The Indian Railways Enclosure Movement

It is not too long ago I learned what “Enclosure Movement” meant. I may be wrong on details but the thing goes like this: In the 17^th century, in Scotland and possibly in England too, public grazing lands were “enclosed” for private use, for sheep grazing. This is how “property” came to be privatized and in its wake came, “property rights”.

Over time this “enclosure” movement migrated upwards, from land to air. This is one way of understanding the tough stances taken by the developed and developing countries as regards the “stock” and “flow” conceptions of carbon emissions. The developed nations had “enclosed” the atmosphere and have let their emissions flow out freely into the global atmosphere while retaining the “purity” of their “enclosed” air since the time of Industrial Revolution (IR). To understand this, please do imagine what would have happened to the atmosphere in developed countries had we had some way of restricting airflows across national boundaries. Their emissions would have stayed theirs.

And, they demand that they should be allowed to leak out their further emissions in to the global commons and the developing nations are balking. The parallels are striking.

But, in this post, I am not going to be talking about such “ethereal” matters when it comes to issues of enclosure. Yet, it will be still IR, Indian Railways. Rather I will be travelling from Delhi to Chennai, on rails, by the Tamil Nadu Express, in an AC II Tier coach.

I had always felt very uncomfortable travelling in AC coaches on Indian Railways. The toilet situation is not a whole lot different in AC coaches vis-à-vis the Sleeper Class coaches. Four space-disabled toilets (and one of them of the western style with the seat wet and possibly dirty too at the beginning of the journey) for about 70-80 passengers. So, I end up paying extra for nothing extra, discount the air conditioning. But, the reason I truly hate AC coaches are the drapes that hang down on the aisle side.

It is a felt compulsion that people filing into their compartments pull the drapes across behind them. The drapes stay drawn through the duration of the journey, across all the compartments. OK, there is an extenuating circumstance: The drapes do not hang on rings sliding across the rod. But, that is just an excuse. One could always gather the drape to the sides and create an archway, a sense of opening; not complete isolation. No, we cannot do that!

Why? “We want our privacy. Oh, as per sun light, we have the windows.” This is a false point of argument. What is true on the aisle side is equally true on the windows side; the drapes cannot be drawn back fully. The sunlight that filters through these half drawn drapes should sustain four human lives and the assortment of insects and possibly a mouse or two! Quite an impossibility.

I give below a few photographs. It is up to you to figure out which of these were taken during night time (around 2 AM) and which during day time (around noon). You take it on my word that I had not used any tricks to make things darker or brighter. The exposure is “As is”, and taken at the shortest exposure time (without flash) that would accommodate camera shaking, one twentieth of a second. There are a few shots taken with the flash, just to indicate the brightness obtained even with it, as the drapes are dark.

There may be some clues, but the fact that one needs such subtle nods to discern night from day is about as severe and indictment of railways enclosure as there can be.

You may notice that the aisle resembles a prison, a dark, narrow corridor and a row of doors to the left and right.

The sliding gate photograph, taken in the coach near the doors, is my metaphor for the situation.

Here, my complaint is about the notions of privacy and how it isolates one from public interactions. Yes, when an individual interacts with the public there will be instances of friction, but the opportunities for positive exchanges are not foreclosed. Being afraid of tackling the former, one deprives oneself of the possibilities of latter.

I can vouch for it, by citing my two trips, down to Chennai and back up to Delhi by Duronto Express, again AC II Tier coach. On the onward journey, my compartment-mates were fully reticent, so much so that not much transpired between the couple. On the return trip, my three compartment mates were associated with the defence forces and I was the only civilian. And, we were a voluble group. And, it was a wonderful experience, all of us arguing with, learning from the others. There was a young lady an officer who in particular was so sweet and silken smooth in her conversations, it was truly enjoyable.

That tells me that the enclosure through drapes, in the overall reckoning, carries a negative return. Indian Railways may think of diluting the severity of such enclosures, and so too travelers in AC coaches.

This must inform the current global talks on climate change etc. including the differentiated responsibilities of the developed and developing countries. There are no drapes in the global atmosphere.

Raghuram Ekambaram