The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 90
90 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN upon themselves, as if by the mere fact of becoming Christians they had become more European than India. Then he was a member of the ICS, the Indian Civil Service, which some wag, on the model of the Holy Roman Empire, had described as neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service. So, I suppose, the welfare of the average Indian passenger on the railways did not concern him very much. I had to devote a good deal of attention to it. I had not been an official and from my childhood upwards I had a good deal of personal experience of railway travel. Within a couple of months of my taking over the portfolio, the six-monthly session of the Railway Conference Association took place at Simla. One of the agents of the different railways in India was chosen President for each year of the conference, and the conference was held alternately in Simla and in Delhi. The Railway Minister was the principal guest at the banquet which inaugurated the conference, as it were. I attended the banquet but that was only a social occasion and I could not do much. But I told Sir Guthrie Russell, who was Chief Commissioner of Railways and head of the Railway Board which supervised the administration of the whole system from the top, that I would like to address the conference, but that only the officers participating in the conference should be present, and the stenographers and the secretariat staff should be excluded, as I wanted to talk to them at an intimate level. That was arranged, and I addressed the Conference for about an hour. I told them I would like to speak to them of the spirit that I would wish should pervade the administration of the railways. If they found that they were doing what I was suggesting, that was all to the good. If they found that it had to be supplemented in any respect, I had no doubt they would do it. "I do want to say one thing which might appear rather strange to you, but it is nevertheless true. I do claim that I have more experience of the passengers' trials and difficulties with regard to railway travel in India than any of you have. I know many of you are Indians, but you became superior railway service officials when you were recruited into the railway service, and from the very first day of joining the railways, you were entitled to first class passes and many of you could arrange to travel in saloons, and you have no experience of what the ordinary passenger, particularly the third class passenger, suffers on the railways.