TEJAS EXPRESS: PUBLIC PROPERTY AND CIVIC DUTIES

The high-speed, high-tech Tejas Express, plying between Bombay and Goa, was launched a couple of weeks ago. The launch of this train was much hyped because it offered state-of-the-art facilities to the passengers. The Tejas Express boasts of automatic doors, infotainment screens, vacuum bio-toilets, touch-free taps in the toilets, and much more. While the train’s maiden voyage was expected to be a triumphant heralding of a new era in rail transportation, the news that filtered in afterwards suggested otherwise.

It was reported that even before the journey began in Bombay, a window pane was smashed. By the time the train reached Goa 12 headsets were reported to be missing or stolen; there was garbage littered all over the train, and the toilets were also reported to be filthy. Opinion-makers reacted stating that Indians do not deserve nice things and lack the civic sense to take care of public property. Given the manner in which urban Indian liberals are blind to the most fundamental problems of the society, it was not surprising to observe that absence of civic sense being discussed without reference to caste.

The Indian Railways is said to be the largest employer of manual scavengers in the country – under the guise of employing sweepers – as contract workers across the length of the rail network. Almost all of these people who dispose human waste with their bare hands come from the Dalit castes. Though manual scavenging has been outlawed by law since a long time ago, the Indian Railways only started addressing the issue – albeit incompletely – from 2016. In other words, if the railway platforms and tracks bear the slightest resemblance of ‘clean’ it is only because of the thankless and demeaning labour provided by thousands of workers from such castes. If guests on board the maiden journey of the Tejas Express had left behind garbage and dirty toilets and/or wash-basins it was only to be expected as that is how things are done – it is simply someone else’s problem.

The South Asian idea of cleanliness is that someone else is responsible for doing the cleaning. While it is true that the authorities are responsible for collecting and disposing of garbage, there is no justification for collecting wet waste in plastic bags and dumping them along the side of roads, for someone else to collect. There is blindness to the fact that the labour provided come from persons who are denied the basic right of human dignity, let alone benefits like health insurance and proper working conditions. This is a problem that concerns not only the government but everybody.

This behavior with regards to disposing garbage tells us something about the way in which Indians approach public spaces and public property. On the one hand, one doesn’t view public spaces and public property as deserving care and maintenance. On the other hand, the full burden of maintaining public spaces and property is dumped (pun intended) on the members of the most discriminated-against strata of society, who, not ironically, are excluded and pushed either to the margins or outside the boundaries of villages and cities. There is simply an absence of a ‘collective feeling’ or of a ‘community’ when the issue of public spaces emerges. The reason many argue, is the existence of the caste division. (In fact it was Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who argued that it was impossible to build a common community in the form of a nation when thousands of castes or jatis were in existence in British India).

In a slightly different context, the theologian Philip Vinod Peacock in his essay ‘Hostility, Hypocrisy, Hospitality: Rethinking the Politics of Theology and Hospitality from a Dalit Perspective’ (2013), offers an interesting suggestion to understand the relationship that Indians share with public spaces. Peacock suggests that public spaces, containing hundreds or thousands of people unfamiliar to us, tend to be sites of repelling strangers: “Within the caste system all strangers are automatically considered to be lower in the caste hierarchy than oneself.” Public spaces therefore are sites where aggressive behavior is displayed or performed that goes against any form of civil behavior, in response to the underlying structures of casteism. Thus, he further suggests that “it is perhaps this logic or spirit [of the caste system] that is at work when Indians jump queues or push themselves before others, or basically choose not to follow the norms of what can be considered publicly acceptable behavior”.

Peacock’s suggestion can be used to argue that the physical location of public spaces – be they parks, roads, beaches, trains or anything else – are sites or spaces wherein the development of civic sense is constantly subverted because we are unable to relate to one another as persons outside of our narrow and individualistic identities. There is something that prevents us from being publicly-oriented citizens. Being in a public space leaves us supposedly vulnerable to physical overpowering, caste pollution, and even diseases. This is the reason why public property is often repeatedly vandalized or left to decay without any care. In many ways, it can be argued that a sense and concept of the ‘public’ is yet to evolve within Indian society. 

The unfortunate episode of the Tejas Express is not an aberration; in fact, one of the maintenance staff remarked that the amount of garbage left behind was just like any other train. As expected the educated, ‘middle class’ who can afford such expensive fares are the ones who are causing all the problems.  

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 7 June, 2017)

ROADS, RECKLESS DRIVING, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION

The alarming rate at which accidents are on the rise in Goa is an issue of major concern. While the number of victims in road accidents keeps on rising, repeated attempts to bring about policy decisions and laws seem to be destined to fail. This article is not a dissection of why these aforementioned measures fail. Rather, it will try to dwell on how we, as Goans, relate to each other whilst making use of roads. Think about it this way, why would the person behind you honk incessantly despite there being no place for you to give way and despite the fact that you are driving at a decent 50 kmph? Why is it that people in cars and on bikes rarely wait to allow pedestrians to cross the road? And why, when tables turn, does one indulge in the same behavior?

Goans with memories of having good roads and good traffic sense would today be quite rare. What would not be rare is the constant usage of the phrase “angar yeilo/yeta” to describe reckless driving. Interestingly, this is the exact same phrase that is used to describe physical aggression: “to mhojea angar yeilo”. So if one thinks about the two contexts in which this Konkani phrase is used, one can argue that driving on roads in Goa is an aggressive act. Thus, whilst on the road, we are either subjected to aggression or we inflict aggression upon someone else. These acts can be reckless driving wherein the vehicle driver endangers the life of others; in other circumstances, it can be loud and incessant honking, or using the full beam at night, or not recognizing the rights of other motorists and pedestrians to share the same space as you. And in the last instance, it can even be the use of verbal abuse and physically scuffling with others.

The next logical question to ask is why are roads sites of aggression in Goa? To answer this we would need to focus on power and privilege, as the architect and urban studies scholar Vishvesh Kandolkar does. Writing not so long ago, Kandolkar argued that one of the reasons is the privileges afforded to them by the Indian caste system that empowers ‘elites’ and/or high-end car owners to flout traffic laws as they do. To that we can also add the fact that as many are denied power and privilege in their social and political sphere, reckless driving can be a manifestation of this lack, enabling non-elites to momentarily feel a sense of power and privilege. As a result they assume themselves to be always in the right and above the law.

If we briefly focus on the history of who could afford cars and scooters in Goa, it would be apparent that privilege has a lot to do with why roads are sites of aggression. The wealthy and the landed class in Goa were the ones who could afford cars and scooters, back in the days when buses and bullock-carts were the more accessible means of transportation. I do not want to claim that only the wealthy and landed classes purchased cars in Goa, because others would as well. Many of the cars were purchased as a business investment, for providing transport facilities or taxi services. Generally, the one who invested would be driving the car and earning a living. However, cars purchased and used solely for the convenience and conveyance of the family members was a privilege that was only available to either those who owned land or those, due to employment in Gulf and on cruise liners, could afford cars from the ’80s. In other words, one could feel a certain entitlement – in the sense of owning the roads and driving on them.

With liberalization of the Indian economy and the availability of loans to the middle-class in the service sector, more and more Goans were able to acquire vehicles. This, in itself, is not a bad thing as more and more people could acquire prosperity. However, one cannot but help thinking if an anciently entrenched form of privilege along with a sense of entitlement is the only way through which we understand how to use roads. In other words, an ‘elite’ behavior and understanding that ‘I’ and solely ‘I’ am right – the other is not, is the only way we know how to behave on the roads and relate to each other. Ultimately, due to the virtue of owning a car or a scooter, ‘I’ do not recognize the right of others to share the same public space because ‘I’ think that ‘I’ am entitled (and above the law) and that everyone else should make way for me. Like in other public spaces such as parks, ‘we’ as a community have until now not been able to lay our collective claim on it. Only some of us can, while others resent it. There is always a friction which causes us to display aggressive behavior.

This is not to suggest that aggressive behavior is solely the cause of accidents on roads. Factors like sleep-deprivation and bad roads can also be major causes. However, the acts of aggression exhibited on Goan roads make the experience of moving from one place to another unpleasant and frustrating. This aggressive behavior on roads does not allow us to value human life, as it should be. While the efforts of the state, such as wider roads and more policing (which actually leads to harassing the citizenry) have not borne any results, checking our aggressive behavior could be a start at fixing the problem.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 17 February, 2016)