‘But the trains ran on time’: The thin line between democracy and dictatorship

Suresh Prabhu quit his job recently after a series of train derailments proved his undoing as the country’s Railway Minister. But a couple of years ago he was on shaky ground for a different reason.

The Prime Minister had reportedly pulled him up in 2015 after getting several complaints about trains running late. What stood out about the incident was that the Prime Minister’s Office had reportedly called the Railway Minister and asked him to look at how the trains had stuck to schedule way back in 1975-77. For an administration led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the period in question only added insult to injury,given that 1975-77 was when the country was under an Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Many consider the Emergency to be one of the darkest chapters in India’s democracy, when civil liberties were suppressed and press freedom was curbed. Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the precursor of the BJP, saw many of its leaders jailed during the Emergency alongside many other political prisoners.

But more than forty years on, those defending the Emergency point to the positives. “But the trains ran on time,” is one of the most common refrains from that time that still endures. Was it myth or reality?

In his book The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years, former President of India and Congress stalwart Pranab Mukherjee addressed the Emergency period, during which he was a Cabinet minister.

While admitting that it was “perhaps an avoidable event”, Mukherjee chose to focus on the good things that happened. He said there was no doubt that the period had brought a growing economy, discipline in public life, controlled inflation, reversed trade deficit for the first time and a crackdown on tax evasion and smuggling.

But did the trains actually run on time?

Among the believers is Dr Yoganand Shastri,  a Congress leader and former Speaker of the Delhi Legislative Assembly. He remains convinced that the Emergency was essential as the situation in the country at the time “was not good”.

'Indira ji did it in desh hitt (in national interest),' he said.

However, advocate Madhavi Naik, chief of the BJP’s women’s unit in Maharashtra, is skeptical.

"How can there be discipline when the media was censored and people had to face hardship?" she asks. "I can't find anything good that Emergency achieved."

RK Radhakrishnan, Associate Editor of Frontline magazine, faults Indira Gandhi for not letting “democratic evolution” take place, but lends some credence to the old adage.

“The trains ran on time ¬- it’s true,” he says. “Some good things will happen!”

Irrespective of whether or not the trains actually ran on time, the truth is that before the idea gained currency during the 21 months of the Emergency in India, it was also a popular notion during the 21-year reign of a leader in far-off Italy.

Benito Mussolini ruled the “Kingdom of Italy” as he called it for two decades, a dark age in an otherwise sunny Mediterranean nation.

Mussolini was democratically elected as Italy's prime minister in 1922 before turning into a dictator. Working within the parliamentary system, he reduced the powers of the judiciary, suppressed his political opponents and the press.

Through it all, his propaganda machinery ensured that he was portrayed as a benevolent and able leader who could get work done.

1n 1936, more than a decade into Mussolini’s reign, American journalist George Seldes chronicled the experiences of US tourists who had returned home after at Italian holiday.

“The trains now run on time,” they said.

Seldes claimed that no matter how forcefully he explained to these tourists about Mussolini’s oppressive regime, the holidayers stuck by their opinion and would reiterate: “But the trains ran on time”.

Mussolini's propaganda team had made the common man believe that trains running on time were a symbol of how their leader had restored order in governance and public life.

Going by most accounts, it was true that nearly all of the major express trains used by tourists, would more often than not run on time. However, Seldes explained that the trains on the smaller routes were delayed frequently.

Back in India, the scolded and skeptical railway officials dusted off the old files from 1975-77 to discover their own truths. A railway official said the records showed that trains were punctual more than 90 percent of the time during the Emergency. It’s now up to new Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to dig deeper.