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23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Deadly Commute

Mumbai has always taken pride in its local trains, which have been celebrated as the city’s lifeline. It has long been a democratic institution that carries millionaires and labourers alike, and a symbol of the resilience that Mumbaikars so often boast about. The brutal murder of a 22-year-old passenger inside a moving local has exposed a darker reality. The city’s most cherished public service is no longer merely overcrowded and uncomfortable but is becoming steadily unsafe. The victim,...

Deadly Commute

Mumbai has always taken pride in its local trains, which have been celebrated as the city’s lifeline. It has long been a democratic institution that carries millionaires and labourers alike, and a symbol of the resilience that Mumbaikars so often boast about. The brutal murder of a 22-year-old passenger inside a moving local has exposed a darker reality. The city’s most cherished public service is no longer merely overcrowded and uncomfortable but is becoming steadily unsafe. The victim, travelling in a first-class compartment of a Churchgate-Nallasopara fast local, became embroiled in an argument over whether the train door should be kept open during heavy rain. The disagreement escalated into fatal violence after the accused pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the abdomen. As blood pooled on the floor of the compartment, passengers merely stood there watched in horror. A video of the aftermath showed the alleged killer walking away with the weapon in hand without anybody stopping him. For years, a rough but effective social order prevailed in the Mumbai local train. While commuters may have jostled for space and exchanged harsh words, there remained an unwritten code of conduct for keeping outright criminality at bay. Mumbai’s trains have long been dangerous in one sense. Every year, hundreds die while crossing tracks, hanging from footboards or falling from overcrowded coaches. But passengers rarely feared being murdered inside the compartment itself. S Even more troubling was the reaction of those present. The footage suggests that dozens of passengers chose self-preservation over intervention. While few citizens would willingly confront an armed attacker, the images nonetheless reveal a growing atomisation of urban life. Millions travel together every day, but increasingly as strangers who feel no responsibility towards one another. Mumbai’s famed collective spirit has now become a slogan repeated only after disasters rather than a reality visible in everyday life. The authorities, too, have questions to answer. How did an individual carrying a knife manage to board and travel through one of the busiest suburban rail networks in the world? Why does visible security remain so sparse despite years of promises about surveillance, modernisation and passenger safety? The Railways have invested heavily in technology, announcements and infrastructure upgrades. Yet commuters continue to encounter inadequate policing and an absence of deterrence. The larger concern is cultural. Across India’s cities, there is evidence of rising public aggression. Minor disagreements increasingly escalate into violence. Road-rage incidents, neighbourhood disputes and social-media-fuelled confrontations frequently end in bloodshed. Patience, compromise and restraint appear to be in retreat. Mumbai likes to imagine itself as different from the rest of India. The local train murder suggests otherwise. A city is judged not by its skyline but by the safety of its ordinary spaces. When passengers can no longer assume that they will return home alive from a routine train journey, something fundamental has gone wrong.

The Prejudiced Drona of the 21st Century

Updated: Mar 4, 2025

Drona

An important character in the Mahabharata is Drona, who is rarely assessed, not even to the extent of his son Ashwatthama, who is believed to be alive to this day, enduring the trials of deathlessness, awaiting Shri Hari's return.


Drona, the son of the great Rishi Bharadwaj, held an exalted status among the sons of Kuru and Pandu and is revered throughout the Indosphere as their preceptor of martial arts. However, like many character arcs in the Mahabharata, Drona possessed his share of darker grey shades. He is accused of favouritism, particularly for his affinity for Arjuna and his antipathy toward Eklavya. When the cousins began to distance themselves, he did little to mend their differences. He had an ulterior motive for not stopping the humiliation of Draupadi at the hands of Duryodhana and the Kauravas. He supported his biases by fighting against his mentees, the Pandavas, and siding with the Kauravas. During the war, he did not prevent the treacherous murder of Abhimanyu on the battlefield. Because of these malfeasances, which are unbecoming of an Acharya, Drona evokes more scorn than sympathy even to this day. Nevertheless, the Drona Complex, encompassing all the emotional fixations that Drona harboured in his mind, continues to this day.


During the 20th century, when physical colonialism began receding, when many economies began booming, resilient nations vowed to achieve prosperity by tapping into young talent, regardless of the economic sectors to which they belonged, and by helping them participate in the startup revolution. University classrooms and academic and government labs began emphasising the criticality of converting ideas, taking them through the whole technology life cycle, and seeing them culminate as commercialised technology. To ensure that resilient nations benefit from both products and services, as well as positive social narratives, they established a network of facilitating entities.


Any headhunter, whether public or private, can do only so much to identify the academic qualifications they seek from employees of these facilitating entities. However, very few will monitor behavioural attributes. Ideally, facilitators working on behalf of state administration should be agnostic, unbiased, and free of vested interests. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Quite a few private facilitators empanelled by the government, as well as government employees acting as facilitators, tend to develop favourites, make biased decisions, and cultivate vested interests. The Drona Complex afflicts many of these facilitators, whose minds are clouded by messianic sentiments, believing themselves to be the benefactors of the startup ecosystem, thinking that nothing would regress or progress without them. Just as Drona requested Eklavya's thumb, they would demand an eliminating pound of flesh; just as Drona expected half of Drupada’s wealth, they would work in anticipation of a gain; just as Drona conspired to humiliate Drupada by participating in the disrobing of his daughter Draupadi, they too would conspire similarly; just as Drona did not prevent infighting among those he trained, many in facilitating positions would do so when cornered.


Drona is a guru to his pupils, yet no one to date has regarded him as a sage or rishi. The issue lies not in Drona's struggles and unrestrained ambitions but in the Kuru realms that enlisted him. Imagine if a morally upright guru had blessed the cousin’s lives, and the great war would have been prevented. In today’s context, startups resemble the young, unrefined, and naive Kauravas and Pandavas. For them to truly bring a constructive change in the world, they would need a guru, even with a few attributes of gurus like Maharishi Vashistha of Shri Ram or Rishi Sandipani of Shri Krishna to ensure that new entrepreneurs develop into aware and elevated individuals, cognisant of their roles for the greater good. A guru like Drona, as described in the Mahabharata, despite being capable, is a powder keg, and they need to be chosen carefully and monitored carefully.


The world today is facing a surge of dual-use innovations that can serve as agents of mass disruption and destruction. Many modern-day facilitators can assess the commercial value proposition of technology, yet few forecast the risks involved and intervene in time for their subjects, clients, or mentees, as well as those on the opposing side, in a world where regulation serves merely as gatekeeping rather than making tough decisions. When Drona-like personalities prevail, numerous enterprises will receive enormous institutional backing and commit acts without hesitation or fear of the law or their reputation, usurping, stealing, and eliminating. These Drona-like facilitators instill their Messianic Complex in their entrepreneurs, potentially creating Frankensteins and Duryodhanas. With Drona-like facilitators present, the Pandavas will continue to lose at the game of dice. At the same time, the Kauravas will maliciously prevail in the rigged game, making them vulnerable to invoking Shri Hari to return and reset.


(Dr. Chaitanya Giri is a Space and Emerging Technology Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai.)

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