The eighth of May, 1974 wasn’t an ordinary day in India.  The Indian Railway, the ‘lifeline’ of the Indian economy, the engine that moved India quite literally, wasn’t moving at all.  The workers of India’s single largest employer had struck work.  Never before had there been a strike that included the entire network of railway employees and claimed the support of almost all unions, including rival factions.  The entire nation came to a standstill. The person behind this strike of such magnitude and far-reaching consequences was George Mathew Fernandes.

An icon, a maverick, a rebel, a hero, a face of resistance, George was born to John Joseph and Alice Martha on June 3,1930 in Mangalore.  Hailing from a deeply religious and devout Catholic family, George was a trained priest. But George ultimately found his calling in politics where he came into contact with some of the giants of the socialist movement in India, including Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia and Jay Prakash Narayan. 

George was a firebrand trade union leader.  On February 27, 1974, he was elected the President of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation, India’s largest trade union in Railway.  His leadership abilities and ambition lead him to seize the opportunity to become a railway union leader. 

One of main events leading up to the infamous Emergency in 1975 was this great India Railway Strike of 1974. While leading the now famous railway strike, George along with 24 of his comrades were arrested and sent to jail.  The federal government of Indian National Congress’ Indira Gandhi charged them with a plot to blow up railway tracks and government buildings in the Baroda Dynamite Case.  He was arrested in Kolkata on June 10, 1976.  His iconic picture where he holds up his handcuffed fist in defiance became a symbol of resistance in India.

When the Emergency was finally lifted and national elections were called in 1977, George won the election for a Lok Sabha seat while still in jail.  George had made this sleepy town of Muzaffarpur in Bihar his home constituency.  A town famous for its juicy Lichis, the Kothas of Chaturbhuj Sthan, and traumatized by the public hanging of a 18-year old revolutionary Khudiram Bose by the British welcomed George with open arms. In the Janata Government lead by Morarji Desai, George was made the federal minister of Industries.  During his days as industries minister, Muzaffarpur got a TV station, the first one in Bihar and the US beverage giant Coca Cola was sent packing in a matter of days.

A native speaker of Kannada, George was fluent in Hindi.  In fact he almost exclusively spoke in Hindi in most public functions.  During the first NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, George was made the Minister of Defence. 

George was a self-made leader and despised Gandhi-Nehru political dynasty.  Once George was attending a seminar in Delhi’s Constitution Club.  Upon seeing the portrait of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi displayed on the wall along with Manmohan Singh, APJ Abdul Kalan, Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, and Dr. Rajendra Prasad, George and his associates became furious pulled down Mrs. Gandhi’s portrait in full public view. “On what basis was it put there?” he had asked.

George Fernandes, 88, passed on Tuesday morning in New Delhi after a prolonged illness.