I am suspicious about the cause of the accident. With that reaction to the Sainthia rail collision,Mamata Banerjee revealed a problem greater than her capacity to personalise even an accident thats already taken more than sixty lives. In a pattern thats come to be expected of her as Union railway minister,she not only trivialised the deaths of passengers for possible political gain,she also underlined the message that in her scheme of things the buck cannot stop at her ministry. Yet more disturbing is that by personalising matters she draws the line on ministerial accountability. No government at the Centre can be unconcerned about rail safety: Indian Railways carries about 15 million passengers every day,and accidents like these radiate anxiety through the country. But Banerjees way of portraying reversals as a big conspiracy against her political promise is also a signal to her coalition partners: Railways is her turf,and theyd better be mindful of that. She is not the first populist politician to take charge of the railway ministry. The ministry holds special appeal for them,and since the mid-90s they have used their clout in coalitions to gain the portfolio. In this scheme,the Railways,with the huge potential for patronage in jobs and rail services,becomes a route to political positioning in the ministers home state. Yet,Banerjee has refined the formula to the point where the politics of the home state becomes the prism through which ministerial achievement is measured. Therefore,you have not just callous responses to mishaps (with the Railways bureaucracy signalled,dangerously,that accountability is beside the point). You have also the ministrys budget and energies put to bizarre acts of patronage: this year bore the proposal to set up a Cultural and Heritage Promotion Board, for a Rabindra Museum at Howrah and a Gitanjali Museum at Bolpur for Tagores 150th birth anniversary. In fact,in a spectacular instance of imperial over-reach,the budget included plans for new drinking water bottling plants,eco-parks and sports academies. The cause of the Sainthia disaster in West Bengals Birbhum district must,correctly,be established before responsibility is apportioned. But whatever the cause,the collision has revealed the absence of mechanisms like anti-collision devices which could avert disasters elsewhere. It is not beside the point that a file relating to 90,000 safety-related posts awaits her attention. As the lifeline of India,the railway network needs reformist leadership. Can the UPA government afford to put off upgrade till Mamata Banerjee gets the electoral mandate to move to Kolkata?
