Dev N Pathak
Dear home: Letters from an NRB
Chhuk – chhuk chhuk – chhuk Inequality: true face of Indian (Bihar) Railways
By Dev Nath Pathak
Bihar Sampark Kranti superfast express is a train of dubious distinction. In the folklore of Maithil travellers this train has a ‘good’ reputation of efficiently connecting the northeastern town Darbhanga with the metropolis Delhi. Known for its punctuality and sincerity this train often has the berths reserved nearly three months in advance from the date of journey round the year.It came in existence at the time when the previously famous trains such as Shaheed express (Darbhanga to Amritsar) and Swatantrata Senani express (Darbhanga to Delhi) met with untimely demise in popularity due to the lurching service. It is said that if you travel by these trains, it is wise to forget the time to reach the destination. Bihar Sampark Kranti was a godsend for the people of Drabhanga who aspire to frequent between the idyllic town and the metropolis. However, in between the two points of running, the superfast express narrates a tale of sociological significance.
The tale alludes to the social construction of the character of a particular train. And through this example, one can make sense of the diverse characters of diverse trains, which are all part of the Indian railways, and yet each offers a distinct experience on board. No wonder then, each Shatabdi and each Rajdhani (two premium trains of Indian Railways) assume a distinction of notional significance in the conscience of travelers. The experience of boarding a Shatabdi destined to Kalka (via Chandigarh) would be qualitatively different from that on Shatabdi headed toward Kathgodam, for example. A Rajdhani headed toward Orissa might bring more tears to the travellers than a Rajdhani headed toward any of the south/central Indian destination. Hence, in all possible ways, a train of Indian railways, headed toward a destination located in Bihar, becomes nearly Indian-Bihar railways. The list of the trains of Indian Railways, with reference to the distinct character of each, could be an interesting exercise for the social historians of modern India.
The reproduced social via Indian Railway
Getting back to the example of Bihar Sampark Kranti, it is a train with a character of its own, like other trains which run from a small town of Bihar to a metropolis. The train has four parts to accommodate travellers. To begin with, there are a couple of ‘general’ coaches with unreserved seats. To grab a seat of this kind the travellers have to be really lucky and meticulous at the time of boarding. Even now, travellers in hundreds queue up for hours outside the gate to the general coach of the Vaishali express which connects Barauni and Delhi.To board Bihar Sampark Kranti, the potential stakeholders in the general coach have to indulge in the game of probability; many of them venture into coach-yard where train rests and gets cleaned. It is easier to loot a full upper birth in the general coach at Darbhanga railway yard, where the train departs early morning at 8.20.The veritable loot of the seats in the general coach however fails to make much difference in the fate of the stakeholders. For, as the train crosses Muzzaffarpur, the general coach is a tight matchbox. The toilets of these coaches invariably become haven for the ill-fated travellers. If not, these toilets are very much akin to the railways trackside open ground for excretion.
In the musty compartments overstuffed with the luggage of all kinds it is common to see human bodies stacked as if it were a gunny bag filled with mustard seeds. The coach next to this is the three-tier sleeper class. The berths are reserved here against the names of individual applicants. Needless to say, the berths are booked within the first month of opening of the booking. Each individual with a reservation ticket is entitled to the given berth; in case of any encroachment, there are instances of temporary grueling, even scuffles, until the (Ticket checker) TTE settles the matter. Lately, the comfort of travelling with a reservation ticket in this class has been diminished into a matter of luck. If and only if there are not too many waitlisted ticketholders, who loiter around the coach and spread their beds in the alleys through the night journey, any sense of reserved berth descends. More often than not, the travellers with confirmed reservation tickets have to open arms and accommodate the partners-in-the ‘crime’ of traveling. In spite of the nomenclature, the three-tier sleeper class does run out of power, water, and basic comfort for the travellers.
The condition of toilets in the coaches of this class expresses the step-motherly treatment given to it. Thus comes the Air-conditioned three-tier coach where the situation is marginally different. The coaches will be centrally air-conditioned and the toilets will be relatively cleaner. But then, the same condition applies here too. If there are too many waitlisted travellers, and they are indeed invariably in numbers, the air-conditioning technology is outdone by the thick veil of carbon dioxide in which coaches get muffled. Every now and then, the travellers from this class, who are assertive enough, will be rushing to the coach attendant with a complaint- AC is not working! In the time of acute heat and humidity, the coaches of this class with the sealed windows, will become worse than the world outside. Though the next two classes of coaches, AC two tier and AC first class, are connected with the AC three tier, the uneven distribution of quality of attention accorded by coach attendants and TTE is stark. Interestingly enough, while the AC three tier and three tier sleeper class will suffer from the population explosion which demographers and population studies scholars would explain using the Darwinian logic, these two classes (AC-2 & AC-1) would be sanitized domains. One scream from a single traveller in these classes and the attendants and TTE would be in tow. This is here that one finds no mosquitoes, no rats, no flies, and nothing that can disgust, even in the lavatory. It is here that the airconditioners is efficiently cooling the surrounding even while the train engine breaks down, and it does breakdown with all kinds of snags very often.
The double-class syndrome of Indian Railways
Indian Railways presents a classic example of state sponsored inequality. The degree of miserable conditions in which Indian state would wish to see the underprivileged is evidently and blatantly high. It is accomplished through the on-board social stratification along seemingly innocuous ‘class’ line. To make it clear, here ‘class’ is not a self-conscious category, which enamored sociologists and economists alike. Here it does not refer to the Marxist bipolarity nor does it have the luxury of becoming the illusive middle-rung category frequently called middle class. The notion of class for India Railways is a mooring to divide the travellers along the line of purchasing power of the travellers. It is as simple as the ability to buy a ticket and get into the ‘class’ for the period of journey one undertakes.
That’s it; the Indian Railways’ notion of ‘class’ terminates with the terminations of journey. But then the complex layering begins when the Indian Railways’ notion of class is juxtaposed with the social science conceptual category. For example, one can ask whether one gets freed from the social notion of class on board? No, that is very much alive even on board. So for a traveller, who has bought a ticket for the AC first class, there is double class burden. One is the social notion of class and the other is the Indian Railways’ notion of class. Double class, double expectation, and hence doubly charged single individual traveler: too much of responsibility indeed for Indian travellers. More freedom is for somebody who belongs to no class and boards a coach which is classless. But then, is there any such train without a class! An official answer would be, ‘no, there isn’t one’.
A utopian perhaps would say that the class wherein one needs no reservation of berth is actually a classless situation. But then, this answer would be restricted to the cognitive map of the utopian and romantic practices of the protected anarchist. For, nobody but one who can not afford to buy a three tier sleeper class ticket or AC three tier or AC two tear buys a ticket of low price and boards the train. This was perhaps the class, which one of the former cabinet ministers, who pretended to be more like a snooty intellectual than a minister in the service of country and people, insidiously termed the ‘cattle class’.
Travellers’ Subjectivity on board
The finer microscopic details of the social significance of the Indian railways did not cross the minds of some of the researchers who sought to understand the notion of Indian modernity through the category of Indian railways. Marian Aguiar’s book, latest in this line, jumps from the phase of colonialism to the dawn of independence and the (un)becoming of Indian railways into a volatile site of terroristic turbulence. It somehow ignores or perhaps does not see any significance of the everyday details, the mundane matters, and the apparent nonissues, as it were. Beyond the debate between the spiritualist nationalists who thought Indian Railways to be a bane of civilization and the rationalist nationalists who thought that the vehicle aids in colonial exploitation, there is an unearthed treasure of subjectivity attached with the experiences of the travellers. The class dimension, with the complexity of double-barreled notion of class, is merely one dimension. There could be so many such critical avenues where Indian railways offer interpretative meanings. Especially the vortex of subjectivity that Indian Railways generates, through the distinction of each train, solicits a qualitative study. Each destination defines the character of each train and thereby the subjectivity of the traveller is beset with the fusion of national and local context in which the train runs.
Also, each such train of the Indian Railways generates a sense of the interconnectivity of segmented classes. It is nearly like the Durkheimian-functional whole with integrated parts. Interestingly, the distinction is that the Indian railways do not have organic interdependence of the class-segments. Durkheim thought it necessary for the persistence of harmonious social whole. Then, how does the harmonious whole in an Indian Railways train exist? It exists by the virtue of a regulating bureaucracy, ensuring no-lower class riffraff crosses the class-boundaries. It puts on job, for the same purpose, some Ticket checkers and some security guards. And what is the job? It is, to put simply, to ensure inequality-on-board. Arguably, the inequality is sustained not only by the tangible machinery at work but also the subjective dispositions of the travellers. Indian railways, with its distinct trains defined by the destinations and local context, sustain the subjectivity of the travellers.
Travellers get a message, from the care and hospitality given or not given by the Indian railways, about the expected or not-expected behavior. For example, a traveller with a waitlisted ticket is no-where and everywhere with least expectation in terms of the bearable surrounding inside the coach. Even with a confirmed reservation ticket, a traveller can play songs on the mobile phone speaker only in particular class of coach and not in other. Usage of toilets, of alleys, of doorways et cetera too is determined by where you are located in the coach and what is the status of reservation. In a systematic manner Indian railways, in consonance with the socio-cultural context vis-à-vis destination, allows a traveller to be unruly, sophisticated, sensible or insensible. Along this line, it can be reasoned as to why the situation-on-board in Kerala express would be different from that in Bihar Sampark Kranti. The manifestation of subjective disposition would indeed make a long list of indicators.
A train of memories!
Conclusion
Two basic assumptions are underpinning the reflections in forgone sections. Firstly, our subjectivity inspires length and breath of social reasoning. And secondly, our subjectivity is fairly objective in the sense that it is sustained by intuitional-structural design. The travellers who take the trains of Indian railways exhibit the instances of this subjectivity. Indian railways would like them to be the embodiment of double-class syndrome. It appears as a nonissue to ask the question as to why the asymmetry in the treatment given to various coaches and thereof travellers. Many of the travellers of Bihar Sampark Kranti may perhaps not even note the instances on inequality-on-board due to the institutionally sustained subjectivity. It boils down to a simple belief that the differences are due to the purchasing power, population explosion, and rate of mobility among people et cetera. However, a scrutiny of the total structure of the train would disclose the institutional framework in which Indian railways engenders a sense of acceptance of the order-on-board. Thus, the message would be, as pithy as- you are going to Bihar and hence you have to travel in the condition given.
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Dev Pathak teaches Sociology at South Asian University, New Delhi, is among our panel of columnists. He writes his column ‘Dear home: letters from an NRB’ exclusively for bihardays on Saturdays.
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