Crowd control, we need to fix our rep

There are two ways to look at the late-night stampede on Tuesday that has reportedly claimed at least 30 lives at the Mahakumbh in Prayagraj. One, with this being the ‘largest congregation of humanity’, such ‘accidents’ can’t really be stamped out. Two, that no matter how much such gatherings are touted as part of a vibrant culture, with human safety far from guaranteed, reputational damage will ensure that they remain an attraction for those who don’t much care less for comfort and safety.The risk of stampedes grows higher as the number of people in a fixed space grows. Far less chaos-friendly societies have experienced crowd crushes – Heysel Stadium disaster in Brussels in 1985 when 39 mostly Italian football fans were killed while trying to escape from attacks by English hooligans; E2 nightclub stampede in Chicago in 2003 that killed 21 people; 21 people fatally crushed in a music festival in Duisburg, Germany in 2010…. But what makes for India’s bad reputation (that Belgium, the US and Germany don’t have) – especially with notions about its anarchic conditions and lack of civic sense – is the ‘we are like this only’ mindset that ensues each tragedy.

For India, crowd control will need much more of exactly that – control – than is currently in place, even after authorities have ostensibly improved safety measures. The simple fact that ‘pushing’ and breaking queues is, indeed, a ‘national behaviour’ is still very difficult to deny. Perhaps it’s time that the Kumbh, and other far smaller gatherings, stick to an entry cut-off. How such a feat can be achieved, and whether there’s a will to bring about such a curb, is something India must seriously look into, if it really wants to be seen as a celebratory brand destination.