructure to accommodate the pilgrimage.

At the same time, the railway transformed the geographical reach of Pandharpur’s religious gatherings. A pilgrimage that had once required enormous physical effort over long distances could now be joined by people travelling by rail from far beyond the traditional walking routes.

The railway did not put the Palkhi on rails

Perhaps the most important way of understanding this history is to reject the idea that the railway “modernised” the Palkhi. It did something more subtle. It modernised the world around the Palkhi. The Palkhi remained on the road. The Warkaris continued to walk.

But the railway brought a new population of pilgrims to Pandharpur, connected the town to distant parts of the country and forced railway administrators to develop special solutions for the extraordinary seasonal crowds.

From the special pilgrim coaches of the early twentieth century to the Pilgrim Traffic Vehicles of the 1930s, and eventually to broad-gauge railway infrastructure and modern special trains, the railway repeatedly adapted itself to the demands of the pilgrimage. The arrival of the railway at Pandharpur in 1906 marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the Wari.

The railway did not create the pilgrimage. It did not replace the Palkhi. It did not turn the Wari into a railway journey. Instead, it created a new layer of mobility around an ancient religious tradition.

The Barsi Light Railway soon discovered that Pandharpur was unlike any ordinary destination. At certain times of the year, the normal rules of railway traffic were overwhelmed by the sheer number of devotees travelling towards the sacred town.

The response evolved over decades: special pilgrim coaches → special trains → supplementary vehicles → public-health regulation → parliamentary scrutiny → Pilgrim Traffic Vehicles → larger infrastructure → broad gauge → modern special trains. The story is therefore not simply one of a railway serving a pilgrimage. It is the story of a railway being forced to reinvent itself because of a pilgrimage. And perhaps nowhere is that transformation more visible than at Pandharpur, where the old road of the Palkhi and the modern railway still meet at the same destination.

The Palkhi still walks.
The railway still carries.
And Pandharpur still waits for both.

---

References and further reading

1. Barsi Light Railway / Pandharpur railway history — IRFCA, including contemporary material from The Locomotive and BLR historical sources. IRFCA – Eminent Railwaymen and Barsi Light Railway material
2. Central Legislative Assembly, 28 January 1925 — discussion of pilgrim traffic on the Barsi Light Railway and the continued use of goods trucks for third-class passengers. Legislative Assembly Debates, 28 January 1925
3. Central Legislative Assembly Index, September 1924 — identifies “Question re pilgrim traffic on the Barsi Light Railway”, pp. 3089–3091. Legislative Assembly Index, September 1924
4. Council of State Debates, 13 February 1922 — resolution concerning the carriage of passengers in cattle trucks and goods wagons. Council of State Debates, 13 February 1922
5. Shankar Narayan v. Barsi Light Railway Co. Ltd. — Bombay High Court case concerning the use of a Pilgrim Traffic Vehicle during the Kartiki fair of 1939. Shankar Narayan v. Barsi Light Railway Co. Ltd.
6. Bombay Pilgrim Committee, 1916 — Report of the Bombay Pilgrim (Clemesha) Committee, Simla, 1916, India Office Records, British Library, IOR/V/26/844/3. British Library catalogue record
7. Railway Board correspondence, 1916–17 — Railway Traffic A, November 1917, No. 655-T-16/6-34, concerning responses to recommendations on pilgrim traffic and railway accommodation.
8. Railway and everyday life in colonial India — Tracks of Change: Railways and Everyday Life in Colonial India, which discusses the Railway Board’s pilgrim-traffic correspondence and the use of supplementary railway vehicles. Tracks of Change – reference text
9. Indian Parliament, 1952 — parliamentary discussion concerning the capacity of the Barsi Light Railway during the Pandharpur pilgrimage. Lok Sabha Debates, 30 July 1952