Stampedes and the lessons we skip

Past tragedies have not helped our preparedness as accountability remains elusive.

The stampede which claimed three lives in Odisha’s Puri shows that lessons have not been learnt from similar mishaps in the past. Eleven people died in a stampede in Bengaluru last month at an event organised to celebrate the IPL title win of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). The venues and the occasions are different, but the reasons for most stampedes are similar – lack of planning and safeguards, administrative lapses, and negligence on the part of the organisers and the police. Critically, the situation has been exacerbated by a failure to fix accountability for the lapses and to bring the guilty to book. Follow-up action, typically, is limited to the suspension of police and other personnel, and cursory inquiries. But in most cases, there is no serious punitive action and no one is held responsible for the deaths and the damage.

Sunday’s stampede happened during the popular annual rath yatra at the Jagannath Temple. The yatra is one of the country’s major religious events and the biggest in Odisha. It lasts many days, witnesses massive crowds, and has seen stampedes in the past. Last year, at least two devotees lost their lives, and many sustained injuries in separate incidents. A lack of transparency in post-disaster efforts has emerged as another issue. At times, the number of casualties is not known and not all the victims are identified. This is partly because of the nature of the gathering where people do not always carry their identity documents. The authorities also have the tendency to ignore some of the casualties to keep the official death toll low and understate the seriousness of the mishap.

Sunday’s mishap reportedly happened in the chaos that followed the entry of two ritual trucks into a congested area where a large crowd was waiting. The government has claimed that it made the best arrangements and deployed tens of thousands of policemen and officials. However, all arrangements broke down at the time of the crisis and according to eye-witnesses, the planning and supervision was poor. The creation of a special VIP entry that restricted the movement of pilgrims has also been cited as one of the reasons. Special treatment of VIPs is a perennial Indian problem that has caused mishaps. Religious gatherings and events organised around sport and entertainment draw large crowds and are prone to accidents. Crowd management rules and protocols for all situations are in place. The Karnataka police has issued a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in the aftermath of the Bengaluru stampede. But change will surface only with adherence to protocols and stated procedures.