Railway Habits

Acampaign for inculcating railway manners among passengers is to be launched through posters and loudspeakers, and it covers such small but necessary details as “forgetting to use the flush,” a euphemistic expression to indicate a pernicious habit.We must confess that we do not share the optimism of our railways who seem to think, against all experience, that human beings are teachable. It is those who do not know, who have to be taught; but those who do not care, have also to be made careful.

It is the educated Indian who is very often the worst offender. Having learnt all that he is capable of, he regards all instruction as impertinence. “Social education” for these needs to be supplemented by “social compulsion.”

To a large extent, the neglect – not the forgetting, let it be remembered – arises out of caste habits. The relegation of unpleasant work to a caste has made the rest of us indifferent to things concerning that work and to the environment in which that work is done. Even the railways which ought to know better and do better, fail to provide railway sweepers with the disninfectant without which all the cleaning becomes just routine, “sarkar-ka-hookum,” a meaningless ritual.

“Social education” is all right as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. It should be made the responsibility of the persons occupying a railway compartment to maintain the toilet in a reasonably clean condition, just as it is the railway’s responsibility to ensure this at the outset.

There will be difficulties, of course, with passengers who alight and enter at intermediate stations, and it will not be possible to enforce this in all cases. But a few publicised cases of enforcement will go a long way to ensure more consideration for others.

(EDIT, April 16, 1955.)