What’s good about social media is that information flows in an unbridled, normal course. Information is shared, not suppressed – unlike in the established media that is selective and often motivated in its exposes. Note the frankness with which a French YouTuber, Victor Blaho, has trashed the Indian Railways and the chaotic life here. Blaho felt like running away. His Instagram post has been widely shared. Despite the presence of the long-established visual and print media, no one has ever bothered to call a spade a spade when it comes to the chaos that rules the Indian Railway system. Fact is that even the ruling class — comprising politicians and bureaucrats — is quite unaware and unmindful of the ground realities, as they travel by air-conditioned super class coaches. UN-returned politician, Shashi Tharoor once rightly termed the Indian Railways as the carrier of the “cattle class”.
Narendra Modi launched himself as Prime Minister in 2014 with tall promises about high speed trains. Then he realized that this was easier said than done – because the first requisite was to change the anachronistic tracks laid long ago and poorly maintained through the past several decades. Modi’s promise of Bullet Trains, like the ones in Japan and China, also remains half done even in what was the pilot project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Problem is, neither the political bosses nor the bureaucrats here have the will to act. Together, they mess up with situations. Modi’s “big step” forward was the crop of VandeBharat trains, which mostly run on short routes with a speed of no more than 130km per hour – a minor improvement on the 90-110km speed of the express trains here. The jam-packed trains, be they the unreserved coaches of the long-distance trains or the ‘local’ trains in metropolitan cities, cause suffocation to the commuters.
The improvements that the Modi government brought to the train services are mostly below par. The old trains had sufficient space in toilets. That has been cut by half in new trains, with the result that being inside is a hard struggle. Stations used to display name boards almost on all pillars in the past. Now, they are mostly absent and placed at awkward heights, so that those inside the train would have difficulty reading it to identify the station. The cleanliness drive that Modi emphasized at the very outset is still a far cry. Garbage collection from trains and pantry services remain bad or are getting worse. Rhetoric from the podium alone will not take a nation to an elevated status. Its systems must improve over time. Rather, here, the systems are being taken for a ride. In the past 11 years, the railways recorded marginal growth and selective improvements. Much more should have happened in the normal course. Modi’s railway ministers are yet to prove themselves. If Modi’s first priority was to improve safety, that too fell flat with major train mishaps killing hundreds in recent years.