Into the heart of India
Three hours into our journey and we have already been mobbed by the crowds. We made an unscheduled stop at Rewari, some 80km from Delhi in neighbouring Haryana state, when a motley group of local passengers waiting at the station spotted our unusual train and surged forward. The excitement was palpable. "What is it this? A new train? What route?" a man shouted.
As my colleagues stepped out with their mikes and cameras to record the experience, the frisson increased. Haryana is one of the more industrially developed states in the country, but casteism is the bane of social progress in these parts too. I asked a wizened man who stood near our carriage whether caste and kin affiliations of a candidate mattered more than his capacity to deliver the goods during the polls. He was fiercely argumentative. "Look," he said, visibly irritated. "I have lived here, in the countryside, all my life, but I have never voted on the basis of caste. I have always voted on the basis of development. This time too, I will vote for the candidate who promises more development."
Clearly, development has never been a bigger issue at the Indian elections than this time around. I look out of my window and realise why. There are Indias which are pulling ahead and there are Indias which are lagging behind. People are impatient for speedier change.
There is no better way to gauge the rhythms of the heart of India than from a railway journey. Within an hour of leaving a station in Delhi, I witness a kaleidoscope of the many Indias from my window. Garbage-infested shantytowns which straddle railroad tracks segue into a spanking new airport coming up on the outskirts of Delhi. An impossibly long line of stationary goods trains carrying shiny new Suzuki cars from a local factory merge into a hick town railway station splashed with advertisements hawking sex potions, an anti-foeticide campaign and even a local vet. Gaudily coloured row houses and high rises dot the view, which was not so long ago dominated by a dull landscape of vast swathes of dusty farms.
With dusk falling over the countryside, we rolled out of Rewari. People at crowded railway crossings gaped at our red-and-white train. It slowly trundled past squat railway colonies where children played precariously close the tracks and elders sipped tea on rope beds. We are travelling into the heart of many Indias. Already.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~36~RS~)
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This train is an utter profligate waste of licence fee payers' money. In what way does it enhance the journalism (which is ok journalism as far as it goes)? Once again, the BBC making itself the news story.
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kudos to BBC for starting an exclusive train for election coverage in India. The initiative would help world understand the nit gritty about India's interiors. It would be an window through which the world would know how the worlds largest democracy votes.
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You take the trouble of painting a train and then you don't put any pictures of it on your blog. What sense does it make? I can't find any videos and photos anywhere, all I see is text. It's 2009. Wake up.
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DIPINDER. What makes you think that travelling in ostentatious style in a chartered train, emblazoned with BBC logo, will help the BBC's journalist to get down to the grass roots of India?
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rootfroot. dont know if ur from india or not.... To know the REAL india.. u dont travel by air.. u travel by TRAINS.. thats where you will meet the REAL india... not necessarily the SLUMDOG version of it.. BBC has taken a really nice initiative to know and experience the INDIA that really exits and bring it to the UK and other parts of the world.
GRt job u guys!!! keep up the gud work
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The BBC doesn't do blogging.
I'm with rootfroot and tintinintibet on this.
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taj_india. So why doesn't the journalist travel by scheduled trains like the ordinary people of India? That at least would have saved some money for the licence fee payer in the UK. Clearly this is not a scheduled train available to other travellers. The report implies as much.
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rootfroot, have you ever tried booking a train in India? I suspect not.
have you ever tried booking a train in India during election time for more than one person in something otheer than Sleeper Class? [which, from personal experience, is not always great fun]
The idea of a journalist, plus photographer and whoever else is with them managing that along with all th eother International News Media, not to mention the plethora of Indian news media [NDTV and the rest] is stretching the imagination, at best.
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The world is curious to know the depths of the World's largest exrecise of democracy. This train trip reporting across the lengths and breaths of India will be a new experimentation. For sure we can expect some very interesting stories comming up. In which other part of the world we can imagine that.
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The_Ridger says [QUOTE] The idea of a journalist, plus photographer and whoever else is with them managing that along with all th eother International News Media, not to mention the plethora of Indian news media [NDTV and the rest] is stretching the imagination, at best. [UNQUOTE]
taj_india says [QUOTE]To know the REAL india.. u dont travel by air.. u travel by TRAINS [UNQUOTE]
These BBC guys are unlikely to "meet the REAL india" travelling on a train that apparently has the world's media hanging out of the windows. Which is it to be: 'the train is the most convenient way to avoid the crowds' or 'the train is the best way to meet the people?
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Really do not want to hijack the Blog subject because all credit does go to India as the World's largest democracy.
Nevertheless, a whole lot of us 'anti-European Union' Citizens of the UK/England were wondering what the chances were of the BBC taking as much trouble to find and report on the 65% of UK/English Citizens who when Polled expressed a desire for a show of 'Democracy' in these British Isles by wanting a Referendum on Membership of the EU?
By our reckoning that 65% amounts to around 39,000,000 British Citizens: Any chance the BBC News coverage would reflect that fairly substantial number in even 1 or 2 of its Reports from the British Isles?
No!
We thought not!
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Ridger, thanks for pointing out the fatal flaw in this whole sorry exercise. Mr Biswas' much-touted luxury train is the very factor which will prevent him getting in touch with his subject.
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Why are people so cross regarding the TV licence? If we didn't have the licence we would have adverts...I lived in Australia for 10 years and TV was too awful to watch because of the many adverts and it was difficult to find out what was going on in the world other than Australian news. Here in UK we have 4 TV channels, 5 national radio stations plus regional radio for the price of around 40p a day that's a bargin ...we have world news like this very exciting blog from India...and yes having visited India train is the way to travel....Some of you 'bloggers' need to 'get a life'.....stop complaining and enjoy the World News that we are lucky to be able to read.... that is, on the whole, unbiased straight journalism.
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No pictures of the train?!!
Just one page of text after another.
If the BBC is going to spend money on a branded train at least take pictures so we can see what it's like!!
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a BBC journalist takes over a WHOLE 7-carriage train, has it painted in BBC colours/logo and travels in first class around India for 18 days.
I'd love to see how this is justified to the licence-fee payers (although my earlier comment was removed, perhaps due to embarrassment by the BBC?)
NB I am very happy to pay the licence fee, I think we get good value for it, but I do not see good value obtained from Biswas's luxurious trip around the country.
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I do not know what journalism is all about. However, I know that travelling by train in India does reveal a lot of India: the people, the places and the locality that cannot be hidden. Election or not, this is a good exercise to fell the reverberations of a Nation’s heart. Railways in India cuts through the very centre of her life. Hence, a travel by an international group of journalists in a train is most welcome. The media must only understand one thing: this is the greatest exercise of franchise on earth! They must also know that when one Super Power was unable to count their Presidential elections due to ballot paper punching errors, and made a fool of them in front of the world, Indians did it using electronic voting machines. Today too, India does it sound. See how wonderfully is this great nation is conducting a modern ballot-paperless election!
Abraham.
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Let's get the facts straight first. Looks to me from this picture that the BBC painted just one coach and not a whole train ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/features/i/content/images/2009/04/24/india_train_strap_626x260.jpg ... although they seem to have hired a whole train.
I think the exercise is a good idea because it will show the election to both Indians and others from a professional and unbiased point of view.
To the license fee paying grumpies in the UK, I have 2 things to say. 1) Thank you for paying your license fee, and 2) Do you usually react like this to every non-UK world news reported by the BBC? The 2004 tsunami didn't directly affect the UK... why didn't you flame the BBC for sending all those journalists down to Thailand to report it?
In this era of globalisation, most events affect most people either directly or indirectly. I wish the BBC would add a "donate" button for non-UK-license-payers (like me) so we don't have to listen to groaning and moaning (like rootfroot's) every time the BBC tries something refreshing.
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ROOTFROOT the BBC correspondents would not be staying Indore they would be coming out and charting to people on root. The train might be charted but the stations wouldn't be air conditioned palatial palace. They would remain as they are and would give the real picture of India.
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I think the BBC are doing something original and deserve ato be cheered for their originality. I agree with other bloggers onthis topic- the best way to understand the real India is to travel by train.
Oh, the British always complain about their taxes. The BBC World Service in India does get a lot of revenue through adverticements, so whats all this humbug about British Tax payers.
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Firstly, a great idea to cover the world's largest democracy's elections. An entire train does seem a bit excessive, surely one car/bogie would be sufficient but if it was me on the train I would be happy. Train is the only way to see India in a great distance. MORE PICTURES!!
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Yeah, this lack of images from a seemingly well thought out initiative is surprising. I'm with dcchris and others on this... MORE PICTURES PLEASE!!! And by pictures, I mean those of the action not editorial smug mugs like the one above.
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Autumn in August: in post 13 of the "We're off" blog, you describe yourself as "a white British" and yet in your post above you talk of "the British" as a different group from your own, and claim knowledge of the Indian train system and financing of Indian TV. Any value your comments may have had is diminished by this apparent duplicity - why not clarify for us all so we can trust what you write?
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Rayushaun: I'm a "license fee paying grumpy". I'm happy for you if pictures of a painted train excite you. You've already seen one picture and you want "MORE PICTURES PLEASE!!". I suspect that it will look similar in other pictures but I hope you get your wish.
In answer to your question, my objection is not yo the coverage of the election but the luxury repainted train in the context of social privation. I don't recall a luxury train being repainted and driven around Thailand after the Tsunami. If the BBC had painted a train for that disaster, would you have wanted to see "MORE PICTURES" of that, too?
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What's with all these grumpy license fee payers? It's not as if they paid for the whole train. They would have covered part of the cost. The World Service (taxpayer funded via the foreign office) and BBC World (advertiser funded) would have also contributed to it. The train carries not one journalist but journalists from BBC Online, BBC World Service, BBC Chinese Service, BB Somali Service, BBC India Service, BBC TV, etc etc...
A train I feel is an excellent way of getting about to meet the people. I can't imagine Road or Air would work quite as well. And for me in New Zealand (watching on commercially funded BBC World News) and for others elsewhere it would be great to get in depth coverage of this election as opposed to say just informing me who finally won, after the election is done and dusted.
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My question is about the election's format. To my relatively ignorant understanding, it seems archaic and undemocratic. I appreciate it's hard to have a democratic system within a federal structure but what are the options for improving the Indian system? Is it something that matters to Indians?
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Just because a train is chartered does not make it a luxury train. Such a conclusion is presumptuous. The point here is should BBC cover the Indian General Elections? My answer would be a strong YES. License fee or no license fee, I'm sure BBC would be having its internal policies about the working conditions of its staffers. I'm sure when they went to Thailand to cover the psunami, the staffers travelled according to their entitlements. Just because the economy is on a downturn and some people have lost their jobs does not mean that those that have a job start taking recourse to the so-called austerity measures. It is not expected of professionals. Nor should anyone expect it of them. So if BBC must cover the Indian Elections, BBC has to incur a cost. It is good that they have decided to travel by a train. I'm also sure that if they were given a choice, they would have travelled on regular passenger trains. But unfortunately such a situation is not feasible any where else in the world, let alone India. The dates for the elections get annpounced may be a month and half in advance. To travel in and out of 8 cities means 8 different passenger trains or may be more. I get this feeling that they would have ended up using up all their time, energy and yes money on working out the logistics. So I think it was a fantastic idea to book a train, which is a rather normal thing in this part of the world for such occasions, with a well thought of itinerary. What's wrong in advertising on the train that you are travelling in? I'm sure it does not cost much. It was a very original idea. Kudos. I'm not a license fee payer. So I leave it to the license fee payers to delibarate on whether BBC should have covered the Indian Elections. Though quite a lot of people all over the world who look upto the BBC would tend to believe that BBC must cover the event.
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By the way, here are some more pictures of the train. The link is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/specials/1410_trail_pics_pp/index.shtml
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Beyond a Boundary: I read the article and then called it a luxury train because Mr Biswas described it as "first class" and "air conditioned". I don't think that's presumptous. Commenting on an article before you've read it properly is presumptous, you might wish to reflect on that.
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Where are the PICTURES? And VIDEOS? Surely you got a couple of cameras out there with you, haven't you?
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MartinDFerry: I must admit that air-conditioning is not a luxury in this country. It's a necessity. It's a different story altogether how many have access to it. But then just because not many have access to something does not make a necessity a luxury. This is the reason why the number of air-conditioned coaches is going up in the trains in India over the years. In fact, I am a frequent traveller. I must tell you that the entry segment of the air-conditioned class is gradually phasing the so-called sleeper class out. I guess Mr Biswas was trying to whip up a little bit of old world romanticism associated with the Indian Railways by using the term 'First Class.' Those that use the trains in India know that there is not a much of class division on Indian Railways any longer.
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Why on earth BBC begins its election train journey after polling on nearly half the seats has already finished? A chartered and air-conditioned train with less than ten passengers per coach makes it a great luxury by all standards.
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rootfroot, and anyone who thinks Mr. Biswas is living the life of royalty whilst on this train expedition:
Did you not read Mr. Biswas' description of his cabin? Did that sound like *luxury* to you?
I personally have ridden the train in India, First Class A/C -- the same as Mr. Biswas -- from Madras to Delhi. Two days on the train, in a two-person cabin. (Incidentally, we were traveling with honeymooning friends, native Indians, who were placed in a FOUR-person cabin with someone they DID NOT KNOW by the reservations personnel of India Railways. We could NOT alter the arrangements! Now, THAT's customer service...)
Our car -- First Class A/C, I remind you -- was OLD when you Brits left India and shut down the Empire. You should have taken it home with you!
Don't think First Class means the same in India as it does in Europe. Indian trains are nowhere near as nice as yours; European third class beats Indian First Class most any day!
And to see the "real" India, all one has to do is step outside of the carriage at any stop. The platform is filled with vendor stalls and milling with people, no matter where you are.
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Sorry, I mistyped the originating city of our "lovely" Indian Railway journey; we actually started from Madurai. We've flown *into* Chennai (Madras) twice, but never taken rail out of there.
Just trying to maintain the BBC standard of accuracy...even though I don't work there.
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Oh, and I do have photographic evidence of the condition of the car -- just in case anyone's interested!
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Its a great step by a BBC as it a reliable news source and shows a international perspective of Indian election.
As Indian elections is quite different from other countries elections and the recent trend can be seen as the 'Shoe-nami' of 'Shoe-side' attacks on our politicians including our P.M.
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This is amazing, though I feel that had the BBC started the trip earlier, you could have covered down south as well. Its pretty amusing why the Brits are so narrow minded, afterall do they not know that BBC world service is one of the best global newscasters, not not just a British News agency.
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Did any of the people complaining about the 'waste' of licence fee payers money complain when the BBC sponsored a coach to travel through the US during their elections? Thought not. I personally feel that a far bigger waste of money is this endless obsession with blogs and other online content! Organisations like the BBC seem to have this wonderful view of lots of earnest people all debating eruditely, when in fact the whole things is just full of right-wing obsessives who would get rid of the BBC if they possibly could.
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