On the evening of 2nd June 2023, while people returned from work and many already went to sleep in the rest of the country, Odisha and the connected cities with the majority of its population didn’t sleep the entire night, will neither be able to do so for months to come and the ones who did couldn’t see the next morning. Three trains collided with each other as a result of an issue in the signal and what the officials have termed a “change in electronic interlocking”. 275 people died on the spot while hundreds were left severely injured. What followed was people rushing to the site to find the leftover body parts of their loved ones and dead bodies crowding the nearby hospitals. Those who were injured are the sole witnesses of the collision and have nothing left behind except the scary memories but at the same time gratitude for coming out alive.
I am reminded of a short poem by Mahmoud Darwish titled ‘The war will end’. He says he does not know who sold the homeland but he knows who paid the price for it. Train accidents as a phenomenon are not something new in India. There have been multiple train accidents in the past, and on whom the onus falls is a question that always remains unanswered. But again, India knows who has always paid the price for it – the common people, the poor traveling from one place to another in search of work, the one returning to his/her village after spending months in the never resting cities and maybe the ones who have built India yet never will find mention anywhere, unfortunately, not even in the news headlines after facing such tragic deaths. A state like Odisha which is already below the poverty line makes the situation even worse – who is to take care of the affected families? Who is to take complete responsibility for the turn of such tragic events? Sadly, nobody.
Accidents like these demand a stringent course of action from the government, accountability by the ministers, or even the resignation of the railway minister. Unsurprisingly, what follows in the nation is maybe two to three tweets, a fair blame game within the political parties, and at most, compensations for the family members. Compensation can never replace the person who might have been the sole breadwinner of the family. Tweets do not even reach the poor people who are the worst affected due to such accidents. Lastly, the blame game just heats the already existing intense and grave situation.
Indian railways have had enough accidents to wake up and do something. While on the one hand, we have the inauguration of the Vande Bharat Express by our Prime Minister, on the other hand, we have his silence, one tweet, and a visit to the affected site. Worse, the Hawroh Puri Vande Bharat Express resumed services soon after while Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw oversaw the progress on the same railway tracts. The primary question then raises in my mind – why has the government’s response been this laid back when it comes to the poor or to the poor states of the nation? One can not deny the fact that it is in states like Odisha and Bihar that laborers from where are building the nation in the first place, quite literally.
While the other passengers might find a way out of this traumatic experience, it is the labor class, the migrants who are in constant search of work, the domestic helpers, the ones who find cities as a means of escape from the rural hardships – it is this group of people who have always faced the brunt of such experiences. Again, who would come to their rescue? Nobody.
Sadly, Indian officials are the first to tweet on May Day but not even the last ones to hear them out on such instances. The Balasore Odisha train accident will be remembered by the generations to come less because of the tragedy but more because of the response of India of 2023.