The Encroachers

This one was probably the shortest of my journeys on railway; a round trip aggregating just a little over a kilometer. And this time, I didn't board a train either... I walked! From a small station named Pratapnagar to the nearest home signal on track, and back. Too short; too insignificant; but enough for a story :)


Pratapnagar is one of those non-descript railway stations that see only two or three trains a day. A quiet heaven where there are neither engines to reverberate the whole place with their groans nor crowds to give competition to these engines. Where the tracks can be spared for us to play with, for some time atleast, and station staff can be spared to explain to us the nitty gritties of operations. So, when it was time to take probationers for familiarization with signalling system on stations, Pratapnagar was an obvious choice...


To understand the signalling systems, obviously, we had to see the signals. So we started off along the track towards the home signal. In the beginning, railway land was pretty clean and reasonably well maintained on both sides of the track, and we thought that it was going to be a short and sweet trip. But just a few dozen paces and we were able to sniff the troubles ahead :)... The tell tale marks of Naipaul's India were omnipresent...and not just as a distant horror that could, at the most, cause anxiety and nausea. The danger was immediate, right there on the track!... had we not been extra careful, our shoes would have made us remember this trip much longer than anybody would like to. Horrible...It couldn't get any worse than this.

Or probably, it could... We only had to wait till we crossed the overbridge enroute. There onwards, the railway land did not exist at all! The only thing we could find was the railway track, the signals... and the slums.

The whole place was littered with polythene bags, some well set in large heaps and others flying around. To the smell of night soil, was now added, the aroma of rotten vegetables and of the ubiquitous slimes and moulds, that could survive on anything.
And then, the whole place was littered with children too, running amok all over the place. In stark contrast to the station which, like a polished English gentleman, adorned a graceful and ordered demeanour, here u found the cacophonous chaos so typical of an Indian. Filth, stagnant water, diseases, howls of children, grunts of grown ups...and amidst all this... people lived here. It seemed these people too, like slimes and moulds, could survive with just about anything.

So, these were the encroachers we have often been told about. "Despicable fellows, who have illegally gobbled up our land, and who, by their political clout in this great democracy of ours, continue to flout all rules unabashedly without any fear of punishment". And I remembered that as a representative of the Railways, it was our bounden duty to purge the place of all these evils; to throw off all the plastic sheets and the people who lived inside them...

...But, I could not help observing the slum more closely and reflecting about it. It occured to me, "The slum-dwellers are also humans". An obvious fact? Yes...it is a fact, but one that is conveniently forgotten while making policies in our office, a fact that everyone knows but none has really internalized. Only at times like this, when we make a rendezvous with the reality, do we realize the import of this fact. And for this short period our perspective changes...mine certainly did.

These were fellow humans, who were living in the most pitiable of conditions. Forget terraces, forget bedrooms, forget even toilets...they did not have even a proper roof. What was a ten by ten plastic sheet for me was a home for them, their only protection from the vagaries of sun and rain... and there too, some unfortunate ones had to grapple with holes in their roof, covering them with whatever they could arrange out of the big heap of waste plastic. Without fail, there were no walls, no partitions. The family lived outside, cooked outside, slept outside, the "home" being primarily meant for storing things. And then there were the mosquitoes to grapple with too. A few richer ones had been able to buy mosquito nets for themselves. But the poor ones ofcourse could not afford even that. In this generally inhospitable surrounding, the railway track, thankfully, provided the much needed open space for the locality, and it was put to maximum use. As a playground by the children, as a place to cook meals...and also as the place for daily ablutions.

And even with the inhuman life that these people are leading, we are not ready to let them be. We want to oust them. And we take the fact that they have not been removed to imply that these people use political influence for their illegitimate gains. Do you think such deprived men could ever have a political clout? Far from it. The political noises we hear are made by others who have the capacity to be vociferous on issues. These slum-dwellers, unfortunately, are doomed to a silent existence. They are not hard stones that can injure you if you try to hit them. They are mere sponges that simply acquiesce...that succumb to the slightest of pressures. Hundreds of times there have been anti-encroachment drives by railway staff. Do these people raise voices? No. They simply pack everything and move to a nearby footpath lest even the puny possessions of theirs may get destroyed in the whirlwind of official farman. And there they wait patiently, till the pressure is withdrawn when they can again, silently, slip back to their original dwelling.

These people have broken many laws, but that does not mean they do it without fear. Infact, they have a morbid fear of even the most humble of government employees and would never do anything that has even a remote chance of angering the railway staff. One person had piled in bamboo just by the side of the signal post to tie the washing line. It required extra cost, but the poor chap could not dare to tie the rope to the signal post for the fear that it may cause any sort of inconvinience to the signal inspector which would almost certainly have meant another anti-encroachment drive. You and me know that tying a rope to signal post is nothing when compared to an offence like capturing government land...but for them, it was a change from status quo... a possible cause for the obliteration for their meagre belongings...a huge risk to their survival.

Yes, they might be living in highly deplorable conditions. Yes, they might have broken a hundred laws. But then... do they have any choice either? Afterall, as long as they live, they do need a place to sit, to cook, to play, to sleep....to exist. Where will they go if they are ousted from here? Will they be provided any support by the society? Yes, they have encroached upon the government land but by trying to throw them off are we not encroaching upon their basic right to life...

But wait a minute; why was I thinking of all that? Why was I excessively worrying about them? I remembered again; It was the duty of railway employees to remove all such encroachments and we should not deviate from our duty. I asked one of the station staff who had accompanied us, whether any action was planned against these slums. He just said one thing..."are sir inko yahan se hata diya to ye kahan jayenge".

Hmmm... probably I would have got the same answer if I had asked other station staff or the station master. I looked at my colleagues, who were going to be officers very soon; irrespective of what they may do in their official capacity, it was obvious from their grim faces that at that particular moment, removing slums was the last thing on their mind. Perhaps the higher authorities too feel the same way whenever they come here. And leave all of them, if u like, for they are not directly inconvinienced by the slum... Think of the khalasi who has to regularly clean the night soil on track, who has to bear all the filth of this "illegitimate settlement". Even he has not filed a complaint till now. Why?

because... " yahan se hata diya to kahan jayenge "

It was not just me...everybody in railways thought the same way. In between our rigid rule based working, and our so called high handedness with the public at large, we have still not lost our touch with humanity.

For a moment...just for a short, fleeting moment, I felt proud of the fact, that railwaymen do not discharge their duties properly :)