Collective Action on Local Trains

At first sight it might seem to be a strange setting for collective action, but travel in a crowded compartment on a local train in Calcutta and you will get what I mean. I have had the (mis)fortune of travelling on local trains in peak hours during my master's degree and what I saw was the other face of collective action. One of my friends has written that we have been made to see only the white side of collective action. I dare say, I fully agree with this point of view. Coming back to the local trains, collective action assumes menancing proportions especially when you are not a daily commuter and not well versed with the "rules". The first encounter (with the other side that is) might be as soon as you board the train. If by mistake your elbow touches somebody, you are greeted with a "dekhe cholte paren na dada"(cant you watch and move) not from one but atleast four commuters including those whom you have saved yourself from touching. Pray somebody please teach me how do I do that when I have my pockets to tend to, lest they are picked, save myself from being pushed out, courtesy another group of commuters performing collective action. And by any misfortune, if the person your elbow touches happens to be a (beautiful) lady and by further misfortune, she raises a hue and cry, you have a collectivity of all the chivalrous men in the compartment grilling you and asking you if there is a mother and a sister back home.(I hope everyone gets the drift). It might be a different matter altogether that those very chivalrous men had been collectively leching at the same lady before you happened to make your presence felt. Meanwhile as you wade your way through inside the compartment, you have another group performing collective action. Blocking the space between the seats(That space by the way is meant for standing), playing cards. You beg for a little space to stand and you are snubbed. "We have spent the whole day at work and now you expect us to make space". And you are forced to stand on the aisle all the time, protecting yourself from the collectivities of commuters pushing their ways in and out every station. And the saga continues till you get to your destination.

Collective action it seems is all about power equations. The more power the collectivity has the more it tends to flaunt it, and in some unfortunate cases for all the wrong purposes. So while the "non daily commuter" is powerless, in front of the daily commuters, similarly the beautiful lady I have mentioned earlier is powerless on the face of the voyeurism of the collectivity. Some might ask why doesn't she protest in such a case. Well in that case you will have another perfect case of collective action. Almost all the men in the vicinity will shout in unison, "Etoi asubidha hoye local train e to taxi keno koren na?"(If you are so uncomfortable on a local train, why don't you hire a taxi?).

Probably this is one type of collective action which Prof. Sony had never intended to teach us.