From Ghunghat To Business Suit: Mumbai Local’s Modern Logo

Western Railways has replaced woman in ghunghat with a woman dressed formally as the logo for female compartments.

Mumbai Local train has taken a thoughtful step to mend opinions vis-a-vis women. The Ladies’ coaches that earlier bore an image of a woman in a ghunghat, a traditional Indian veil, has been replaced with a confident looking woman donning a formal suit.

According to Mumbai Mirror, the female compartments will have posters of iconic women celebrating their achievements. The posters will have images of astronaut Kalpana Chawla, badminton player Saina Nehwal and Indian women’s cricket team captain Mithali Raj.

With the change of their logo, Western Railway aims at staying updated with the way women have emerged as professionals. So far the image has been replaced in only two 12-coach local trains with an intent to remodel other trains as well.

The idea was to adopt an icon that will do justice and represent today’s women in this city, who are independent and successful. 

Ravinder Bhakar, Chief PRO of Western Railways, as told to Mumbai Mirror

The new logo is evidently larger than the prior one so that passengers do not confuse the female compartment to be the general one.

This step taken by Western Railway has received mixed responses and some suggestions by the usual commuters on their official Twitter handle.

Good thought about the change but I would love to see instead a group of women of different attires as the logo because travelling in train is teamwork and our crowds are a mix anyway of ethnic wear and office wear so a better solution might be a team of women ❤

— Reema K Thunderbolt (@JaMLaRHaT) May 27, 2019

Change is always a good thing.. A move welcomed by a commuter!
How about we also change the timings for every woman coach to 24hrs and maybe introduce one more coach?
Women definitely don't commute with any ease during peak hours

— Azka Shaikh (@azkashaikh94) May 27, 2019

Modernizing!🧐 You call changing logos from Indian to Western Style “modernization”👌🏽 what else could be more shameful than this? You’re giving your passengers a legacy of calling their own culture backward or being ashamed of. @Gmwrly @drmbct @drmadiwr @wrdrmrjt @RatlamDRM

— Manpreet singh Jakhu (@JakhuMonty) May 27, 2019

Keep one lady police 24 hrs , in ladies campartment , on priority basis.

— Satish m Patkar (@SatishmPatkar4) May 27, 2019

With this little initiative, Western Railways has attempted to upgrade not just the appearance of their coach but also the representation of a working class woman in the cosmopolis that Mumbai is. Many may have different opinions but the intent of this initiative is rather progressive.

(With inputs from Mumbai Mirror)