Railway’s Kumbh Mela Surcharge is like Jazia Tax

Ever since Kumbh Mela has started this year 2013 at ancient city Prayag, TV News channels and print media have been bringing out many reports on the arrangements done by the government to facilitate the pilgrims. Everything was going alright and peacefully and the whole nation was getting tremendous positive energy by the good atmosphere created by the Kumbh. But then, as if in an anti-climax, an accident happened at Allahabad railway station which distressed all of us. But reading even little about the accident brings out many hidden truths:
 

Indian Railways had imposed Rs 5-20 tax called Mela Surcharge on everyone using its facility to reach to the Kumbh Mela. The surcharges are as follows:
 

Sleeper: Rs 5

AC Chair Car: Rs 10

3AC: Rs 10

2AC: Rs 15

1AC: Rs 20

The Target for Railways was: Rs 1000 Crores of Profit during the Kumbh Mela!
 

It was a shocking revelation that Indian Railways imposed a tax on Hindu pilgrims for completing their pilgrimage!!! Though there is some business logic in it – how could the Railways provide additional and exceptional services to the huge number of people traveling if it did not charge more? Total 10 Crore people were expected to visit the Kumbh and the number of foreign visitors is expected to be 10 Lakh! But the manner, in which the accident was handled, exposes the Railways to the core:
 

The Times of India reports that Railways had released only 50 medical boxes for the lakhs of passengers expected to come to the Allahabad Railway station on the Mauni Amavasya day. And when the accident happened, these boxes were nowhere to be found! And how did the accident happen in the first place?
 

The railway station was totally packed with lakhs of outstation pilgrims (who were forced by the authorities to leave the riverside immediately after taking the holy dip and hence had come to the railway station to travel to their places). Trains were running as late as 20 hours and were all packed. A train was expected to come at Platform number 4 but suddenly Railways announced that the train was arriving on Platform number 6! People rushed to change the platforms using the bridge. Then GRP (Government Railway Police) then lathi-charged (caned) the pilgrims to control the crowd! This created a panic in commuters who ran and stampede happened… It is clear that this was a “man-made” disaster!
 

Why I say Railway’s Kumbh Mela Surcharge is like Jazia Tax because the Railways taxed pilgrims but failed to provide then facility! Minister  “In charge” Azam Khan has resigned from ministry but it is expected that after some weeks pass he will be inducted back into the Samajwadi Party government in UP. 36 people are dead and so many injured. It is immensely sad the way Railways and the Government have used Hindu Pilgrims as Cash Cows for monetary benefits…
 

References:

Times of India, “No justification for Railways’ Kumbh surcharge”, TNN | Feb 12, 2013, 04.55 AM

Jagran Post, “Railways increase Kumbh Mela surcharge from 1st January”, 07 Dec 2012, 08:47 PM

Times of India, “Crowd mismanagement, change of platform caused Kumbh stampede: Witnesses”,  Feb 12, 2013, 12.40 AM

Afzal’s Execution tells Congress is desperate and ready to Risk

“Terrorist Mohammed Afzal’s execution may indicate desperation in the Congress Party to come up well before general elections, but the risks it is taking may not be best for the nation”
 

So finally, after a long wait, terrorist Mohammed Afzal Guru met his destined fate of being met with capital punishment. At the time of posting this post, Congress leader Manish Tewari has accused principle opposition party BJP for playing politics over its criticism of delay in the hanging. That there has been a huge delay can’t be denied. We just have to look at the timeline:
 

Attack on Indian Parliament: December 13, 2001
Sentenced to death by the court in Delhi: December 18, 2002
Death sentence upheld by Delhi High Court: October 29, 2003
Appeal rejected by Supreme Court: August 4, 2005
Actual execution: February 9, 2013

So the party in power can’t accuse the principle opposition party of playing the role of an opposition party. Finding fault lines in the govt is one of the main jobs of an opposition party. This verbal-war aside, the execution itself reveals disturbing truths about the way government is headed towards.
 

During the last 2009 General Elections, BJP had made Afzal’s hanging case a poll issue. It fared miserably in moving the masses and channelizing the voters on the issue of terrorism. By this time, Afzal’s issue was not even able to raise the brow of the voters. So the probability that the issue of pending-execution of Mohammed Afzal would have created some big difference in the upcoming general elections would be a far-fetched vision. So what made the Congress party go for it suddenly and unexpectedly?
 

One reason was to preempt BJP from keep citing pending execution as a failure of government and as a proof of minority appeasement politics which Congress Party plays. Narendra Modi often cited Afzal’s case as a big failure of govt, which would have been in the mind of Congress strategists for some time now. Then Dr. Subramanian Swamy had threatened to pull Manmohan Singh govt to the court, claiming that no-execution was equivalent to insult of the Supreme Court’s order! Then there can be a reason that Congress party always wanted to hang Afzal but the law and order situation was bad and hence had waited for a peaceful spell to thwart any hazard or riots and communal violence. Nothing can be far from the truth than this!
 

Over the last few months, the law and order situation and communal harmony has not been at its best. There was an atrocious attack from Pakistan side where the beheaded one of the Indian soldiers and took the head away (which they never gave back despite Indian side ‘asking’ for it). Then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde made a provocative and colorful allegation on the BJP-RSS of so called terrorism, which resulted in charged moments. Lately, an FIR was filed against Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Dr. Praveen Togadia for so called “hate speech” when he tried to offer a reply to the hate mongering Owaisi. Just when everything was going from bad to worse, govt came up with this execution which resulted in some protests in the Kashmir valley. By all logic, Congress Party was not to lose a lot but would have won some minority votes if it kept Afzal’s execution pending. If it won the next elections, it could have gone ahead with the execution to honor the spirit of the law.
 

What this decision tells most is that the Congress Party is desperate to preempt the opposition parties from having any valid poll-matter. Then, perhaps more importantly it is a clever maneuvering of national psyche where systematically the government is trying to alter the mood of the nation towards anything other than the “real issues”. For how many days now “corruption” has not been in the news? The plan it seems is to keep people engaged and distracted in other issues which can make them forget the rampant corruption cases and scandals which used to break out till a few weeks back. The decision also tells that the govt is ready to take risk for its strategy. It is ready to risk communal harmony in order to win smaller brownie points which may not be in best interests of the nation.

Why Should BJP Declare its PM Candidate

“Will VHP endorse Narendra Modi for PM’s post at Kumbh?” This is a prominent headline in Hindustan Times today. Same is the case with all prominent news media, be it the newspapers or the TV news channels. All are busy focusing on Narendra Modi and speculating on whether he will be declared as BJP’s or NDA’s Prime Ministerial Candidate during the ongoing Kumbh Mela. And a lot of hype has been built around it. The suspicious part is that this whole “campaign” is media devised!
 

The timing of the campaign is much revealing. The campaign was started around the time Rahul Gandhi was declared Vice President of Indian National Congress (popularly called Congress Party) and the news became butt of a joke with people from all quarters ridiculing him and his credentials. Congress Party became uncomfortable, especially with the popular sentiment at the social networking sites and designed its own counter-propaganda initiatives to correct the poor image of Nehru/Gandhi dynasty scion. But the party could not find answer to the one question which was underlying everything, “Does Rahul Gandhi has it in him to become PM some day?” It was from this question, that a need arose to “divert” public attention away from the PM Candidate of Congress Party. Making the focus being diverted to BJP/NDA was a very logical choice. The fact that there were multiple contenders of the post from within BJP/NDA, gave it its much desired leverage.
 

Any discussion to declare Narendra Modi as PM’s candidate would certainly ruffle feathers of a lot of other contenders from within the BJP/NDA. And this media-fed campaign did produce the dividends for Congress Party. Internal fissures within NDA came to the forefront. JDU’s shrewd politician Nitish Kumar was encouraged to further his anti-Modi stance to win some more Muslim voters. BJP came out strongly in favor of Narendra Modi to silence Nitish somehow. Next, NDA’s key ally and an opposite pole of minority-politics player JDU, Shiv Sena came out in the support of Sushma Swaraj. News channels found it easier to keep stretching this campaign for Narendra Modi because of Kumb Mela. Modi’s recent visit to a college in New Delhi (SRCC) to address students was hyped by the media as if it was address to the nation of a future Prime Minister. Everything is falling in the line of what Congress wants!
 

Because of multiple contenders for PM’s role, if BJP/NDA wins the next general elections, it is logically in the best interests of the party to not declare its PM Candidate in advance. Its focus should be on the wrong-doings of the Congress led UPA government’s misdeeds and failures and it should come out as “one team” against the incumbent. Therefore any discussion on “Who should BJP declare its PM Candidate?” is counterproductive to BJP/NDA’s interests. But logically what is wrong for the BJP is good for the Congress Party and using its network and leveraging its power position, the Congress Party is trying to keep the national attention on BJP’s candidate instead of its own!
 

Now the biggest question is: Will the Indian Public look through this design or will they be fooled by the Media barons?