The Indian Railways: A Lifeline that became a Landmine

When the first railway track was laid down in India in 1853 between Mumbai and Thane, it spelt an occasion for celebration. Suddenly, the country was experiencing a momentous industrial high. The Times of India reported this historical event hailing the dawn of a new age in British-governed India as quoted here: “Nothing could’ve been more magnificent than the train of 20 enormous carriages with their three stupendous engines, all spick and span new, with the most perfect forms engineering could suggest, and the most beautiful tints taste could impart, occupying a line from first to last on close to four hundred feet.”

Indians were now invited to be part of the newfound luxury of covering long distances comfortably, seamlessly and elegantly, nursing a ‘cuppa’ while they rode to their destination, without getting their feet muddy, their belongings misplaced or their addresses mixed up. If there are notable inclusions of progress that the British regime ushered into a country reduced to serving as a colony under its persuasive, dominant and monopolistic rule, one of them had to be this. To quote a British official who commented on the occasion of the Indian railway’s inauguration, “This was not the triumph of nation over nation, of race over race, of man over his fellow man. It was the triumph of mind, of matter, of patience and perseverance.”

A lot has happened since then, to put it mildly. The British ouster from its colonial stronghold in the Indian sub-continent, the partition of India, the assassination of Gandhi, the composition of the Constitution of Free India, the UN charter, the introduction of birth contraceptives, boybands, Indipop, item songs, India’s tryst with the global economy, the internet, Game Of Thrones….and so on.

The world is now a writhing seven-legged creature stuck in a claustrophobic oyster. Even the length and breadth of the seven continents cannot keep in check the burgeoning population that it breeds. With China to transfer the title of ‘World’s most populated country’ to its closest competitor India (as soon as 2022 if the experts are to be believed), there definitely seems to be a tidal wave ahead that India must finally grapple and come to terms with. Overpopulation! A word that has clearly crippled the progress that India deserves and has always been striving towards. Our country is a land of contradictions and for every scheming despot, corrupt politician, bigot, religious zealot and serial criminal, there is an equally laudable scientist, literary figure, astute leader, honest farmer, meritorious intelligentsia, accomplished artist or nation-loving martyr worth raising a salute to.  The antics and blunders of the miscreants however often mar and besmirch the laurels of the achievers.  So for every step that this country has taken in the direction of development, it has also dragged in disaster due to the lackadaisical, irresponsible and insouciant nature of the aam aadmi.

The aam aadmi or the common man wants progress but is quick to misuse and misinterpret it. The common man wants a free public toilet but is too pre-occupied to clean up his mess, he wants protests against discrimination but is too proud to personally fraternise with ‘the others’, he wants financial aid but is too short-sighted to realise that a wedding can be a small-budget affair. So yes, coming back to the railways and how they became the modern motif of civilization on the move, steam may have been replaced by diesel and electricity when it comes to fuelling the wheels of locomotion in the current century but even the rail tracks have become the new utilitarian means to innovative ends.

If you have ever lived in Mumbai, the birthplace of this locomotive landmark, railway tracks are often the hotbed of activity of all kinds. People have discovered new ways of making them multi-purpose in their functional existence. Just so that the government doesn’t feel that using so much of the country’s arterial landscape to simply laying tracks for trains is not worth its coffers’ expenditure, they are used for every other mundane purpose as well- performing daily ablutions, jaywalking as a time-effective way to bridge the gap between platforms and as a recent tragedy would indicate, as extended grounds for spectators to spread out in to behold a visual and aural display of festivities.

After all, why must this absolutely wonderful manifestation of human genius be relegated to being a mere pathway for the urban transport system that it was originally meant for?

Illegal encroachment and the Indian psyche of ‘chalta hai’ means that we are unstoppable when it comes to not abiding by a standard code of safety. How else do you explain having to fine people who sit on top of trains to commute to work daily, or those who hang out of doors and windows, precariously holding onto a fellow-passenger’s shirt, jumping out of moving trains or the lakhs of people who continue to cross the rail tracks everyday ‘to get to the other side’ and save some precious minutes of their lives, day after day? You cannot refute the undeniable truth of the matter which is that the common man has a certain nonchalance when it comes to protecting his own self from imminent danger even when it is staring him right in the face. What is this devil-may-care attitude that makes us stand in front of a wild animal every day and then one day blame the carnivore for making a prey out of the so-called ‘innocent’ victim?

In a city in North India that is still reeling in the aftermath of a recent rail tragedy that hit it, Dussehra celebrations are held every year with hundreds of spectators congregating at the designated spot to revel in its glory. To have them spill over onto the rail tracks is an annual occurrence and not a one-off, as clarified by local residents themselves. The incident has snowballed into a political blame game with each participating player trying to identify one scapegoat to nail on the wall- the train driver, the local police, the railway administration or the ruling state government. One can’t help but wonder if an accusing finger is being wagged at the trains for running on schedule on a track meant for it. My question is, why must the common man be policed to abide by rules for his own safety- why must we be told to wear helmets, not drink and drive, not take speed near a school, not play a loudspeaker near a silent zone, not park our cars in the middle of the road, not throw a banana peel on the footpath, not run in to a moving train….and who is to be blamed for the loss of lives when such accidents occur day after day?

I wouldn’t want to stand on a railway track to witness a public display of fireworks, even if someone paid me to do it. It doesn’t take a wise person to make that decision. Unfortunately, common sense is a sense uncommon to the common man in India. As we continue to try and find the cat who must be billed for a crime, self-perpetuated by the common man himself, the railways that were originally meant to be a lifeline to boost the country’s economy, is being turned in to a demonic landmine that will spew debris on everyone involved, in its wake.