Biting the Bullet
When it happens this close to home, it hurts. As news of the stampede at Elphinstone station, less than a kilometre from my apartment flashed across TV screens, I could not help but feel grateful that my masi [mother’s sister] wasn’t at the station that day. This was her route to our place, every single time she visited. There was no way her less than 40-kilo weak hearted body could have withstood the double whammy that was the onslaught of nature and mankind
However, there was no escaping the sense of shock felt on seeing visuals of lifeless bodies stacked like polythene bags against a railing while scores of people were trying to make sense of their predicament. This was not the Mumbai I grew up in and call home.
Sure, we were always a crowded city, but a city with some sense of order. Sure, we were always a city on the move, but with a sense of respect for the individual. Sure, we always had torrential rains but none that so frequently caused friction between man and nature.
So, was it all too much or was it all too mismanaged or was it all too selfish. As I heard a survivor share her experience, it appeared to be a little bit of everything, a deathly concoction that tested not just a crumbling infrastructure but also a crumbling and exhausted spirit that is often called the spirit of Mumbai!
With an infrastructure unable to keep pace with the massive influx of migrants that add and alter the 22 Mn strong demographics of Mumbai, this spirit is what one taps into every single day and on every single train ride. For 22 unfortunate people this very spirit caved in as they fatally fell or were pushed
Over the last 65 years[1], passenger capacity has grown 8X but the number of trains have only tripled, hence its’ a daily battle of survival for the 8Mn people making a local train journey on one of the 2855 trains connecting the long fork ends of Mumbai. Running at 2.6X capacity and clocking 9 deaths a day, Mumbai’s local train network gets the dubious distinction of being the world’s busiest but also the world’s deadliest.
As I think back to 2011 and the Tsunami that wrecked Japan, I cannot help but be amazed with the zen like tranquil quality all Tokyo commuters displayed as they waited hours and hours to get home. Tokyo’s local rail network runs at 2X capacity and the Tokyo-Yokohama urban area is the densest in the world. There’s a lot for us to learn from Shinzo Abe and his citizens than just how to build fancy trains
And we are not just building fancy trains[2] with help from our Japanese friends, we are borrowing lots of money from them [$12Bn at 0.1% interest], and then using that money to get them to build the train thus enhancing their employment. If there was ever a more uncalled for charitable venture, I have not seen it. The distance from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, the cities this bullet train will connect is barely 500 km, easily traversed by hundreds of road — rail — air options which people have been doing so for years with no complaints. So why is our government utilizing the equivalent of the TOTAL CAPITAL OUTLAY of the Indian Railways on a single extravagance is a question it must answer. With Gujarat’s state elections round the corner, this announcement is a strategic PR manoeuvre seen largely in corporate circles. But then this is a government that runs its ship like a corporation; often with the same closed-door approach that cuts it off from its target audience.
And its’ not just bullet trains; like exotic [and expensive] Lego games we also build statues, in the sea no less. At 192 meters tall and costing Rs.36 Bn, the statue of Shivaji, is intended to cement his legacy as one of Maharashtra’s [the state that Mumbai is the capital of] most iconic leaders. Why do we need to further cement his legacy when airports and railway stations are named after him is as good your guess as it is mine but its’ important to remember that Shivaji belongs to the Maratha community, the original inhabitants of Maharashtra and Mumbai [known as Kolis or fishermen] and so if one feels a whiff of vote bank politics, then one is not totally off-track. In fact the idea of this ostentatious project was mooted by the earlier Congress government that is known for its decades long vote bank appeasement approach. The problem is, the Marathas and Kolis, like the rest of human race care about economic development and to this end, every government has failed them. The statue itself is going to pose huge ecological problems threatening the very marine life that the Kolis depend on for their livelihood
As a Mumbaikar, one who is born and raised here, calls it home [and always will], works hard and pays his taxes, I cannot emphasize how little these extravagances mean to us, especially when I see fellow citizens smashed breathlessly against a railing. Surely our efforts, our money and our spirit can be put to better use
[1] [1] http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/mumbai-locals-worlds-busiest-urban-rail-system-is-also-its-deadliest-96093
[2] http://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/mumbai-ahmedabad-bullet-train-cost-japan-india/story/260280.html
