May 18 2004
I think that it might take an entire book to
fully explain the context of this innocuous looking article. Since I
don't plan to write a whole book, let me try my best in a reasonable
amount of space.
Bifurcation:
Bifurcation is one my favorite words in the English language.
According to the dictionary, it means a division into two parts. It is
certainly not a commonly used word in the West. Indians however, love
this word and use it in common speech. If you were to ask for
directions when traveling in India, it is very likely that the person
giving you directions would say some thing like "when the road
bifurcates, go right...".
A true incident: About ten years ago, when we visited the famous ruins at Belur in Karnataka, an annoying self appointed guide attached himself to our group. He pointed to some temple carvings at the Chennakeshava temple and said: "this woman is sad because she has been bifurcated from her lover"! Incidentally the same guide told us that the word "love" is actually an acronym that means "Look Observe Verify Enjoy"!
Dharna: This is a Hindi word for a public (and usually noisy) protest action.
Guntakal: This is a small town in Andhra Pradesh, a state in southern India thats on the main Mumbai - Chennai rail route. Its a pure railway town with no other employer of any significance. As a child when traveling by train from Mumbai to Chennai, we would look forward to a delicious breakfast of idlis (steamed rice cakes) at Guntakal.
Railway zones: A few words about how the Railways are organized in India. I can not begin to do justice to this topic. I should point out that a tremendous amount of information about Indian Railways (IR) is available at the IRFCA web site. Now, IR has always been divided into zones for administrative purposes. For a long time, there were nine zones. Zones generally covered multiple states and there were no apparent problems on account of this.
Historically, Southern Railway, being headquartered at Chennai, was always viewed a bit proprietorially by Tamil Nadu while South Central Railway, headquartered in Secunderabad, was viewed similarly by Andhra Pradesh. The railway lines in Karnataka belonged to either Southern or South Central Railway but, as I mentioned earlier, this was not a source of any problems.
Now to explain the article itself.
A few years ago, in an attempt to pander to voters in certain key states, the Railways minister announced the creation of new zones by carving up the existing zones. This was primarily done to increase the number of Railway jobs in the states with the new headquarters.
In the context of this news article, South Western Railway, headquartered in Hubli, Karnataka was created by carving out some divisions from Southern Railway and South Central Railway.
Predictably, this has caused problems. Indian states have a history of squabbling over everything. For example, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been quarreling over the water of the Cauvery river for decades. Now, railway zones are just one more reason to quarrel.
The Guntakal division is on the border between South Central and SouthWestern railways. Guntakal town itself is in Andhra Pradesh but a good portion of the Guntakal divsion is in Karnataka. Furthermore the revenue generating portions of the Guntakal division (some iron ore mines) were actually in Karnataka. Evidentally, the Railway ministry has taken the Solomonic approach to this particular problem! Its clear from this article that Andhra politicians would like the entire Guntakal division to remain within South Central railway. Since the area around Guntakal has been hit by droughts for the past year or so, many people (especially affected agricultural workers) are employed on temporary jobs doing manual labor on the Railways.
Bifurcation:
Bifurcation is one my favorite words in the English language.
According to the dictionary, it means a division into two parts. It is
certainly not a commonly used word in the West. Indians however, love
this word and use it in common speech. If you were to ask for
directions when traveling in India, it is very likely that the person
giving you directions would say some thing like "when the road
bifurcates, go right...".A true incident: About ten years ago, when we visited the famous ruins at Belur in Karnataka, an annoying self appointed guide attached himself to our group. He pointed to some temple carvings at the Chennakeshava temple and said: "this woman is sad because she has been bifurcated from her lover"! Incidentally the same guide told us that the word "love" is actually an acronym that means "Look Observe Verify Enjoy"!
Dharna: This is a Hindi word for a public (and usually noisy) protest action.
Guntakal: This is a small town in Andhra Pradesh, a state in southern India thats on the main Mumbai - Chennai rail route. Its a pure railway town with no other employer of any significance. As a child when traveling by train from Mumbai to Chennai, we would look forward to a delicious breakfast of idlis (steamed rice cakes) at Guntakal.
Railway zones: A few words about how the Railways are organized in India. I can not begin to do justice to this topic. I should point out that a tremendous amount of information about Indian Railways (IR) is available at the IRFCA web site. Now, IR has always been divided into zones for administrative purposes. For a long time, there were nine zones. Zones generally covered multiple states and there were no apparent problems on account of this.
Historically, Southern Railway, being headquartered at Chennai, was always viewed a bit proprietorially by Tamil Nadu while South Central Railway, headquartered in Secunderabad, was viewed similarly by Andhra Pradesh. The railway lines in Karnataka belonged to either Southern or South Central Railway but, as I mentioned earlier, this was not a source of any problems.
Now to explain the article itself.
A few years ago, in an attempt to pander to voters in certain key states, the Railways minister announced the creation of new zones by carving up the existing zones. This was primarily done to increase the number of Railway jobs in the states with the new headquarters.
In the context of this news article, South Western Railway, headquartered in Hubli, Karnataka was created by carving out some divisions from Southern Railway and South Central Railway.
Predictably, this has caused problems. Indian states have a history of squabbling over everything. For example, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been quarreling over the water of the Cauvery river for decades. Now, railway zones are just one more reason to quarrel.
The Guntakal division is on the border between South Central and SouthWestern railways. Guntakal town itself is in Andhra Pradesh but a good portion of the Guntakal divsion is in Karnataka. Furthermore the revenue generating portions of the Guntakal division (some iron ore mines) were actually in Karnataka. Evidentally, the Railway ministry has taken the Solomonic approach to this particular problem! Its clear from this article that Andhra politicians would like the entire Guntakal division to remain within South Central railway. Since the area around Guntakal has been hit by droughts for the past year or so, many people (especially affected agricultural workers) are employed on temporary jobs doing manual labor on the Railways.