Blood on the tracks

The death toll of the collision between the Brahmaputra Mail and the Awadh Assam Express will set a new record, in a country where rail accidents no longer make news unless the casualty list is in three figures. And how shall the ministry react? An unknown signalman might be suspended and a signal-box accused of criminal malfunction, but that would be the limit. Except in an obscure station in north Bengal, no heads will roll. No official at the decision-making or managerial level will be called to account. In the metros and the divisional headquarters, the even tenor of life in Railway bungalows shall not be disturbed. The lawns shall be watered, the khalasis industrious. In this last ember of the British Raj, there shall be no disquiet at the fact that the death toll on the tracks this year is on a higher scale than that of Kargil. Empires are not accustomed to being held accountable, no matter how heinous their crime. Equanimity in the face of criminal negligence is part of the colonial experience.It has made largescale famines possible in India. In that perspective, what are a few hundred bodies in the general compartments? A mere trifle.

Imagine an airline that regularly, inexorably, suffers four crashes a year. Would it remain in existence for long? Not likely, because airline passengers and their kin know their rights and how to secure them. They can get results with their dialling finger. Collectively, they can shut down an irresponsible airline. But the people in the general compartments are from the other India. Their kin are happy with the ex gratia payments of the government. Ex gratia: `out of grace’, in a dead language. In contemporary idiom, a handout, such as is given to a beggar. But the Railway authorities are in no danger of offending those it pays off. And therefore, they are in no danger of attracting the ire of the people at large. It is no wonder that the big guns of the Railways are so insouciant. It is they who are the criminals, not the hapless signalman who will be hauled upafter Monday’s tragedy is investigated. He has to work with outdated, unreliable equipment that was never intended to handle today’s traffic volumes. Equipment that lingers on because of the irresponsibility of the divisional managers, planners, bureaucrats and ministers who have been complacent for far too long. In the Railways, `planning’ is shorthand for capacity extension. It has absolutely no bearing on safety. If the babus in their bungalows cannot handle the rail network on their own, they should have the vision to seek private involvement. In their wisdom, they attempted the exercise only in catering. And then they turfed out the private sector again. They have reason to fear the private sector, for the first corporate to operate a train would make public all the deficiencies of rail operations, just as a personal insurance policy. Now, the Railways will have to be forced to change. For starters, it has to be made accountable. In other words, heads will have to roll, and in highplaces.