By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,
Exactly one hundred years ago––in 1911—Dr Sun Yat-Sen led a revolution in China, which marked the end of monarchy in that country. On January 1, 1912 he became the President of that country and formed Kuomintang––the party, which played a key role in later years of that country.
But the new republic was not free from problems, as many of those who were well-placed in the old regime, switched sides at the final moment. Former General, Yuan Shi Kai, was one of them who became Prime Minister under him. But as Yuan started flexing muscle and China was on the verge of disintegration Dr Sen came up with a formula. He stepped down from the post of President and contended with the Railway Ministry. He allowed Yuan to become the President of the new republic.
Dr Sen’s plan was to connect entire China with the help of railways. It is other thing that his dream was cut short for a few years and he had to flee from the country in 1913 as Yuan betrayed him. The latter usurped all the powers and wanted to declare himself as Emperor but died in 1916 before he could achieve the goal. This gave Dr Sen an opportunity to return to China and re-establish his hold till his death in 1925.
As the leader of China he worked tirelessly for re-uniting and consolidating the country. A century later the world knows Dr Sen as the architect of the modern China. And the Chinese railways have travelled several generations in the last so many decades––though there was a period of stagnancy too. Only recently China signed a deal with Kazakhstan under which it will lay down the track on which train can run as high as 360 km per hour.
The Chinese railways have reached the top of the world in Lhasa five years ago and in no time would be crossing Karakoram to reach the Arabian Sea ports in Pakistan. Thus China is reviving the old Silk Routes with a network of tracks to Central Asia.
Chinese labours and technicians had played a key role in laying railway tracks in the United States and Canada in the latter half of the 19th century, especially on the western part of these two countries of North America.
If a few months after 1911 revolution a President steps down to become Railway Minister of China, in 2011 the Indian Railway Minister, as per the general impression, wishes to travel to power in Writers’ Building in Kolkata, perhaps sitting in a Doranto Express. This fastest Indian train still runs at less than half of the speed of fastest Chinese trains.
Whether Railway Ministry is more prestigious a post or chief ministership of a state is a different story here. But Mamata Banerjee is not the first to do so. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is also a former Railway Minister. However, he became the chief minister only after his Alliance was voted out of power in Delhi. Mamata’s case is different.
It is not only under Mamata that all the trains lead to the home state of the Railway Minister. Lalit Narayan Mishra, Kamlapati Tripathi, Jafar Sharief, A B A Ghani Khan Chaudhary, Ram Vilas Paswan, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav etc were all blamed for paying too much attention to their respective home states.
Late Jagjiwan Ram, who later became the deputy Prime Minister of India, was a different kind of man who did virtually nothing for his constituency, Sasaram, in Bihar. The only thing he could do is to order the stoppage of Howrah-Kalka Mail in Sasaram. Now his daughter, Meira Kumar, the Speaker of Lok Sabha, represents that constituency. On February 25, 2011 while presenting the Railway Budget––the only Ministry which has been presenting a separate budget since 1924––Mamata announced a new Express train linking Sasaram with the national capital. Curiously there is no direct Express train from Sasaram to Bihar’s capital Patna. Only a passenger train has started a few weeks back, thanks to the railway track laid down during the tenure of Lalu Yadav.
In the last few years the Indian Railway Ministers have done what Dr Sun Yat-Sen could not do in his own country. And what Dr Sen actually did we in India could never do.
True the Indian Railways too have got contracts in some African and Middle East countries but we are no match to the challenge posed by China. Yes, we are now trying to take our trains to the highland of Kashmir Valley but by the time the work will be over the Chinese trains would have travelled a generation ahead.
No Indian President or Prime Minister has stepped down to become the Railway Minister of the country as Dr Sen did initially. Yet we have an example of Lal Bahadur Shahstri quitting after a major railway accident. Much later Madhavrao Scindia also put in his papers after a major mishap but he too like others was responsible for promoting his own constituency, Gwalior, during his tenure in the Rail Bhawan.
Mamata, in contrast, sees Marxists’ hands in all the accidents which took place during her stay in Rail Bhawan.
But Mamata has one thing Chinese in her. Dr Sen was succeeded by Chiang Kai Shek as the President of China, who was later overthrown by the Communists on October 1, 1949. The Chairman of the Communist Party of China was none else but Chairman Mao Zedong who ruled the country till 1976. Though Maoism ceases to remain a force in post-Deng Xiaoping China in India Maoists have dug themselves deep in the jungles in several states. Mamata’s party, the Trinamool Congress, is soft towards them. But Mamata has small consolation in Dr Sen. His name sounds somewhat Bengali.
What the stormy petrel of Bengal needs to learn from China is not any political ideology but the work culture. Her railways is on the verge of derailment and it is feared that one day it may be forced to privatize. Her predecessor Lalu Yadav always claims that he left the Railways in a very good health and it earned the profit of about Rs 90,000 crore in five years. He never fails to remind that when he took over from Nitish Kumar the Railways were on the verge of collapsing.
Whether Lalu played with jugglery or really achieved something good is for the experts to say. But there is near unanimity in the view that the railways under him met with much less number of accidents than under any railway ministers in the last at least a couple of decades. The punctuality level was also better and the trains and platforms were relatively clean.
If in the worst case scenario the Indian Railways is forced to be privatized, in China the revolution in 1911 started on a very different note. In total contrast the Manchus tried to nationalize the railways, which led to the widespread protest in August 1911. The vested interests were not keen to overthrow the monarchy but since the situation was ripe for this big change the spate of unrest ultimately led to the fall of Manchus.
Since in India many opposite developments are taking place, the privatization of the railways may bring about a big unrest in the country. By then Mamata may be or may not be sitting in Writers’ Building. Then a Dr Singh––may be Manmohan––have to play Dr Sen, even without stepping down.