One more train accident..

One more train accident, loss of many lives and then the announcement of compensation to the victims' families. We have been watching this reality show of Indian Railways for decades now. Yesterday's train accident in Andhra Pradesh is just the latest in that decades' old reality show. In fact, we, the common men have accepted this reality as our fate and have learnt to be patient to be killed by the next train accident. That's why I do not see any public outrage after such a tragedy. The callous attitude in general among people about the death toll of 26 makes me feel sick. Such attitude of ours encourages the ever opportunistic politicians to indulge into cheap and populist vote bank politics. Railway Ministers have not increased the passenger fares for almost a decade now (apart from higher range fares). Former Railway Minister Shreejukto Trivedi wanted to bring some changes in that trend, he proposed to increase the passenger fares for all the classes in his much discussed Railway Budget, he wanted to bail Indian Railways out of ICCU. It is no secret that the largest PSU of the country has no financial arm either to provide the safety and security to it's passengers or to go for it's long pending modernization, definitely the hike of passenger fares was the need of the hour. The supremo of his party Shreemati Bandyapadhyay's wish of a populist budget was compromised - absolutely unacceptable - result: all of us know. And the situation remains unchanged. We, the common men are responsible to a great extent for letting our Ministers like Shreeman Ray (the present Railway Minister) wash their hands of playing with our lives by allowing them just to declare some compensation and set an inquiry commission after every tragedy, I do not see any public disgust being expressed towards the decision makers for their gallery shows. We hear about the anti collision device after every train accident in the country, but do not know when that is going to be a reality (or is that just an Utopian expectation?). We do not know how many losses of lives are enough for our politicians to to be shaken - to wake up and make more realistic and lesser populist decisions. Shreeman Ray, people won't mind spending few Rupees more if they are guaranteed of a much safer journey. Wish you could think about that rising above your and a certain Shreemati Bandyapadhyay's street level politics of cheap populism.