India News and Features Alliance (INFA)

An Intolerable Toll?: WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?, By Poonam I Kaushish, 18 February 2025

Political Diary

New Delhi, 18 February 2025

An Intolerable Toll?

WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?

By Poonam I Kaushish

Stuck records are tiresome. But when tragedy struck Capital’s New Delhi’s railway station Saturday night killing 18 people and injuring hundreds sounding like a stuck record is imperative unless the message is driven home.

Yesterday, UP’s Prayagraj station too crumbled under deluge of unstoppable devotees within a month of the one at Maha Kumbh wherein over 30 lost their lives and 60 injured in a stampede during Amavasya Shahi Snan embracing all in a devastating hug flattening men, women and children, whatever came their way in a mad dash to take a snan at Triveni Sangam (confluence of Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati) leaving a trail of death and destruction, anger and anguish, despair and desperation, morbidity and mortality in this catastrophic season.

Public memory is short, shorter is the official one. Arguably, why did Railways keep selling 2500 unreserved tickets than train capacity without checking flow of pilgrims towards the station? Two, why were 48% fewer security staff deployed? Three, why was there a mix-up of platforms of two special Kumbh trains? Who will account for administrative lapses and failures? Else people wouldn’t have died. It was a disaster which has been allowed to be played out. First, came the denial, then an attempt to downplay the loss of lives.

Clearly, crowd management is a well-researched science but no lessons have been learnt from the September 2017 Mumbai’s Elphinstone Road station crowd ‘collapse’ which resulted in 23 deaths after a woman slipped or 2010 stampede which caused 20 deaths. January 2005 stampede during the Kalubai Yatra Mandhardevi at Maharashtra’s Satara killing 293 people.

Ditto at earlier Kumbhs. In 2013 overcrowding left 37 dead. Between 1990-2022 over 14,700 people died due to overcrowding causing stampedes. Many which started when someone slipped. An International Journal of Stampede Reduction study pointed out that religious gatherings and pilgrimages account for nearly 80% stampedes in India, besides rock concerts and fairs.

Alas, as people grapple with this calamity our netas cursorily go through their ritual political circus. All lament the deaths, parrot grief and vouch to help people. The Railway Ministry and State Government assert everything under control by setting up committees of enquiry. Babudom analyses the cause of overcrowding and its aftermath over official lunches. Their ideas and remedies as jammed and stuffed as the overcrowding under discussion. Everyone is satisfied that they have done their bit. Everything is kaam chalao!

Questionably, does anyone really care? Given that overcrowding is a given at religious sites, train and bus stations wherein hundreds die, families lose their loved ones. No. Why does the Government only react after people have lost their lives? Who is responsible? Who will be held accountable? And which head will roll? None. Moreover, why do politicians feel that merely sanctioning monies will solve the problem?

Undeniably, every time a tragedy strikes it’s a tell-tale of total apathy of insensitive Administrations both at the Centre and State Governments. Of rulers who ignore experts who in turn, blame it on lessons not learnt by successive Administrations. Primarily because the aam aadmi translates into sterile statistics to be manipulated at will. Standing mute testimony to a callous and selfish polity and Administration bereft of cure and consolation. All cursing the Government!

Evidently, the administrative system had practically collapsed long ago --- not only in New Delhi but almost everywhere. A life-style of Nano Yuppiesim only brings forth the macro consequences of neglect of socio-political environment. A total urban breakdown, neglect of rural poverty, unpaved roads, unsanitary environments and a collapsing sewage and drainage system. At a stage, where another crisis threatens.

“The truth is that even as we have achieved political and economic freedom lopsided economic growth has created a dispossessed population,” asserted a social scientist. Unfortunately, most Indians do not care. Absence of national character and indiscipline has led to a creeping paralysis of ‘sab chalta hai’. Think. Who will bear the cross? How does one salvage India’s soul?

It’s all very well to talk of ‘demographic dividend’ but this notion falls by the wayside if the individual is given the short shrift and the collective is made the be-all and end-all. Having VIPs from President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Chief Ministers with Cabinets, Mantris etc taking a dip in the Ganga as the showpiece of Kumbh is all fine. But when the ‘unwashed masses’ are left to fend for themselves, our leaders and babus must ask themselves if their fake construct of “Sabka Saath” hides an undesirable reality.

Having people risk being crushed for an occasion is hardly good advertisement for ring-fenced, safe versions of similar gatherings. These tragedies have shown how severely deficient we are in preparing for mega events. It is yet another wake-up call which should become an inflexion point where our jan sevaks turn their attention to value individual life. If that means prohibiting gatherings beyond a size until infrastructure and control mechanisms are ready, so be it.

Our polity needs to take into account local realities and involve experts who would evaluate the problems, study its context and be involved in decision and policy-making. With special emphasis on problems created by burgeoning population and its impact on the local eco-system, growth of hap-hazard planning, environmental insanitation and decay, drainage and stagnant water bodies.

Our administrators need to look beyond policemen with lathis shepherding crowds, personnel deployment, involve better organization coordination, scientific planning and data-driven decision making especially by factoring in crowd estimation and identifying points and site arrangements.

The National Disaster Management Authority has framed detailed guidelines for crowd management. Yet authorities at large congregations don’t always act promptly to ensure crowds keep moving calmly. One fails to understand why State-of-art crowd control methods or drones were not used to help law enforcers to monitor crowd density and swiftly identify source of pressure or disturbance.

The need of the hour demands action. Blue-prints and discussions are not going to help unless and until the Government starts implementing them. Even as NaMo bulldozes ahead with grand designs to develop India in to Viksit Bharat, this season’s devastating stampedes shows fixing today’s over-crowded metropolises is a more pressing task.

The writing is on the wall. Our polity needs to pull up their bootstraps and focus on long-term not short-term planning. One needs neither a bleeding heart nor blindness to know what should be done. For if we still elect to do nothing about crowd management stampedes only holds out promises of more misery, more wrenching news and more cries. Life, after all, is not collating numbers, but flesh and blood with beating hearts. Can we just let them bleed?

Remember Aldous Huxley words: Men do not learn from lessons of history which is the most important of all the lessons of history. Else history will repeat as farce! ----- INFA