Indian Railways: A Journey Of Inequality
By Arindam Majumder
28 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org
‘Go back to your own compartment; don’t come here’ the coach attendant shouted at the elderly person. Being a senior citizen, he is entitled to special government benefits. But now he deserved to get rebuked. Being a sleeper class passenger he had committed the mistake of using the lavatory of the air conditioned coach; the preferred compartment of post-reform India’s ‘nouveau rich’ middle class. After all being elderly does not ensure social respect in this democracy; an identity card of economic superiority does!
India was a country that was stratified on the basis of caste and religion. After independence it adorned itself with a ‘top-dressing’ called democracy and remained unequal now on the basis of wealth. This form of economic inequality demarcates the nation’s primary mode of transport- The Railways.
The departure time of the train is fast approaching. A queue formed near the general compartment. Pushing and jostling for space the have-nots of the society managed to make their way inside the compartment under the watchful eyes of the uniformed security personnel. The poor can’t be trusted and need to be governed with an iron hand! Meanwhile the fortunate like us sauntered around the platform, bought newspapers celebrating the astounding victory of a pro-business, majoritarian politician and snuggled happily under the warm blankets.
The class demarcation becomes evident if one moves around the different compartments. In fact in the Indian trains are a social scientist’s paradise; if he wants to study the inequality prevalent in the country. Name of the compartment changes from ‘First Class’ to ‘General.’ So do the attires of the passengers. Kanchipuram saris and Raymond suitings changes to bare necessities; and the facilities provided change accordingly. Even water, which has been declared a right of every human being by the United Nations is absent in the lavatories of the sleeper and general coaches.
Served by a coach attendant the economic superior creatures of the air-conditioned coaches are insulated from the sweltering heat and dirt. The attendant’s job is to keep out pests who enters the compartment in search of livelihood! Redistribution is an unholy word in this country. Outside the train the attendant will be a part of the forgotten proletarian class of the society and will possibly never board the AC coaches. But inside the administration has given him the power to ward off the intrusion of people from the sleeper coaches so that the other half may have a safe and secure journey.
The train halts at a non-descript station in the mineral-rich state of Orissa. A tribal couple manages to board the train as it picks pace. But it’s the AC compartment! The ticket-checker rushes towards them and rebukes in chaste Hindi words; “Dikhai nahi deta hain yeh AC phain, yaha tumlogo ka charna mana hain,” (Don’t you see it’s an AC compartment? You people are not allowed to be here). Evident what he meant by ‘you people.’ Though the railway coaches have been made by steel extracted from the land of ‘those people,’ though the railway tracks have been laid over their farmlands, they are not allowed to enter the territories which solely belongs to the economic supermen.
The AC compartments are out of bound for the hawkers! Lest they pollute the elitist environment there. Few months back, public spaces have been opened to vendors and hawkers by a law passed by parliament. But the AC coaches are no public spaces. They are spaces carved out of a public property solely on the might of bank-balance. The Indian Railways is a smaller version of the republic called India! An India where space and power belongs only to those whose pockets are fatter.
Arindam Majumder is a graduate of Asian College of Journalism and in seacrh of a livelihood in the neoliberal world
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