A matter of self-gratification?
The following poster appeared on my Facebook pages a couple of days ago. The picture is certainly authentic, but dated surely. (Shinzo Abe, Japan's former prime minister is long gone; his life was cut short by a gunman while making a campaign speech.) I would not have bothered to take a look if not for the "information" that it sought to tell readers. It was about India's upcoming bullet train routes and the distances they would cover. Next to the heading reads, in brackets, TOI. Is that Times of India?
Is this a piece to mock Modi? Or might it
be a picture to remind Indians of the need to shape up?
I still remember Keretapi Tanah Melayu or the Malayan Railway. When I was doing my sixth form in Penang’s Technical Institute, we outstation students were given two-way transport money to spend term vacations at home. I would take the Penang Island-Perai ferry to catch KTM's night mail to Kuala Lumpur, and from there catch a taxi to go to Muar. (It was the same drill for my return to school journey.) KTM’s central station in Kuala Lumpur was (and still is) a historic landmark. It also had a big workshop in Sentul where many of the students from the Engineering Faculty of the University of Malaya were sent for their first- or third-year practical training. Unfortunately, you cannot see any train on either site now.
KTM dates back to the British colonial era. I knew
there was a great deal of Indian footprints in KTM history but could not find
much about this in Wikipedia. As I googled, I saw a relevant article written by a certain P
Uthayakumar in January 2012 for Malaysiakini. Part of it reads:
“Hundreds of thousands of ethnic
Indians were brought in with the railways in 1885 to then Malaya from India in
building the Malayan railways. The first settlement of these Indian railway
families was in Kg Railway, Sentul, Kuala Lumpur as the locomotives, coaches
and railway tracks were assembled and later repaired and maintained from here.
“Even the ‘tablet' - the signal key secured in a ring passed and taken from one railway station to another – was written in Tamil and Malay.
“The first
railway system was from Taiping to Port Weld (Teluk Sepetualang today).
“M Subramaniam (76) the oldest resident at this Sentul railway Village recounted how railwaymen would leave their wife and children behind in Kg Railway Sentul and the Sentul Railway Quarters and go on work stints in faraway Kelantan, Johor, Perlis etc for months, if not years.
“At Independence in 1957, some 80% of the Malayan railway staff were Indians.”
India was indeed once a railway superpower.
It had its first railway in 1837 - to ferry granite in Madras. Its first passenger train, however, ran only in 1853 - for 34 km between Bombay and Thane. Today, Indian Railways runs a route length of 68,426 km, of which 60,451 km is electrified. With more than 1.2 million employees, it is India’s second largest employer.
China's first experiences with railways were largely ludicrous. In 1865, a British merchant built a 600meter-long railroad outside the Xuanwu Gate in Beijing to demonstrate the technology to the imperial court - only to be rejected. Again in 1876 a railroad was opened in Shanghai but only again to be dismantled, with the rails and rolling stock later shipped to Taiwan!
Qing's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War stimulated railway development. The government began to recognize the importance of modernization on one hand, and on the other foreign powers were pressing hard for concessions to build railways to further their settlement and mineral rights.
The rapid expansion of
foreign railroad ownership and operation aroused strong public
resentment and led to calls for domestic development of railways. To help local
economies develop and retain earnings from railways, the Qing government in 1904
permitted provinces to organize their own railway companies and raise
funds by selling shares to the public. From 1904 to 1907, 15 such companies were established. The Beijing-Zhangjiakou
Railway was the first to be designed and built
indigenously. Its chief engineer was Zhan Tianyou, who is known as the
Father of China's Railways. The 189 km Shanghai-Hangzhou line was completed in 1909.
When some of
these provincial railway ventures fell into bankruptcy in 1911, the foreign powers
pressed the Qing government to permit them to take over the ventures. The Qing government tried to nationalize these locally controlled
railway companies and have them pledged to foreign banks in
exchange for loans. The move provoked fierce public opposition which contributed to the
outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution that subsequently toppled the Qing
dynasty.
At that time, there were only around 9,000 km of rails in China.
But today the country
has more than 159,000 km of railways, of which more than 45,000 km are of the high-speed rails (HSR) classification.
As for India, not a single inch of HSR
has been built since the above picture was taken.
How did the two countries’
railway system be so different – one keeps heading north, and the other, just keeps
counting chickens before they are hatched?
Under Zhu Rongji’s premiership,
China began the Shanghai maglev construction in March 2001. Commercial service
commented on 1 January 2004. The top speed is 431km/h. The technology
was German’s, but China made it happen! China’s first HSR (the Beijing-Tianjin
intercity line) was introduced only in April 2007. There is no looking back since
then. It has also won tenders to construct modern rail lines overseas,
including Malaysia’s East Coast Rail Link.
The viability of such
projects will always be questioned by politicians and economists – the former
for not having the courage to do difficult things (financing and land acquisitions,
etc) and the latter, for their conventional wisdom in project economics. China’s
vision is cast years ahead, hence 45,000 km in less than two decades.
Modi wants India to be a part of the Global North. (He has no time for Global South – in needs like mending relationship with China and Pakistan, or in working with countries in Africa or South America or taking a visible stance in the Gaza genocide. He is only interested to rub shoulders with the Who’s Who in the western and pro-West world.) Indeed, people like Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak are encouraging him to think that way, so are The Economist et al in the media world (since India is sticking to the economic model they love). Yes, India has some of the best engineering brains in the world, but without the ethos of humility, grounded-ness in beliefs and ambitions, and a mission to embrace regardless of caste and religion differences, India can only continue to say this to the world each time China comes up with something: We can also do it, and we can do it better!
I count many South Asians as good friends. Can’t I be truthful to them?
End
Postscript:
I usually leave my articles on my blog site for a few days before I alert friends of their existence. This allows me to make corrections or rephrase some of the things said in a more readable manner. On my revisit this time, I was pleasantly jolted by two comments, both from WALLA. I know WALLA is a friend, but I really do not know which. The two comments (and his previous) tell me that WALLA is a very knowledgeable and intellectual dragon.
On Indianness
ReplyDeleteRapaille's culture code says Hindu Indians believe there are four life-stages: youth (to gain life tools quickly), maturity (to establish oneself and achieve material success), detachment (to retire from rat races), and finally, hermitage (to meditate and read philosophy books).
Presumably these will apply more to the educated and refined such as:
https://tinyurl.com/5ff3kz9v
on the score the society still hasn't fully shaken off its caste heritage, furthermore self-justified by trying to affect the airs of its past colonial masters.
The arbitration court in London would however be chaffed knowing the brother of Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, declared himself bankrupt in order to steal the USD778 Million in personal loans from four China banks. The latest is that Ambani's son is holding a second pre-wedding event in Europe whilst the father's USD1 Billion Antilla home sits amidst the slums of Mumbai. Maybe it's acceptable since it's not in Mother Teresea's Calcutta.
Yet, India has a long civilization which occasionally sparkles with the momentum of the unseen making direct impacts on our human world.
One need only recall India's celebrated mathematician, Ramanujan, tragically dying young but leaving behind five notebooks of equations, many of sublime beauty; the Cambridge dons were however exasperated he didn't supply the proofs for them but that was because he said his equations came inspired by an Indian goddess. Ramanujan was close to solving one of the Millennium problems, namely Riemann's Hypothesis.
Finally, from the hospital bed.....
From The Hospital Bed
It is good to see how our healthcare professionals can work cooperatively without the racial overtones of recent past. There was one day when suddenly all seem chirpy. It was due to the PM saying pays of civil servants will be raised. Well enough, things are costing more and the consumer markets now are tepid.
But those who receive must realize where the funds come from; it has always been from the silent private sector. With the ringgit falling, the notion we can still import-substitute when we are trying to open up more carries little weight.
Fortunately those who are in their twilight years having gone through many previous spidery recessions can count their blessings of closing tired eyelids.
But what about the young? They need a better deal from a wiser government.
From the hospital bed, you can see foreigners taking advantage of local healthcare facilities. How did they get admitted into the country in the first place.They refuse to state their origin, show no papers, occupy beds and make fuss, pay nothing, and ask tired doctors to give them money.
Just like subsidized fuel smuggled out, illegal foreigners smuggle thermselves in, both at full expense of local servicers, government and most of all taxpayers. While one must be compassionate, the problem has to nipped before it outgrows and then dampens critical services. Malaysia is not rich enough to jomheboh gubaya freebies. Moreover, the local doctors, dedicated and spirited to the one, work long hours, stay on calls and do clinical work with tired bodies while still trying to scrape an hour or two to prepare for their post-graduate exams. So, JPM, MOH, MOE and Ministry of Home Affairs - do thy duty.
Lastly, the human body is a fascinating piece of machinery with integrated however uninterchangeable parts. It is open to imaging determination of root causes but analysis must be comprehensive and right the first time - and that will be determined by accretive intelligence of knowing past signs and symptoms and less by costly process of elimination than by a certain Malaysian way of reasoning.
Thank you, Mr Lim. Your blog can be a diaspora node to attract learned comments, especially from the silver-haired groups in Asia, if only as a last ditch effort to say something, hopefully of value to the young into their respective future, against the tide of our remaining time.
ReplyDeleteI can pepper my comments on your topics with more than just comments to include links to other topics and references which hopefully will also be of interest and use to your readers.
It's time i have since it looks like i am now spinally lower-motor challenged.
To wrap up my comments on these past two topics:
Deletea. I agree with Mr H Tan on not announcing no first-strikes; having dropped two atomic bombs on another country, the US' worst nightmare is that karma may return one day.
China should have continued 'hiding and biding'; her weakness is too much introspection without realizing outsiders will be zealous of her achievements, portray them as threats, and ignore her clarifications and rebuttals which are however almost staid and uptight in their Qin-like legalese but nonetheless - the most precise and balanced of all.
Thus, she continues to face the situation of thorny taunts and crimpish containment today from those who don't know her historical inheritance, cultural affiliations and socio-economic imperatives. This omission will only trigger what was just catchup overreach to morph into accidental combative narratives leading to kinetic conflicts. In this, China has only been reacting; the perpetrators and mischief-makers are solely Western anti-China hawks who break agreements, infiltrate societal saboteurs and instigate unrest and commercial losses.
Her scholars who have studied in the West and the diaspora who have taken root all over the world mus thus come together to robustly mount more than intelligent rebuttals against the piffle peddlings and regurgitated pabulum from the western media and so-called anti-China think-tank(ed) hawks.
b. China operates meritocratically long-term and with precise plans detailed down to grassroots metrics; the implementations have feedback loops because she practices scientific development in governance, trying pilots, navigating around hurdles, and then rolling out full-steam with mental discipline, iron-will and sufficient capitalization.
DeleteIndia's plans are at local levels short-termish, wafflish, lacking in metrics to measure achievements and without subsets to tackle hurdles arising.
Being the world's biggest democracy, India has too many voices, none of which credentialized to make things work and move projects to fruition. There is no real sense of time.
They don't exercise sufficient mental discipline and some of their garments get in the way of their mobility.
There's also little precision in their communication. Words design conduct molding character. They have an embedded sense of inadequacy and in personal reaction to that, they overreach by making brazen demands upfront. Humility is not their middle name, trust less. Too many can't seem to think of others first before thinking of themselves.
These are all of course banal generalizations. By way of atonement, years back, i had railed against the neglect of our Indian poor.
But across the hospital bed recently, one was admitted for a head wound after crashing his bike into a railing in the middle of the night following a bout of heavy drinking; the doctor discharged him soon after, saying if he didn't stop drinking, his headaches will continue. Same problem, every generation, it seems.
DeleteShan't we be satisfied that with all things in life including Heisenberg's Principle and ChatGPT algorithms, it's all about statistical distributions and Boltzmann entropy.
There are laudable exceptions to the standard and somewhat derogatory statements here but then again they are only designed to kick some more permanent sense into their self-awareness, especially when their civilization has produced edicts and homilies on the human condition and how to conduct oneself to avoid self-entrapments. That said, i cannot accept Jiddu Krishnamurti's overrated pellucidities.
c. The other Indian tycoon is Gautam Adani. The latest is a charge his company has sold subpar coal as high-calorific value coal; the extra profit is about the value of the contract. He said the higher value was independently certified.
If from Indonesia, that would be by Sucofindo. They conduct and certify thermal analysis of samples - given. After viewing at midnight excavators working on seams of coal in the dark hilly hinterland of eastern Borneo and over coffee in some shed, coal traders will regale stories of almost piratical proportions. It's to note that low grade coal tars more the linings of the reactors and is highly pollutive, and high grade coal after processing becomes coking coal to make steel.
Hi Walla, I really enjoy your intellectuality and wisdom! Keep coming!
ReplyDeleteThis sloppy piece of mine has also evoked much nostalgia from friends.
Prof Tan Hong Siang in his WhatsApp response to me:
"KTM was like a small transplant from Indian Railways.
"My only ride on a KTM train was way back in 1954. I remember it very well because it was my first trip out of then Malaya. We had a basketball team in a tournament in Klang to raise funds for Nanyang University. There was a big campaign for donations for the first university with Chinese medium curricula, and with a big name Chinese scholar Lin Yu Tang as President (unfortunately his tenure lasted only one year or so, a sad episode for Nantah then, but I do not know what were the problems, maybe he was to westernised).
"Anyway, our basketball team did well and we were rewarded with a trip to see Nantah. Given tickets to travel by KTM! Clanging and screeching noises all night. With thin cushioned seats, we hardly slept much, too excited anyway.
"Our group of about 10 students (I was one of three non-Chinese school bananas on the tea), the group talked in a mix of Mandarin and Hokkien. I was desperately learning more Mandarin terms and idioms from the Chinese school team mates.
"Arrived in Singapore and taken for quick simple breakfast then to Nantah in Jurong, still lots of construction going on. But the main building (now the NTU Chinese Heritage Centre) was up and the Nanyang Gardens in front.
"That was a great trip for us youngsters, I think for all of us, it was our first long tri. We were housed overnight at the Hokkien Huay Kuan, a big building."
Form my university mate John Tan Kheng Chiong, also on WhatsApp:
"Thanks for sharing! You covered the railway history of 3 countries: India, Malaysia and China in one "breath"! A good reflection of the mentality of each country, resulting in wide gaps of achievement in each country. I made a quick check at Google on India's high speed rail progress. Here's what I found:
"The first high speed railway corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad of about 508 km (316 miles) is currently under construction with a designed maximum operational speed of 350 km/h (220 mph) and is expected to be operational fully by 2028-29. As of 2023, eight such corridors have also been approved."
And from another u-mate Low Yew Chong:
"Your reminiscence of KTD evoke old memories and brought back the excitement I felt when I took my first train journey to Singapore. I haven/t taken local interstate train for decades. I heard from a relative who took the train to Butterworth recently that the seats were as comfortable as those on a plane. He went on business class. Of course can't compare with China's HSR but still much better than those during our younger days."