Policing deviant behaviour is a tough task till we learn to value our public heritage
Nothing, not even the kind of boorish barbarity that passes off as rustic humour in this country, can justify the damage done to Train 18, India’s fastest train, by stone pelters running along the tracks during its trial run between Delhi and Agra. If the vandalism was meant to draw attention to the relevance of the underbelly in our national discourse or a nihilistic attempt to hit back at a train that wasn’t considered massy enough, then one would have still understood. But it just appears to be an extension of a mindless sport in the heartland, faceless rowdies running alongside tracks no stranger for regular rail travellers. In that sense, there is no implicit protest or ideological hitback, just what psychological researchers have called “play vandalism” where public property is damaged in the context of a community game — who can break windows, who can topple the highest street lamps, deface a statue and attempt photo-worthy feats. It is just youthful assertion of an unbound energy that looks at taking on public taboos and a list of don’ts as a way to disrupt boredom and find something exciting in our lives. Except this time the men had attacked the very pride of India and one that would transform the face of connectivity as we know it today. Train 18, that runs at a speed of 180 kmph, is a glorious example of the government’s much-touted ‘Make in India’ initiative and has rolled out indigenously from ICF Chennai. It is an engineless train intended to replace Shatabdis that dart to state capitals and back in a day and will also run between Delhi and Varanasi, turning north India into a huge economic and logistic hub with a free-flowing traffic of talent and people. And in keeping with the ecologically-challenged times, the train has an advanced regenerative braking system which saves power.
Behind such displays of destruction is the lack of national pride in our public property and the idea that common spaces are meant for all kinds of activity, even destructive ones, simply because nobody else was paying for them but the government. What else could explain the plunder of the Tejas Express that runs between Mumbai and Goa this March. This time it was passengers who inflicted the maximum damage, stealing earphones, trying to pluck out LCDs, scratching them in the process, soiling toilets and littering coaches. Do we then not consider ourselves worthy of comfortable travel? Perhaps this was born of the same sense of entitlement that sees fans, fixtures and even lavatory equipment chained to the coach in long distance trains for fear that they might be taken apart for private use. Vandalism hasn’t spared our highways either. Months after the Prime Minister inaugurated the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, miscreants took away solar panels, batteries and lights across its stretches. Policing deviant behaviour is a tough task till we learn to value our public heritage as a reflection of who we are. The regular defacement of archaeological sites is another prime example of disrespecting our own sense of nationhood. That mindset needs to be changed from the level of primary education with more activities in public spaces that let children feel a sense of ownership. Of course, the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, exists on paper but can never be implemented when the offenders are a faceless mob. Also, it doesn’t help that there are so many precedents that pinning down one case doesn’t quite spark collective outrage at what has come to be accepted as common. The Indian Railways is considered our national lifeline but till we realise that we are strangling it by our own ignorance, all projections of our leading the 21st century fall flat.
