Mathew John 
There is the story of an Indian minister who directed the head of the wildlife department to transport four elephants in a vehicle. The head ordered his field staff to do so accordingly. When he was informed that there was only one jeep available, unfazed the minister responded, “That’s simple! Seat two elephants in the front and two in the back.”
The Indian railways was attempting the equivalent of transporting four elephants in one jeep at the New Delhi station on the night of February 15, when the stampede happened.
As the present railways dispensation is incapable of coming clean on any issue, least of all when there is a tragedy, one must figure things out either from the media reportage, particularly social media, or by putting two and two together based on equivocal railway bulletins and one’s own experience of working in this behemoth.
In the absence of any ticket checking, it’s impossible to give even an approximate figure of the crowds that thronged the platforms that day. It is reported that 9,600 general second class tickets were sold between 6-8 pm against the average of 7,000 tickets. This is exclusive of the thousands of passengers with reserved tickets in all categories of travel and passengers with second class tickets bought earlier. And the ever present waifs. It is reasonable to assume that most of the second-class ticket holders were pilgrims bound for Prayagraj.
Going by press reports, there were four trains heading to Prayagraj in the critical time-band between 8-10 pm – Shiv Ganga, Magadh, Prayagraj and the Prayagraj Kumbh Special. An analysis of these trains shows that there were only 17 general second class coaches with a seating capacity of 1,700 passengers in the four trains combined.
Clearly, the railway was not even remotely equipped to handle the rush. If for nothing else, the railways stands indicted of a criminal laissez-faire attitude at a time when regulation of passengers was its imperative obligation.
The tragedy raises a larger question. Was a realistic assessment made of the actual demand and supply? Did the government, which has been crowing about hosting the world’s largest human congregation ever, ensure proper coordination and synergy between rail, road and aviation sectors to meet the needs of the millions of devotees? It is obvious that every sector worked in a separate silo, left to its own devices. And the railways have most definitely made a mess of it.
There has been an amplitude of theories and conjecture on what caused the stampede, the most plausible of which was the sudden announcement of change in the departure platform of the Kumbh Special, which triggered the melee. Much has also been said about how the railway minister, Ashwani Vaishnav – former bureaucrat with the glibness of a travelling salesman – first tried to suppress and then underplay the enormity of the calamity.
There are two other aspects of the railway response that need to be called out. The two-member high level committee appointed by the railway ministry to inquire into the tragedy comprises officers who are currently heading the two departments in the eye of the storm. This raises legitimate concerns that the probe will be no more than a cover-up exercise with low-level functionaries taking the rap.
In another bizarre move, the Northern Railway ignored all norms regarding quantum and method of payment of ex-gratia, and doled out fistfuls of hard cash – Rs 10 lakhs each to the kin of the 18 deceased and Rs 2.5 lakhs to the injured – prompting one to wonder if the railways were disbursing the ex gratia payment as hush money. How much of this recklessly distributed money was finally deposited in these poor people’s bank accounts is anybody’s guess.
Unfortunately, in all the uproar, what the opposition and the media have overlooked is the deep malaise that is eroding the very foundations of the Indian railways today – the abandonment of the common man and his needs.
Crippled by lopsided priorities and an obsession with costly showmanship, this regime has all but forgotten its sacred commitment to the interests of the common man while pandering to the elite, middle- and upper-class passengers.
Here are some telling statistics of the railways’ priorities. It carried one billion fewer passengers in the second class, non-suburban segment in 2022-23 as compared to 2011-12. This, in a country where most people can only afford second-class travel. In the same period, the number of upper-class passengers has more than doubled from 100 million in 2011-12 to 268 million in 2022-23. In the same period, the capacity to carry air-conditioned class passengers increased by 190% while second class passenger capacity has increased by a meagre 15%.
Railwaymen never tire of harping on the haemorrhaging of railway finances due to heavily subsidised passenger fares, particularly in second class – on average only 57% of the travel cost is recovered. While this is true, transporting our working class and migrant labour for our industries and farms is vital for economic development and should not be disparaged as an act of charity.
On the contrary, anyone who knows what it’s like in the general second-class coaches would agree that they are even more dismal than in the worst jails in the world. Given the subhuman conditions, it is no surprise that intending passengers fortify themselves with medication so that they don’t need to use the toilet during their journeys. This is the other side of shining Viksit Bharat.
A pertinent aside: as was evident in the recent Union Budget, this regime has adopted a binary script for gaining the loyalty of its people: For the grasping middle class and rich, provide tax rebates, improved services and amenities; for the masses, keep the faith through fake religiosity and the occasional dole. Clearly, this cynical two-pronged strategy has been a thunderous political success.
In an ironic twist, two days after the deadly stampede, the Indian Express published a news item that earlier this month, the railways awarded a contract worth about Rs 2,200 crores for providing airport-like facilities at the New Delhi railway station that include a twin glass dome structure, a shopping arcade, arrival and departure lobbies, cloak rooms etc.
It is clear as day that so long as Vaishnav is at the helm, the railways will continue the Marie Antoinette policy of splurging on glitzy, elitist projects at the cost of the interests of the common man.
Mathew John is a former civil servant. The views are personal.