CM Yogi marks 101st Kakori Train Action anniversary in Lucknow
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
A century and one year after a band of revolutionaries stopped a train near Kakori and seized British treasury funds in a act of armed defiance, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath joined the 'Kakori Train Action Centenary Celebration' inaugural programme on Sunday, August 9, 2026 — marking the 101st anniversary of one of India's most audacious anti-colonial strikes.
The action that shook colonial India
On August 9, 1925, members of the Hindustan Republican Association pulled the emergency chain of a train near Kakori, a town in Lucknow district, and looted British government cash being transported by rail. The operation was designed to fund the revolutionary movement against colonial rule — and it worked, briefly. The British response was swift and brutal: mass arrests, prolonged trials, and executions that turned the participants into enduring martyrs of India's independence struggle.
The date carries particular resonance: August 9 is also the anniversary of the Quit India Movement of 1942, making it one of the most symbolically loaded days in India's revolutionary calendar.
A centenary programme, one year in
The Kakori Train Action Centenary — Kakori Train Action Shatabdi Samaroh — was formally launched at the inaugural event attended by CM Yogi Adityanath. The centenary framework marks a shift from periodic single-day observances to a structured, extended commemoration. Uttar Pradesh governments have held tributes to the Kakori revolutionaries since independence, but the centenary scale signals a broader public engagement — drawing in students, historians, and residents across the state.
What comes next matters: subsequent phases of the centenary programme, and any new memorials or curriculum additions linked to the Kakori revolutionaries, will reveal how deep the state's commemorative commitment runs beyond the inaugural ceremony.
Why Kakori still resonates in UP's political memory
The Kakori episode sits at the intersection of armed nationalism and pre-Gandhian revolutionary politics — a tradition that Uttar Pradesh, as the state where the action took place and where many of its heroes were tried and hanged, has a particular claim to honour. For the Yogi Adityanath administration, these tributes form part of a consistent pattern of state-level remembrance of 1920s revolutionary episodes, anchoring UP's identity in the bolder, combative strand of the independence movement.
The revolutionaries did not live to see freedom. The state they helped inspire is now marking their centenary — and counting.