Recently stone pelting once again made headlines when Omar Abdullah declared a one-time amnesty for the stone- pelters in Kashmir. Social media was flooded with observations, questions and varied responses pertaining to this decision. This brought back the turbulent memories of my visit to the Valley when stone-pelting was at its peak. I also tweeted a bit and then forgot all about it in some time. Though, my amnesia lasted only till I faced stone-pelting. Once again. And this time, not in Kashmir.
I was supposed to join my husband in Kolkata and despite his fierce protests I chose to travel by train. He tried his best to persuade me to take a flight but I put my foot down and booked a seat in Howrah Rajdhani. For me there is something romantic about a train journey which even the most comfortable air travel cannot match. Travelling by an aircraft, one reaches the destination without experiencing the journey. A rail-trip, on the other hand, educates you in the process of getting you to the destination. On my eventful Delhi-Kolkata journey I too learnt a thing or two. About the stone-pelters.
An hour after it started from New Delhi Railway Station on September 7, Rajdhani Express too caught up with the latest trend in the country: bangs and booms. Incidentally, in the morning India’s Rajdhani (capital) shook with the blast in the High Court premises. Everyone was talking about it, while trying to settle in the designated seats. Uncomfortable with mine- it was right next to the door- I was desperate to get it changed. Before it could be done, I had a déjà vu experience. My glass window got shattered by a stone-pelter’s perfectly aimed missile. I had a family with a seven month old boy as co-passengers. A few bewildered moments later, when all of us realized what had happened, the child was carefully examined for any injuries. Mercifully, there was none. None of us got hurt and we called the coach staff to clean the shards of glass that were strewn everywhere on our seats and the floor.
The staff came with “first-aid” material for repairing the window lest the air-conditioning suffered. As the “bandaging” was in progress we heard shrieks. Another stone missile and another shattered glass. Unfortunately, the passenger sitting next to it was not as lucky as us. The splinters had injured his face and people around him were in a state of shock. Needless to say, I began to doubt my decision to travel by train. Since I had requested the coach superintendent for a change of seat, I was rushed to the next coach where I settled comfortably in my Upper Berth. I started to think about my narrow escape and suddenly two of the coach attendants ran past. The TTE followed and informed the curiosity stricken travellers that yet another window got attacked two coaches ahead.
This incident of stone-pelting, most likely, will go unnoticed by media. The foremost reason being, apparently it was not a part of any organized agitation. There was probably no agenda behind these attacks. Most importantly, this did not happen in Kashmir. This perhaps was a sport activity for many an idle adolescents staying close to the railway tracks. Who shatters the window emerges as a winner. Yes, I was informed by the superintendent that many young boys bet and aim at the train windows. And what better target than the Rajdhani!
Rajdhani, the symbol of elitism for many decades. As a child I was amused by the stories about its plush interiors, polite attendants and delicious food. This was an era when low-cost carriers had not entered the market and air-travels were beyond the imaginative horizon of Indian small towns. For most of us, the Rajdhani ticket was a status symbol. Years later, Rajdhani has lost its snobbish glamour, becoming a bit more vivid in terms of its passenger composition. Thanks to the advent of low-cost carriers and ever-slipping standards of the Indian Railways’ service, Indians are flying more often. Interestingly, despite all the odds Rajdhani has retained its status as the unattainable mistress for a large number of people. And the broken windows are a testimony to this. A comfortable train journey still remains a distant dream for a huge chunk of rural population of India. There is no money, no reservation counters and no stoppages to let them travel in say, Rajdhani Express. They see this plush red-and-yellow train and its endless glass windows. The jet-setters may find it uninspiring but for the rest Rajdhani is an object of desire. And the stone-pelting could be seen as an equivalent to acid attacks on many young women in the country. If I can’t have you, I’ll scar you.
Attacking the train windows may also be seen as a sign of protest, and this is what the two stone-pelters - the one in Kashmir and the other in rural Uttar Pradesh or Bihar- have in common. They both are protesting against a system that ignores them. Their stories get lost in the larger narratives of nation building and modernization. In Kashmir, stone-pelting is a collective exercise: a political act of dissent and backed by multitudes. Around the railway tracks, the shattered windows are a result of an individual’s shattered dreams. The very act of throwing a stone may have different connotations in the two contexts but what underlies it is discontentment. The stone-pelter wants his situation changed. Lop-sidedness and apathy in formulating policies give birth to stone-pelters. Sometimes the marginalized come together and create the phenomenon of ‘stone-pelting’ and sometimes it is the lone stone hurled. Both are equally potent symbols: of disenchantment, thwarted hopes and helplessness.
The glasses will be repaired in these coaches and the Valley may also assume a semblance of normalcy, but what will remain unchanged is the angst of the stone-pelter. It is just a matter of time that more Rajdhani windows will be broken and more stones hurled at government representatives and security forces. I’m now close to reaching Kolkata and pondering over these questions and thinking of booking my air-ticket for the non-journey back home in Delhi.
