Why every Indian must be proud of Vande Bharat

Kolkata: Every time I travelled on a sleek European train, the possibility of an Indian encore seemed totally bleak. Now that we have the Vande Bharat, our appreciation seems unfairly soft-pedalled.

A usual reason is politics as many under-educated Indians confuse a national triumph for a BJP agenda. Often, the culprit is Lal Bahadur Shastri's morality as tragic accidents cloud the fast-forward agenda. At other times, it is simply disbelief as NRIs and their local clones are threatened by genuine progress. So it is necessary to place a few facts on the right track.

At the very outset, the tragic episode of the Balasore train accident must be placed in its proper context. Being a low-tech and high-usage conduit, fatal incidents still persist albeit at a considerably lower rate. In fact, 'advanced' nations in Europe like Spain and Germany are privy to this pattern, a simple Google search will provide the answer. But that surely does not mean that track safety and train progression cannot operate in parallel tracks and we must look at the Char Ki Dadri plane collision as a valid case.

In 1996, after the Saudia and Kazakh passenger jets had a head-on incident, the DGCA was quick to implement the ACAS ( Airborne Collison Avoidance System), thus being a global pioneer. But this process was not at the cost of equipment upgrades and privatization as the gambit to provide Indian passengers with a state of art flying experience continued relentlessly. It was not a linear continuum where progress was stunted till safety was fixed - they were clearly parallel flight paths converging to a larger whole. In the Railways' case, the Vande Bharat drive must continue while safety becomes an expected norm, not a stated luxury.

It will be immensely useful if we stop politicizing core national development, and the Airbus A 320 case is a fine context. When Rajiv Gandhi pushed this agenda with fiery zeal in the late 1980s, the integrated ecosystem was not sufficiently developed and the Bangalore crash was sufficient evidence. But the short-term pains were soon overcome and this aircraft soon became the foundation for India's aviation success story, adopted by Kingfisher and Indigo. This may well become the trajectory for the Vande Bharat in tandem with a successfully placed Kavach.

Then of course comes the elitism lobby, demanding that poor people must be the priority of the Indian Railways. Usually, they are folks who travel strictly by air and their hypocrisy is symptomatic of a larger national folly - switching effortlessly between convenient socialism and comfortable privileges. By dint of its socio-cultural construct, India will continue to be a nation where five-star infrastructure will co-exist with rural toilet drives, a dichotomy we must revel in and never deny.

To add some data fuel, there are about 4.5  to 5 lakh flyers daily in India post covid, a truly encouraging figure. For Vande Bharat Express, the 18 trains have a collective installed capacity of around 40,000 seats( return journey) daily but when filtered by frequency, the daily passenger contribution will be between 25-30 thousand. At the current pace of growth, in two to three years, the passenger tallies may well tally, and create an upgradation continuum. This is the India growth story and not some sidelined elite conversation, let's be amply clear.

The icing of this argument is actually the physical experience of boarding this train, which I did most recently. Quite like the ' everybody can fly' evolution, the Vande Bharat is proving to be a genuine leveller. Where for a price point in the region of Rs.1000, a wide cross-section of society can enjoy a 'quasi-luxury' ride, earlier a limited prerogative. What Air Deccan kicked off and Indigo amplified, is now being taken forward by this train, albeit in a parallel universe. Everybody who rides is happy and the joys of terrestrial travel are now being bolstered by super cool and inclusive technology.

We must, with great clarity, learn to differentiate between political agendas and national ambitions, and the twain can meet. In 2023, nobody gives credit to Rajiv Gandhi for the Civil Aviation boom while truthfully, being an early adopter of fly-by-wire technology gives us a long-term advantage. In 2043, Narendra Modi's role in Vande Bharat may be forgotten but the country will ride the wave of new-age smart transportation. For the judgemental naysayers, if you have an issue with the BJP then kindly communicate the same in the Hustings and do not undermine the hard-earned development of India.

From a branding lens, I would place Vande Bharat in the same category as McDonald's, Expressways, Mobile Internet and high-end retail. Stuff we adored in foreign sojourns and so wished that India would be a recipient. Now that we have a genuine world-class train, it is necessary to give it the respect that it deserves. For those who are genuinely Indian, that is.