
A question haunts me as I write this is the 17-hour delay in announcing the casualty numbers after the stampede between post-midnight and pre-dawn hours at the Prayagraj’s Triveni Sangam on Wednesday. Was it that the administration wanted to be sure of its count? Or was it about not wanting to spread panic that could potentially worsen the situation?
Panic, as would fear, can spread quickly and it could also be faster than a forest fire during a very hot summer day especially when the social media where fact often is replaced with fiction and is trusted more than the legacy media is. Officials on the field and elsewhere in the state had their lips glued tight.
Everyone was pleased with the gigantic project of facilitating a smooth event. It was a mind boggling logistical exercise that could cost the execution of the plan an estimated Rs 75,000 cr. Then what happened for hours at a stretch that UP kept mum and first signals of death emerged only when Narendra Modi publicly condoled deaths at a poll meeting in Delhi?
Pilgrims who had come for the holy dip, had also performed the rites for the later passage to the heavenly hereafter had spoken the satisfying arrangements and wanted to stay back for a few days close to the river. Soon after the stampede we heard snatches on TV of “no arrangement, no help” and delivered tongue lashings to the administration.
The silent outrage of the people at the stampede and the voluble criticism and suggested solutions towards curbing any likely repeat by the time it ends is no solution to such events. It is only an emotion in passing. One suggestion was to limit or end VIP entitlements. Another was to hand over the management to the Army.
The list of stampedes across the country at religious congregations is long but would be a stretch to concede it as normal. There were no VIPs yesterday, the media have not yet reported their presence. The only VIPs were the akharas’s members who had the planned right but it was after the stampede.
The 1954 stampeded at the same location was soon after Independence, free of the VIP culture. The statistics of that event tell an interesting story. An internet search does not reveal anything from the Indian media but The Guardian had reported 800 deaths, Time had written that “no fewer than 350 people were trampled to death and drowned, 200 were counted missing”.
The attendance at that Kumbh was far lower than this time at about 50 lakhs. Those who took a dip on the mauni Amavasya too were fewer. But the number of dead was far higher. However, assuming the statistics of yesterday are correct, the casualties have fortunately been much lower. What has remained unchanged is the duration of the mela at 40 days.
The on-going Maha Kumbh Mela is more likely than not to get into record books as the world’s largest ever religious congregation. It also happens that no non-religious gathering has ever been so big. The attendance at this event is expected to be 40 crores, about twice the population of the host state, Uttar Pradesh.
Religious fervour which drives them to travel long distances from across the country, even walk for miles after reaching Prayagraj to the site of the holy dip is hard to quell. When you are within sight of the objective, a gentle unintended push by any one or an accidental slip of a person behind can trigger a crisis. It is like a whiff knocking down neatly arranged cards on their edges.
Unlike then, the administration has had better means including closed circuit television (CCTV), use of AI, mobile phones with the personnel deployed on duty, better barricades – in the past they were only bamboos – but the tragedy did occur. Is it possible that we do not take into account the people’s conduct during a festival?
I do not know of any investigation, either by the law enforcers or judicial commissions which has touched on any possible behaviour as at least an aspect of the trigger that initiates any stampede. Someone screaming as he slipped, someone shouting ‘run, run’ at the least provocation? Hopefully the three-person judicial probe may find an answer.
One thing for sure is to reckon the way in which Indians get so close to each other in a crowd. It is literally skin-to-skin which is a far cry from a huddle. It is the noise that we create that can drown announcements over the public address systems because we talk loudly. It is our social conduct – we don’t walk in order; we jostle and push.
Arrangements for such melas can never be perfect despite the huge expenditure – the budget is Rs 75,000 crore and the day-to-day management can and is only a fatiguing exercise. There could be an estimated Rs 2 lakh crore revenue but these numbers pale before the number of deaths. A single death is a big loss unless it was by natural causes. There will always be scope for improvement.