By Kumkum Chadha
The breakfast was kind of inedible. The other option was to buy what was available on board the Vande Bharat train. Hence one settled for a packaged ready-to-eat upma. The service was prompt and within minutes it was served with an ear-to-ear smile by the waiter donning a bandhgala. But on that, a little later.
That the packaged food than the freshly prepared one on the much-hyped Vande Bharat train was far better is another matter. The charge: some 300 odd rupees which one dished out without a second thought. Waiter happy; customer smug.
The issue arose when one asked for a bill for the extra food, in this case the upma. Another smile followed by nervousness: “Nahin hai”, not available. Next question was met with more fumbling only to be told that the “machine was not working”. This after one had seen the computerized hand-held billing machine being used a while ago. It later turned out that the money had been pocketed by the waiter and the fresh upma shown as “damaged” in the records. One later learned that this was the norm and proceeds from all extra food ordered on board is pocketed by the staff.
While this is nothing new and corruption has always been the rule rather than exception on Indian Railways, one had, and perhaps naively, imagined that under the Modi regime things would have improved. And particularly when it came to the much-hyped, high-profile train like Vande Bharat. Well, the answer is “yes” and “no”. “Yes”, as far as the response level to a complaint is concerned and “no” when it involves the basics: namely rooting out corruption.
Social-media savvy that the Modi government is, a tweet especially if the minister is tagged, works like nothing else does. Within minutes, actually seconds of highlighting the issue on X, there was a response and call from the Railways seeking to “know, understand and address the issue”. The reassurance is enough for one to presume that corrective action will follow.
Hence the optimism and the hasty conclusion: This government is different and it works. This is the “Yes” part. But it stops here and does not go beyond.
Board the same train again days later and the same waiter is on duty, serving ready to eat packaged food and pocketing cash without a bill. Defiant, he also looks you straight in the eye, given that you tried to bring him to book.
And here is the harsh reality: Nothing has changed except optics. This is despite the much-publicized intent on social media “know, understand and address the issue”. However, if “addressing” means business as usual then of course it was a job done.
But this is not to suggest that issues are not being addressed. As of now, the minister is busy tweaking the staff uniform and doing away with the bandhgala.
“We have to find every trace of colonialism and banish it,” Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at an event: “Hamare jo bandhgale ka kala suit angrezon ne chalu kiya tha, aaj se yeh railway mein yeh formal dress nahin rahegi” (the black prince coats that the British introduced will no longer be a part of the formal dress of the Railways).
Turning the pages of history, the bandhgala was kind of synonymous with royalty. It was donned by Rajput rulers and Maharajas of Jodhpur. Therefore, when the Indian government called it colonial, Indian designers were quick to contradict this. To quote well-known designer Raghvendra Rathore: “It’s unfair to say this jacket is not part of our own history or it’s the costume of another culture,” adding that it has evolved over four centuries and was here “before the British arrived in Calcutta”. Factual accuracies or inaccuracies apart, Vaishnaw is only echoing what his masters would have liked to hear and want done.
For record, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has time and again said that a developed India means removing every trace of the colonial mindset. And this was not mere talk, but one that was solidly backed by action.
For instance, renaming Rajpath to Kartavya Path: duty over entitlement so to speak; the Indian Navy ensign wherein the colonial Saint George’s Cross was replaced by a design featuring the Indian flag; the Beating Retreat Ceremony featuring Indian instruments like sitar, tabla and santoor; and doing away with the colonial budgetary practice of replacing the briefcase with the traditional bahi-katha which Union finance minister carried with a sense of pride of India and being an Indian so to speak. Merging the Rail Budget with the Union Budget was another step in that direction. The list is long and the exercise is far from over.
If reports are anything to go by, the Modi government has directed ministries and BJP-ruled states to identify and shed colonial practices and replace them with Indian alternatives.
Unconfirmed reports have it that the government is mulling over replacing the black coats and gowns worn by lawyers in Indian courts: a British legacy that necessitates lawyers to wear a black robe with a white neckband. There is also a move to replace the convocation gowns and caps at universities. Of course, the Modi government’s obsession with changing names of cities, schemes, railway stations and even the prime minister’s office is a story in itself.
At one point in time the government even attempted to change the name of the country from India to Bharat. In this context one recalls the G-20 summit where Droupadi Murmu was referred to as President of Bharat in the dinner invites that were sent out to the delegates. Even as the Opposition led by the Congress, slammed the move, the government sat smug with the successful culmination of what turned out to be a grand and successful summit.
But back to the bandhgala, it certainly is what one could call celebrity wear: one donned by film stars, namely Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan and also by Prime Minister Modi himself. In fact, the bandhgala is his “wardrobe staple”, if one may borrow the phrase, for his trips abroad.
To be fair, Vaishnaw is not the first to tout the change. The Indian parliament had bid goodbye to the bandhgala, some three years ago when the secretarial staff there donned Nehru jackets instead of the prince coat, as the bandhgala is also known. The marshals in the Parliament were also seen wearing kurta pyjama with Manipuri turbans instead of the safari suits that was their dress code till the Modi government changed it all.
Is there a method to this madness? There sure is because Indianness is the new norm: Love India, be Indian being the motto, in one sense resurrecting Mahatma Gandhi’s swadeshi model.
However critical one may wish to be of the Modi government, one cannot take away from him the effort to pump in India and Indianness into the psyche of the average citizen. And this has caught on like few things in the past.
In this context how can one forget the tricolour-drive or the Tiranga Yatra, now held around Independence Day on August 15 every year. The focus: displaying Indian nationalism at its peak. In this context, images of autos and even private cars donning the tricolour flank the streets; shops run out of the national flag because there is a frenzy to buy one.
So, Modi and his government are not alone: the nation goes along in displaying the emotion and sentiment for the country. Single-handedly, his government has managed to revive the feeling of nationalism which till now was dormant among Indians.
Therefore, when Vaishnaw is pushing for an Indian version of the uniform, he is not alone. However, he and his colleagues would do well to moot for substantive and action-oriented changes to improve services and do away with corrupt staff than focusing on the bandhgala: adopt a first things first policy, so to speak.
—The writer is an author, journalist and political commentator
The post On Vande Bharat, the Uniform Changed—Corruption Didn’t appeared first on India Legal.