Google Arts & Culture

Google and the Ministry of Railways have launched ‘The Railways-Lifeline of a Nation’, a project aimed at preserving the culture and heritage of the Indian railways on the Google Arts and Culture platform.

The Partition Museum has collaborated with National Rail Museum, Delhi and the Google Arts and Culture, to make the museum’s archives more accessible to people across the globe. Online visitors can now experience the history and role of railways in the Indian subcontinent through two online exhibitions,’Trains and the Raj’ and ‘Railways and Partition’.

‘Trains and the Raj’ focuses on the importance of trains during the freedom movement, how the railways became a platform for staging protest, registering dissent and garnering support for the movement.

‘Railways and Partition’ throws light on how the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947 resulted in the forced migration of millions of people across India and Pakistan. Trains were one of the most common modes of transport, with an estimated 700,000 refugees traveling by train between 15 August 1947 and 8 September 1947 alone. To meet the demands of transport, both passenger and goods trains were used.

On the one hand, trains were the symbols of British colonialism and on the other hand, they facilitated the political struggle for independence. These exhibits explore this complex history and the enduring legacy of the railways.

 

Trains and the Raj                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Railways and Partition