Today a huge number of Indians are on the move. Primarily because a considerable number of people are migrating for labour. A conservative estimate based on various government data is that every year 100 million people or about 25% of the workforce are migrating seasonally for labour. Probably it is even more than that. In Alirajpur the proportion is as high as 85% of the workforce. Migration has become a permanent phenomenon of the present form of economic development where agriculture has been severely under funded and industrial development has been predicated on cheap casual labour. To avoid the problems arising from unionisation of local labour employers prefer to employ casual labour brought from other areas by labour contractors. A vast majority of these migrants are poor labourers. Only a miniscule proportion of travellers are high flying executives who are frequent travellers on aeroplanes. Most people travel by train and the Indian Railways issues some 8 billion passenger tickets every year for short to long distance journeys including repeat ones for daily commuters and also less frequent ones for long distance travellers. Understandably, given this huge rush of people travelling all the time the Indian Railways cannot meet the demand. Things have been compounded by the fact that for long distance trains there are many AC and Sleeper Class Compartments which allow travel in relative comfort but on which seats have to be booked well in advance. There are only one or two general compartments in which people can travel without reservation at short notice. Therefore, these compartments are jam packed with some people having to stand and cover long distances of over hundreds of kilometres. Thus, while the well heeled and those with the luxury to pre plan their travel well in advance can travel in comfort, the vast majority have to really struggle to reach their destination. All this of course has happened because the Railways are being pressurised to cut costs and show profits so the general compartments which are loss making have been reduced.
There was a time when conducting mass rallies in far away places used to be a song as all we had to do was climb on to a train en masse and travel free in the four or five general compartments that used to be there. On one occasion we even invaded the reserved compartments. However, this has now become impossible. Not only are there just one or two general compartments which are already jam packed with people but also there are strict security arrangements and so it is practically impossible to invade the reserved compartments. Thus, the pressure on Railways to make profits has also put the brakes on mass mobilisation over long distances to attend rallies in places of power. While the mainstream political parties hire trains to ferry people to their rallies, the mass organisations obviously cannot do so given their shoe string operations and so such rallies have become a thing of the past mostly.
So due to the rush in trains now people have to rely on buses and various other kinds of road transport also which are not only much more expensive but also more accident prone. These modes of road transport too are over crowded as the picture below of a jeep over laden with passengers in Alirajpur shows.
Not surprisingly India has a high road accident fatality rate of 19.9 per 100,000 inhabitants per year which is more than the global average of 18 and 211.8 per 100,000 motor vehicles per year which is significantly more than the global average of 93.3.
Personally, in times of old when we were young and bold when Subhadra and I have slogged it out in unreserved packed compartments but this has become difficult these days and we rarely attempt it anymore. Last year on one occasion I had to do it but for a short distance of about 200 kilometres that involved only about 4 hours of standing travel. Recently Subhadra had to rush to Raipur to visit a relative who had been paralysed by a cerebral stroke. It was the peak Puja holiday season and somehow I managed reserved train tickets for her online but eventually one leg of about two hundred and fifty kilometres from Nagpur to Raipur did not get confirmed. So she had to rush out of the station to the ticket counter and get a general ticket to board the connecting train. As she came on to the platform the train started moving. She began running for the general compartment which was at the back but it was jam packed with men sitting at the entrance who refused to let her in. Luckily there was one Ladies only general compartment after that and she somehow managed to get onto that. No sooner had she got in and sat down next to the toilet because the rest of the compartment was packed with women another woman took out her wares of lac bangles and asked Subhadra to buy them!! Subhadra saw that she had two small children with her so she asked her where her husband was. The bangle seller said that he had not been allowed in to this compartment by the police and so he was in another compartment!!. Subhadra told her that she did not wear these kinds of bangles and instead offered to look after her children so that the bangle seller could go and sell the bangles in the compartment. The bangle seller eventually succeeded in selling Rupees five hundred worth of bangles!! The general compartments are packed with such marginal people trying to make livelihoods out of nothing and desperately travelling from one place to another.
To cut a long story short the inequality that is rampant in society manifests itself in transportation also with most people having to bear tremendous difficulties to travel while a miniscule few travel in luxury.
There was a time when conducting mass rallies in far away places used to be a song as all we had to do was climb on to a train en masse and travel free in the four or five general compartments that used to be there. On one occasion we even invaded the reserved compartments. However, this has now become impossible. Not only are there just one or two general compartments which are already jam packed with people but also there are strict security arrangements and so it is practically impossible to invade the reserved compartments. Thus, the pressure on Railways to make profits has also put the brakes on mass mobilisation over long distances to attend rallies in places of power. While the mainstream political parties hire trains to ferry people to their rallies, the mass organisations obviously cannot do so given their shoe string operations and so such rallies have become a thing of the past mostly.
So due to the rush in trains now people have to rely on buses and various other kinds of road transport also which are not only much more expensive but also more accident prone. These modes of road transport too are over crowded as the picture below of a jeep over laden with passengers in Alirajpur shows.
Personally, in times of old when we were young and bold when Subhadra and I have slogged it out in unreserved packed compartments but this has become difficult these days and we rarely attempt it anymore. Last year on one occasion I had to do it but for a short distance of about 200 kilometres that involved only about 4 hours of standing travel. Recently Subhadra had to rush to Raipur to visit a relative who had been paralysed by a cerebral stroke. It was the peak Puja holiday season and somehow I managed reserved train tickets for her online but eventually one leg of about two hundred and fifty kilometres from Nagpur to Raipur did not get confirmed. So she had to rush out of the station to the ticket counter and get a general ticket to board the connecting train. As she came on to the platform the train started moving. She began running for the general compartment which was at the back but it was jam packed with men sitting at the entrance who refused to let her in. Luckily there was one Ladies only general compartment after that and she somehow managed to get onto that. No sooner had she got in and sat down next to the toilet because the rest of the compartment was packed with women another woman took out her wares of lac bangles and asked Subhadra to buy them!! Subhadra saw that she had two small children with her so she asked her where her husband was. The bangle seller said that he had not been allowed in to this compartment by the police and so he was in another compartment!!. Subhadra told her that she did not wear these kinds of bangles and instead offered to look after her children so that the bangle seller could go and sell the bangles in the compartment. The bangle seller eventually succeeded in selling Rupees five hundred worth of bangles!! The general compartments are packed with such marginal people trying to make livelihoods out of nothing and desperately travelling from one place to another.
To cut a long story short the inequality that is rampant in society manifests itself in transportation also with most people having to bear tremendous difficulties to travel while a miniscule few travel in luxury.
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