'Why are Indians Filthy?' Rajdhani Express Littered With Garbage Ignites Civic Sense Debate

Many of us who travel by train are all too familiar with the sight of garbage scattered across the aisles and seats. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you’ve booked a ticket on the fully air-conditioned Rajdhani Express or a local passenger train – the experience is more or less the same, with cleanliness taking a backseat. One Reddit user experienced this firsthand after boarding the Rajdhani Express from Goa’s Madgaon to Delhi’s Nizamuddin. The Redditor clicked a picture of the mess and shared it on social media, questioning “why Indians are filthy” and “lack civic sense”.

“Why are Indians so filthy? How are they okay with sleeping in their own filthy? Why do Indians lack any sense of civic sense? How is a 2700 Rs Rajadhani so different from an 1800 Durunto?” wrote an individual, who goes by “yourstruly555555555”, on Reddit’s “Indian Railways” community.

The picture shared by the Redditor shows empty plastic water bottles and wrappers littered on the floor of the train.

Here’s how people reacted to this picture:

“Affording expensive tickets won’t make people cleanliness conscious. They’ll forever be littering around and if anyone questions them, they might even ask you to pick and throw them in the dustbins. Been there, done that,” said an Internet user.

Another added, “‘I paid for this littering, they’ll come and clean’ attitude.”

“Lemme tell you one incident happened in front of me a week ago. I was traveling in Nizamuddin -Ernakukam Managala exp. Train was running late by an hour or so. Boarded the train late in the night, surprisingly ,train looked neat and tidy which only lasted till the very next morning. I woke up to see a heap of plastic bottles, and litters collected by the cleaning staff, infront of me, and guess what, he took a handful of those plastic bottles and dumped those out of the train through the emergency window, just like that. I was like wt hell did I just see? All of this happened in a split second, I couldn’t even take a footage of this reckless behaviour! People who were supposed to clean the place did the opposite. Passengers started to scold that person, and he pleaded not to complaint to the higher ops, typical guilt tripping, and took the remaining waste and left the place,” shared a third.

A fourth commented, “Civic sense is a joke in India.”

“Classic Indians,” wrote yet another social media user.

A sixth joined, “These are so-called educated Indians.”

“Trains coming from the North are always like that. I once travelled in Nizamuddin – KSR Bengaluru Rajdhani and the situation was similar. All plates and water bottles were in the upper berth. Had to call the in charge to get those things cleaned. South trains are much better,” claimed yet another.