A Non Stop Train of Total Revolution- A story on a tragedy where lives are treated without resepct( Social Criticism-INDIA)

A Non Stop Train of Total Revolution
Through an India marginalized and forgotten



THE INCIDENT IN WHICH FIVE PEOPLE WERE CRUSHED TO DEATH BY THE NON-STOP PATNA-DELHI SAMPOORNA KRANTI SUPER EXPRESS, AFTER BEING BRUTALLY PUSHED OUT OF THE STATIONARY FARAKKA EXPRESS AT A RAILWAY STATION IN UP, IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS OF A LEISURELY SUNDAY, REMINDS US TO THE CURSED AND UNFORTUNATE EVERYDAY EXISTENCE OF AN AVERAGE INDIAN. BLOODY AND BOORISH ASPECTS OF THIS EPISODE ARE, TRULY A SAD AND STRIKING REFLECTION OF THE DISMAL AND CHEERLESS LIFE, VOICELESS MILLIONS ARE CONDEMNED TO CONTINUE. IT’S A VIOLENT WAKE UP CALL TO THE CUNNING SLUMBERS OF ESTABLISHMENT.



Vinod C.V

In Hindi, Sampoorna Kranti means Total Revolution. For hose who experienced the pulse of political India, this powerful yet poetically enticing words would bring the reminisces of a socially and politically tumultuous times when a legend of a leader, in the stature of JP stood like a titan in the minds and hearts of Indian imagination. It is with great application of mind, may be as a tribute to the memory of JP, that the words Sampoorna Kranti was lifted out from the vocabulary of 70s to name a non-stop super express linking the 992 km between Patna and New Delhi. One cannot give a better name to a train connecting New Delhi to Patna or New Delhi to Kanpur especially when it is running through the dusty tracks of drudgery, covering the bare realities of Indian life, which can only be retrieved or salvaged by a Sampoorna Kranti, conceived and visualised by a true socialist like Jayaprakash Narain.


But names of the trains doesn’t mean much to those who were run over by the speeding animal. Still the coincidences strike when the rashness fuelled by the arrogance of power leaves the life and limbs of poor and hapless, threatened and extinguished. 2393 Sampoorna Kranti Express, flagged off by Nitish Kumar, ironically one of the misfated children of JPs crusade against authoritarianism of absolute dimensions, on June 30, 2001 at Patna, was the name of the oncoming train, which perished five wretched people on the tracks, who were forcibly evicted and thrown away by the overbearing army personnel of Rajputana Rifles from an unreserved compartment at the Shikohabad station in Firozabad district of Western Uttar Pradesh.

According to the news reports, the incident took place early morning (4.47 am) of January 23, ironically just three days before the mighty nation commemorates the inauguration of its sovereignty - Republic day. The newspaper reports of most dailies datelined Jan 23 go like this: - five persons including a woman, lost their lives after they were run over by this speeding Sampoorna Kranti Express moments after being allegedly thrown from another train waiting on the adjoining track at the Shikohabad railway station.

The sequence of events according to the newspaper reports goes like this: - A group of people had boarded an unreserved compartment of the 3483 Farakka-Bhiwani Express (via Old Delhi) at Etawah in the early hours. Shortly after boarding the train, they had an altercation, over seats, with army personnel who were travelling in the compartment. The Farakka-Bhiwani express halted for a scheduled stop at Shikhohabad at 4.43 a.m and these people were reportedly forced to get down from the train by the army personnel. While some people fell on the platform, five of them fell on the yard side of the station. Moments later, the Sampoorna Kranti express, which was travelling non-stop from Patna to New Delhi at a very high speed on the adjoining track, crushed all five of them.
Railway accidents are not a news item in India. Only mass murders do catch the attention. But the incident at the nondescript railway station in Western UP is a pointer to the dehumanization and disappearance of human values from the conscience of the nation’s collective psyche. The bottom line of the story is the mindless brutalisation of lives and uncouthness of behavior, in the trying times we live. It denotes the depletion, declining and disappearance of good will and the positive feeling from the attitudes, outlooks and actions.
Somebody shall imagine the state of mind of people, willing to enter into a squabble in the early mornings of the day - Brahma Muhoortha according to Indian wisdom and knowledge. It is at this time human mind is expected to be most pure, perfect, calm, receptive and creative. But the mindless dehumanization and the resultant desertification of minds, born out of the stressed-out existence, is extracting the price, in terms of patience, endurance and tolerance.
Another aspect, this incident throws light on, is the ingrained and deep seated state of violent mind and possessive tendency people do assume while being part of the power structure or authority pyramid, however remote they are from the top of the apogee as far as positional location is concerned. The involved army personnel are ordinary Jawans. But they still feel to appropriate and arrogate the spaces which are not legitimate and rightful to them. They feel that they can safely get away with minor peccadilloes and transgressions. Even if the compartment of the Farakka-Bhiwani Express from which military men pushed out the civilian passengers was reserved for the army, they had no business to manhandle anyone so mercilessly. But in the case being discussed, the row was over unreserved seats in an unreserved compartment. These kinds of complaints against defense forces are well known. Instances of them bypassing even the traffic rules, on the belief that they are beyond the pales of the ordinary law & order apparatus, are widely noticed. That tendency to display the might of the forces is supposed to be redirected at the enemy troops, while in combat.
Yet another feature, this disgusting incident reminds is the contempt as a community, we reserve for the disadvantaged. It is sure that those who travel by unreserved coaches in the chilly early morning hours are not the people who can be considered well off. It is the disregard, disdain, disrespect and apathy to the extent of scorn for the underprivileged, that emboldened the personnel from Rajputana Rifles to scream like this. “Go to hell if you cannot make room for us. Vacate the seats for us. Go to other coaches or we will send you flying out into the fields.”
Utter unconcern and contempt for the weak and meek is on the rise, as after the introduction of liberalization, even the mockery of maintaining a cosmetic concern for the powerless and vulnerable was given a cool and convenient go by. Egalitarian thoughts and approaches were given a decent burial in the daily discourse of nation’s life. The pervasive social and political climate in these lines and the often assumed acceptance or acquiescence of ignoring and neglecting the dispossessed shall have surely played a role in shaping a mindset that felt nothing wrong in shoving the unfortunate five through a door in a cold morning. This disrespect coupled with the feudal contempt, most of the time having contours of castist intonations, mostly in rural context but not less in urban settings, makes life really tough and taxing for a socially deprived Indian.
But the pathetic side of all said and done is that the so-called arrogant and apathetic Jawans also belong to the same bracket of the terrorised victims, while analyzing from a different angle. The sad and sorry state of them, not having a reserved coach to travel while they are returning to duty is a reprehensible reminder to the way the military establishment treats them. Condemned to live in the challenging and life-sapping terrains and deserts of the remote border regions for years together, the softer side of the persona must have undergone a negative transformation. While officers and their families are traveling in luxury compartments, army establishment must ensure minimum arrangements like a reserved ticket for ordinary Jawans too. This doesn’t detract the gravity of the crime committed by the personnel. Even in the wearisome and difficult times, they are supposed to behave with restraint and discipline while dealing with civilians.
No amount of rationalization will extenuate the crime committed by the Jawans. Five able bodied people at the prime of their youth (41, 28, 33, 32, 29) lost their life on account of the violent act by a group of irate and irresponsible, paid, taught and trained to protect. JP would have never thought that this kind of suffocating and sickening existence and experience, where social conscience and regard for each other plummets to the levels occurred at Shikohabad railway station, will be visiting the lives of an Indian even after passing half a century of Independence. It is a cruel joke and a sad twist of semantics that it happened with a train, named after a beautiful slogan culled out of the historic student unrest and subsequent political movement, triggered and inspired by JPs exhortations. But what hangs in the Indian air with a threatening luminosity is the irrefutable relevance of a Total Revolution, a Sampoorna Kranti.