Rail roko, raasta roko..!

‘Gujjar stir: Airlines hike fares’, read one of the headlines at ‘Times of India’. Haven’t we heard it before? Today, it’s the Gujjars, yesterday it was some abc party, tomorrow it will be some philanthropic NGOs etc. etc. It always remains same, purpose wise and operationally. The purpose is to gain attention and the operation, unfortunately is the same! Old wine in new bottles, you may say. Terms like ‘rail roko’,’ chakka bandh’, find place in newspapers on a consistent basis and has become a public nuisance. Water is not coming through government pipes and you know what to do. Gather a few, block the rail. Water is coming in abundance from your roof and you know what to do. Get a few, block the road. The last one might sound hypocritical. But in India, you hear them too! We have a chronic habit of making other people liable for any causes that create trouble for us, and the manifestation of the frustration is in the form of those ‘listen to me’ ways.

‘Rail roko’ (stop the train!)is one of the easiest way to show up one’s anger. Stopping thousands of people to reach their destination is a sure-shot way to be in the limelight. But this method is adopted cautiously, only when there are enough people on board, or else the train might decide not to stop at all! You see people are so selfish. They have enough time to sit on the rail line and wait for the train to come so that they can show red flag and stop them in the process, but no time to find out alternate means to fetch water, if the water pipe doesn’t work. They have enough time to show anger and shout slogans, but no time to seal the ceilings so that the water doesn’t sneak in. I wonder what would have happened if those very persons had been traveling in the same train. They would have sounded undemocratic then, I guess!

The stirs have economic effect of catastrophic proportion! The Gujjar’s agitation might be based on a valid logic, but they are costing the exchequer few crores every day. Rails are stopped; buses are torched, so the airlines have decided to step in; theory of demand and supply, you see. One’s loss is another’s gain. Rail is bleeding cash and airlines are cashing in. ‘Aam janta’ is getting a raw deal in the process. Scores of buses and government properties are torched almost every alternate day in the Telengana region and I am not even mentioning the disturbed region of Jammu and Kashmir.

Where does it all end? Who is responsible for these losses? Every country has a problem of its own. Even developed countries are not spared of that. On a micro level, any individual can have their own issues. But one must remember that the only person he can blame for his state is him and nobody else. So, one should work on it, try to make things better. He should try to control the controllable, not by showing ire on public property but by contemplating ways to improve the condition. The frustration can be shown in the ballot box, be it municipal or parliamentary elections. Damage of public goods and services can backfire as they might find themselves on the other side of the coin and that will be a sense of déjà-vu for them! Democracy signifies free society, but the freedom cannot be taken for granted.