Indians in the Railway Department

Lahore, Friday, August 22, 1924

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IN our correspondence columns will be found a communication from a reliable source about the deplorable state of affairs in some branches of the Railway administration. The letter reveals the length to which the policy of racial discrimination can be and is still carried in the public services of this country. It would appear from a perusal of this communication that only one Indian had been appointed to the grade of Traffic Inspector (TI) until 1920, when two more Indians were appointed temporarily to the grade, one of whom has since become permanent and the other has retired. As against this, in 1923, there were 44 Europeans and Anglo-Indians working as TIs. Rai Bahadur Ram Saran Das sough to remove this grave injustice by tabling a resolution in February 1923 in the Council of State for the appointment of more Indians to the Traffic Inspector Cadre. The Government accepted the resolution; but our correspondent draws attention to the fact that although it is nearly a year and a half since the resolution was accepted, no action has so far been taken by the authorities of the Railway administration towards the realisation of the purpose of the resolution. If this is true, it speaks volumes for the respect which is paid by the departments to the recommendations of the Legislature even when they are officially accepted. The indifference assumes an aggravated form when we are told that the North-Western Railway have now got more than a dozen “qualified graduates who have passed all the tests, including train working, and whose work has evoked praise from their immediate officers”.