There is a statute of Subhash Chandra Bose a little over a kilometre away from the station at Satranjipura. This inspired Krishna Khopde, MLA from East Nagpur, to moot the name change. “I moved the proposal due to the historical importance of the statue,” says Khopde.
Khopde says this was the first statute of any public figure in the city and was installed soon after independence. Though versions differ about the date, most locals agree it is the first statue. It was installed on the initiative of Marotrao Barbate, an active member of the Forward Bloc, the party founded by Bose after he left the Congress in 1938. Barbate lived just across the road, and used to move around the lanes of Itwari carrying out drills to create awareness about the party. The Forward Bloc’s first session was held at Nagpur.
The statute at Satranjipura shows Bose in a green army tunic holding a hand-grenade. “In 1995, I got a copper coating done and the renovated statue was inaugurated by the then President Shankar Dayal Sharma,” says Khopde.
A part of the historical Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) built by the British, the Itwari station has also seen huge changes, from handling goods and narrow gauge trains to recently a handful of express trains too.
“The entire land belonged to our family, and was taken over by the British government for building the railways. All they left was a plot near our house as it had seven graves,” says Sadik Khan, who manages the parking stand at Itwari station. Though he does not any papers, Khan says this happened in his great grandfather’s time. Their family had been granted the estate by the Bhonsala kings, he says. “We got ₹4,000 for the land and used it to build a house,” says Khan, pointing at an old roof still intact. Even the graves are still there, but the tomb stones have gone.
Old timers remember calling the station Maal Dhakka, as only goods trains stopoped here till the late 1970s. Businessman Nilesh Suchak, now in his 70s, remembers playing marbles at Itwari station. “Even bullock carts would enter the station to unload consignments. As road transport developed, its importance reduced,” says Suchak.
The station was a lifeline for farmers coming from villages nearby. First the narrow gauge trains ran from Itwari to Chhindwara and Nagpur to Nagbhid. Farmers used to bring their produce from Nagbhid and sell it in the city. The train made its last journey in November 2019. After that even the farmers have stopped coming, says Khan. Workers from Chhattisgarh used to take the passengers trains to Nagpur, but even their numbers have dwindled after Covid, he says.
Back in Satranjipura, veteran corporator Ramkrishna Sakore – in his 80s — says that the statue came up in 1957 and was certainly older than the one near Nagpur railway station. Sakore remembers seeing Bose as a kid when he had come for the Forward Bloc session. “In 1977, Indira Gandhi, who was walking till Gondia, passed by here. I stopped and requested her to address the crowd, which she did standing near Bose’s statue. Even one of Bose’s kin had visited the statue,” said Sakore.
Barbate’s son Madhukar, who also lives in the house opposite the statue, says all he remembers is that his father was in Forward Bloc. “Of course, the place has changed but I have been living here for my entire life, and probably I don’t find any change in the sights and scenes,” he says.
