Crowds, cynicism, and the crisis of authority

Last week’s tragic stampede outside the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru is not just a local administrative failure – it is emblematic of a deeper, systemic ailment that afflicts our institutions: the inability to anticipate, to learn, and above all, to reform. Like many such episodes, it follows a now all-too-familiar script. Public outrage erupts. Media reports swirl. A few police officers are hastily suspended. The public is left with grief and anger. And then, silence.

But what makes this tragedy particularly disquieting is the broader crisis of legitimacy it exposes – a point Martin Gurri compellingly argues in The Revolt of the Public. Gurri noted how the information explosion of the digital age has shattered the monopoly of institutional narratives. In doing so, it has empowered the public not just to demand accountability, but to question the very foundations of authority. The crowd is no longer just physical; it is also digital, emotional, and global.

In Bengaluru, thousands thronged the gates not just to celebrate, but to participate in something larger: a shared spectacle, a moment of identity and belonging. This is not just crowd behaviour – it is crowd emotion, amplified by online buzz, nostalgia, and a longing for collective experience. Managing such emotive crowds is not merely a matter of headcounts and barricades; it demands the foresight of systems thinking, the empathy of public leadership, and the rigour of administrative design.

Yet our institutions remain oddly out of sync with this reality. The operating playbook is outdated, reactive, and punishing. In the absence of systemic inquiry, we fall back on scapegoating – the suspension of a few officers becomes the ritualistic price paid for institutional inaction. It is an illusion of accountability, not its substance. Ironically, those closest to the frontlines – the police officers – are often those with the least discretion or resources to make structural changes. What they lack in authority, they compensate for with risk. And when things go wrong, they are the first to fall.

This pattern breeds a corrosive cynicism. The public sees through the charade of inquiry commissions and administrative musical chairs. They ask, quite reasonably: where was the coordination between the Karnataka State Cricket Association and the civic administration? Who assessed the likely crowd surge? Was there a crowd simulation, a risk analysis, or a command-control protocol in place? Why do we continue to be caught off guard by eminently predictable events?

The answers, sadly, lie in our collective unwillingness to treat public events as complex systems. Managing crowds in a city like Bengaluru is not just a policing problem – it is a governance problem. It demands coordination between city planners, transport authorities, venue operators, data analysts, behavioural experts, and yes, the police. It requires standard operating procedures tailored to Indian urban realities, drawing from best practices in crowd science, public messaging, and real-time monitoring. These are not utopian ideas – they are necessary adaptations to a society that is more networked, more impatient, and more vocal than ever before.

What we are witnessing is not just the failure of the government. It is the failure of governance paradigms that have not evolved to meet the public where they are – online, outraged, and organised. Gurri warns that in such an environment, the public does not seek to reform institutions; it seeks to discredit them. If left unaddressed, this delegitimisation leads to a dangerous spiral: institutional paralysis, performative politics, and a breakdown of trust.

So, what should we do? First, we must move from event blame to system reform. Every such episode should trigger an institutionalised after-action review, with independent experts, clear accountability trails, and published findings, not as a perfunctory whitewash, but as a learning exercise.

Second, we must build sustained capacity within urban administrations for managing mass events – an interdisciplinary cell that combines technology, logistics, behavioural science, and emergency planning. Singapore, for instance, has such a unit; there is no reason Bengaluru cannot.

Third, we must stop using police officers as human shields for systemic failures. Instead, we should empower them with tools, training, and inter-departmental support that allows for intelligent, humane, and anticipatory policing.

Finally, and most importantly, we need a new compact between the State and the public – one that acknowledges the legitimacy of public emotion, while asserting the authority of systems thinking. In the age of volatile crowds and volatile networks, governance cannot be reduced to optics. It must be rebuilt, brick by thoughtful brick.

The tragedy outside the stadium should have been a wake-up call. Let it not become a finger-pointing exercise, or just another headline in the churn of forgetting. Let us learn, reform, and restore the idea of governance not as an enforcer, but as an enabler – of safety, dignity, and trust.