How many of you have heard about Mail or Dak Runners? Wielding a spear and lantern in one hand and a sack containing all the messages good and bad in the other to be delivered far and wide, when there was no internet, or even roads in most parts of India. 

The dak runners were not merely messengers, but reporters who brought important news from neighbouring villages. Their realm began where the roads ended. They had to cover miles of beaten path, cross rivers, climb mountains and sometimes traverse their own route to deliver the messages. The Indian dak runners are predecessors of the postmen we see nowadays and were first appointed by the British Raj in 1850s. In the early years, "Runners" (Dak Harkara) were the embodiment of "Service before Self." They had to face all sorts of risks, hazards and hardships in carrying mails through jungles, terrains and deserts. In the process, they encountered wild animals, bandits and risked their lives. By evening they had to light a lantern for better visibility and to scare wild animals away but the journey to deliver messages did not stop. There were cases when the Runners on duty were carried away by tigers, drowned in flooded rivers, bitten by venomous snakes, buried in avalanche or murdered by robbers. They also played a vital role in the Indian independence movement. There were even runners who had to run nearly 20 kilometres a day. That’s like running almost half a Marathon every single day to deliver messages.

Our goal:

Please sign this petition, which will be handed to The Head of the General Post Office in Chennai on 9th October 2015 (World Post Day) to establish a statue in their premises of a Mail Runner or at the very least informational posters at the GPO and other major post offices. The current and future generations will be educated about these heroes who deserve our respect. With enough support we will later submit the petition to the Secretary to Government of India in the Department of Posts, and the Director General of India Post to have informational posters in all major post offices in the country about the legendary India Dak Runner. We are looking for at least 500 supporters before 8th October 2015.

How?

It's our responsibility to recognise their sacrifice. There are nearly 155,000 post office all over India, 90% of them in rural areas. It might come as a hard truth to one, in the age of e-mail, Facebook and Whatsapp, but millions of people in India still depend on India Post’s service for communication and their revenue had increased considerably because of new financial services and reliable mailing services like Speed Post which is even used by many e-commerce services for delivery of goods to remote places that can't be serviced by private courier services. We honestly think that, post offices are the best places to educate people about these heroes.

Event:

On October 9th, which is the World Post Day, we are going to conduct an event. About 50 people, men and women dressed up as mail runners will run a relay from a major post office in Chennai to the General Post Office, Chennai near Beach Station, Parry’s where the petition will be delivered to the Officials at the GPO. Each runner will run at least one kilometer from the starting post office to reach the next one from which another runner will start his/her journey to the next post office. We will try to traverse through as many post offices in the city as possible to create awareness among the public. The Twitter and Facebook hashtag for the event will be #mailrunner.

Sign this petition now requesting the Head Post Master of the GPO in Chennai to support our motion to create awareness about the legendary Indian Mail Runner.