Living, and dying, on the edge

Tragedies in Bengaluru and Mumbai show how precarious life in India is

Alok Tiwari

Two recent tragedies defined the unfortunate reality of life in India in general and our cities in particular. First was the stampede during victory celebrations of Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL. It left 11 mostly young people dead and dozens more injured. Days later, passengers fell off as two crowded suburban trains passed each other in Mumbai resulting in death of five. That too left about a dozen people badly hurt. Deaths in these incidents are tragic. What is more tragic is how commonplace such instances are in India.

The Bengaluru stampede was just one in long line of such events that occur with disturbing regularity in our country. Just this year more than 60 people have died in stampedes. This includes official death toll of 30 in Mahakumbh in late January though eyewitnesses say the real number of casualties was much higher. A couple of weeks after that there was one at New Delhi railway station also involving pilgrims headed to Kumbh. Deaths on Mumbai’s suburban rail systems are also absurdly common. Monday’s accident made news because so many casualties occurred in a single instance, otherwise individuals dying by falling off or being runover by trains go unnoticed daily.

Given that India is now the most populous country and that crowds gather here at the drop of a hat, one would imagine us to be having among the most effective crowd control systems. This is far from true. It is because the responsibility of controlling the crowds in every case falls on the police force that remains, like many other essential services, understaffed, under-equipped, and untrained for the job at hand. The force is expected to deal with crime as well as security duties. Crowd control often comes in as an often-unexpected additional burden.

The reliance is still on age old methods. If it is a planned event, like a religious congregation or a political rally, old wooden barricading that often itself becomes cause of injuries or deaths is used. Nor are the cops deployed specially trained in dealing with large crowds. They have little say in the venue of the event or on the numbers that will be allowed to attend. They certainly do not have a veto on the event if deemed dangerous. In the few cases they assert themselves, it is to prevent rallies or demonstrations of political opponents of ruling party. Such a force is expected to deal with a public that itself has little regard for rules and no discipline.

The police find themselves more handicapped as a vast majority of such gatherings are religious in nature. They have even less control over where and how the events are organized. A random godman may hold an event that attracts tens of thousands of people and end up causing a huge tragedy, the way it happened in Hathras last year. Pilgrims in vast numbers make a beeline for shrines. At such times they are a law unto themselves, yielding to little control or discipline. Nothing can be done about them because hurting religious sentiments is now near the top of the crimes one can commit.

The deadly tragedies keep occurring also because of our stoic acceptance of them. Almost all these accidents are preventable with better control. For this, we need to take the loss of lives seriously. We lost 26 citizens in Pahalgam terror attack. And for them we almost went to war with a nuclear-powered nation. That military action cost thousands of crores in ammo and equipment and a yet unknown number of very expensive aircraft. There was even more loss of life on either side of the border. It was a demonstration of outrage felt by a nation and its resolve to prevent it.

I certainly do not intend to compare stampedes with a terror attack. Yet, considering that loss of lives in the former is much more and they are also preventable, their frequent occurrence needs to cause much more outrage than it does at present. The headlines about them do not even last a couple of days and the news cycle moves on. Some officials are suspended and some cases registered. That usually is the last we hear of them. There are no public events over weeks to mourn the dead, no politician addresses rallies vowing never to let stampedes happen again. No resources are committed to ensure that large gatherings are better dealt with. All human life is same. Why should it take a terror attack for us to outrage about losing them needlessly?

Tragedies happen all over the world. The main difference is that elsewhere lessons are learnt and applied to prevent their recurrence. We are unbelievably forgiving about them. Whether it is losing lakhs of people in road accidents each year or hundreds in stampede, rail accidents, and building fires, we get back to business as usual in no time. We need to overcome the inertia and move ourselves to set things right.

Meanwhile, there is something we can do at an individual level. Avoid large crowds at all costs. It can be thrilling to be part of a massive event. It allows us to identify with something larger than ourselves. It also reinforces a sense of community. However, we often fall victim to a manufactured purpose. For instance, what had Bengaluru city to do with RCB as a team, other than just sharing name?

There is no god, no religion, no godman, no politician, no film star, no singer, no band, and certainly no cricket team worth putting your life on the line. Be part of the experience online from the safe confines of your home. Technology allows that today. If by some chance you do find yourself amid a crowd, get out as soon as you can as though life depends on it. Because, of course, it does.