I have now been in India for over two
years and a half after my return from South Africa. Over one quarter of that
time I have passed on the Indian trains travelling third class by choice. I
have travelled up north as far as Lahore, down south up to Tranquebar, and from
Karachi to Calcutta. Having resorted to third class travelling, among other
reasons, for the purpose of studying the conditions under which this class of
passengers travel, I have naturally made as critical observations as I could. I
have fairly covered the majority of railway systems during this period. Now and
then I have entered into correspondence with the management of the different
railways about the defects that have come under my notice. But I think that the
time has come when I should invite the press and the public to join in a
crusade against a grievance which has too long remained unredressed, though
much of it is capable of redress without great difficulty.
On the 12th instant I booked at Bombay for Madras by the mail
train and paid Rs. 13-9. It was labelled to carry 22 passengers. These could
only have seating accommodation. There were no bunks in this carriage whereon
passengers could lie with any degree of safety or comfort. There were two
nights to be passed in this train before reaching Madras. If not more than 22
passengers found their way into my carriage before we reached Poona, it was
because the bolder ones kept the others at bay. With the exception of two or
three insistent passengers, all had to find their sleep being seated all the
time. After reaching Raichur the pressure became unbearable. The rush of
passengers could not be stayed. The fighters among us found the task almost
beyond them. The guards or other railway servants came in only to push in more
passengers.
A defiant Memon merchant protested against this packing of
passengers like sardines. In vain did he say that this was his fifth night on
the train. The guard insulted him and referred him to the management at the
terminus. There were during this night as many as 35 passengers in the carriage
during the greater part of it. Some lay on the floor in the midst of dirt and
some had to keep standing. A free fight was, at one time, avoided only by the
intervention of some of the older passengers who did not want to add to the
discomfort by an exhibition of temper.
On the way passengers got for tea tannin water with filthy sugar
and a whitish looking liquid mis-called milk which gave this water a muddy
appearance. I can vouch for the appearance, but I cite the testimony of the
passengers as to the taste.
Not during the whole of the journey was the compartment once swept
or cleaned. The result was that every time you walked on the floor or rather
cut your way through the passengers seated on the floor, you waded through
dirt.
The closet was also not cleaned during the journey and there was
no water in the water tank.
Refreshments sold to the passengers were dirty-looking, handed by
dirtier hands, coming out of filthy receptacles and weighed in equally
unattractive scales. These were previously sampled by millions of flies. I
asked some of the passengers who went in for these dainties to give their
opinion. Many of them used choice expressions as to the quality but were
satisfied to state that they were helpless in the matter; they had to take
things as they came.
On reaching the station I found that the ghari-wala would not take
me unless I paid the fare he wanted. I mildly protested and told him I would pay
him the authorised fare. I had to turn passive resister before I could be
taken. I simply told him he would have to pull me out of the ghari or call the
policeman.
The return journey was performed in no better manner. The carriage
was packed already and but for a friend's intervention I could not have been
able to secure even a seat. My admission was certainly beyond the authorised
number. This compartment was constructed to carry 9 passengers but it had
constantly 12 in it. At one place an important railway servant swore at a
protestant, threatened to strike him and locked the door over the passengers
whom he had with difficulty squeezed in. To this compartment there was a closet
falsely so called. It was designed as a European closet but could hardly be
used as such. There was a pipe in it but no water, and I say without fear of
challenge that it was pestilentially dirty.
The compartment itself was evil looking. Dirt was lying thick upon
the wood work and I do not know that it had ever seen soap or water.
The compartment had an exceptional assortment of passengers. There
were three stalwart Punjabi Mahomedans, two refined Tamilians and two Mahomedan
merchants who joined us later. The merchants related the bribes they had to
give to procure comfort. One of the Punjabis had already travelled three nights
and was weary and fatigued. But he could not stretch himself. He said he had
sat the whole day at the Central Station watching passengers giving bribe to
procure their tickets. Another said he had himself to pay Rs. 5 before he could
get his ticket and his seat. These three men were bound for Ludhiana and had
still more nights of travel in store for them.
What I have described is not exceptional but normal. I have got
down at Raichur, Dhond, Sonepur, Chakradharpur, Purulia, Asansol and other
junction stations and been at the 'Mosafirkhanas' attached to these stations.
They are discreditable-looking places where there is no order, no
cleanliness but utter confusion and horrible din and noise. Passengers have no
benches or not enough to sit on. They squat on dirty floors and eat dirty food.
They are permitted to throw the leavings of their food and spit where they
like, sit how they like and smoke everywhere. The closets attached to these
places defy description. I have not the power adequately to describe them
without committing a breach of the laws of decent speech. Disinfecting powder,
ashes, or disinfecting fluids are unknown. The army of flies buzzing about them
warns you against their use. But a third-class traveller is dumb and helpless.
He does not want to complain even though to go to these places may be to court
death. I know passengers who fast while they are travelling just in order to
lessen the misery of their life in the trains. At Sonepur flies having failed,
wasps have come forth to warn the public and the authorities, but yet to no purpose.
At the Imperial Capital a certain third class booking-office is a Black-Hole
fit only to be destroyed.
Is it any wonder that plague has become endemic in India? Any
other result is impossible where passengers always leave some dirt where they
go and take more on leaving.
On Indian trains alone passengers smoke with impunity in all
carriages irrespective of the presence of the fair sex and irrespective of the
protest of non-smokers. And this, notwithstanding a bye-law which prevents a
passenger from smoking without the permission of his fellows in the compartment
which is not allotted to smokers.
The existence of the awful war cannot be allowed to stand in the
way of the removal of this gigantic evil. War can be no warrant for tolerating
dirt and overcrowding. One could understand an entire stoppage of passenger
traffic in a crisis like this, but never a continuation or accentuation of
insanitation and conditions that must undermine health and morality.
Compare the lot of the first class passengers with that of the
third class. In the Madras case the first class fare is over five times as much
as the third class fare. Does the third class passenger get one-fifth, even
one-tenth, of the comforts of his first class fellow? It is but simple justice to
claim that some relative proportion be observed between the cost and comfort.
It is a known fact that the third class traffic pays for the
ever-increasing luxuries of first and second class travelling. Surely a third
class passenger is entitled at least to the bare necessities of life.
In neglecting the third class passengers, opportunity of giving a
splendid education to millions in orderliness, sanitation, decent composite
life and cultivation of simple and clean tastes is being lost. Instead of
receiving an object lesson in these matters third class passengers have their
sense of decency and cleanliness blunted during their travelling experience.
Among the many suggestions that can be made for dealing with the
evil here described, I would respectfully include this: let the people in high
places, the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief, the Rajas, Maharajas, the Imperial
Councillors and others, who generally travel in superior classes, without
previous warning, go through the experiences now and then of third class
travelling. We would then soon see a remarkable change in the conditions of
third class travelling and the uncomplaining millions will get some return for
the fares they pay under the expectation of being carried from place to place
with ordinary creature comforts.