When orchards grew around Joda Fatak

Rajiv Sharma

MY entire childhood was spent around the site of the Amritsar train tragedy, Joda Fatak, named so because of two parallel level crossings. It seems my playground has been stabbed and mutilated. Our ancestral house was barely 200 yards from the track. I still remember the days when we would stand on the roof of our house for hours to catch a glimpse of the moving train. Those were the days when Amritsar was not thickly populated. The whole area around Joda Fatak had large orchards of guava and pear.  

But now, with the huge influx of migrant labour, the city is bursting at the seams. Whatever little progress the city makes in terms of civic amenities is superseded by a mile by the ever-growing population.

The administration is in a state of deep slumber. We have become a country of reactive administration, which wakes up only when something untoward happens, only to go back to deep stupor again, and await the next tragedy. Since we are a densely populated country, we need to have proactive plans and policies to ensure the safety of people while celebrating various festivals in the open.  

Allegations and counter-allegations will be made, and inquiries will be ordered. Politicians will not leave any stone unturned to garner sympathy and votes of the remaining hapless residents. But will something fruitful come out of this heart-wrenching tragedy, or will this incident too enter the annals of Indian railway history as a mere statistic?

People have lost faith in the system, which has meekly surrendered to the politicians, who, in turn, dance to the whims of ‘mohalla leaders’, who are the right hand of the men in power. Local leaders insist on organising multiple celebrations to please their masters and show them the power they wield over the voters. What was the need of celebrating Dasehra at six places in a single legislative constituency, when air pollution is already a huge problem in the country? Why was the area not cordoned? Why is the track passing through densely populated areas not barricaded?

No amount of compensation can bring back the smiles on the faces of mothers who have lost their young children and the wives who lost their husbands and bread-winners? I shudder to think about the fate of the families who travelled hundreds of miles to this end of the country in search of greener pastures, unmindful of what destiny had in store for them.

This is no time to play politics on the corpses of the innocent, it is time for introspection. What can we say to assuage the feeling of the families who have lost their kin? What can we do to prevent such incidents from recurring? This can be the only obituary we can offer to the departed souls.