On one of India’s longest train rides, ongoing election divides passengers
Al Jazeera
The 22-car Thirukkural Express is a microcosm of India, carrying passengers from different social groups and religions.
The 2,900km (1,800-mile) journey from capital New Delhi to Kanyakumari in the south is one of the longest train rides in India, passing through cities, villages, scrub forests and deep ravines.
The 22-car Thirukkural Express appears to be a microcosm of India, carrying passengers from different social groups and religions and with wide-ranging ambitions and grievances – from migrants crammed into sweltering no-frills cars to well-heeled families luxuriating in air-conditioned sleeper cabins, and everyone in between.
Passengers can also be divided by their politics, a topic at the top of their minds as the world’s most populous country holds its mammoth general election, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a rare third term.
India’s economy has grown rapidly under Modi, but the strong-arm tactics he has deployed to push his Hindu-nationalist agenda have sharpened religious divisions in the country of 1.4 billion people – roughly 200 million of whom are Muslim – and raised fears of a slide from secular democracy towards religious autocracy.
Many passengers who bought the cheapest tickets available are domestic migrants. Sitting on steel benches, standing in doorways, or lying on the floor, they travelled between the thriving capital and villages in the countryside, or to other cities, in search of work.
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