Kalkaji temple mishap is the latest in a series of deathtraps for pilgrims

The collapse of an elevated platform at a religious congregation in Delhi on Sunday represents a larger and deeper malaise.

Durga Dutt, a resident of south Delhi’s Tughlaqabad, will remember Sunday, January 28, with a shudder, which should not have been the case when he decided to go to the famed Kalkaji temple for a religious congregation.

The site of the Kalkaji temple where a wooden platform collapsed during a ‘Jagran’ early Sunday (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

The pravachan (sermon) by a local preacher was in full swing, the devotees swaying under his spell, when the elevated platform where the function was being held, came down with a godawful crash.

"The music stopped suddenly, and people began to run helter-skelter. Everyone was yelling. Later we saw the stage had come down. I was lucky to survive,” Dutt recalls.

While this relatively minor mishap claimed a single life with over a dozen injured, the state of infrastructure at religious places and facilities offered in India is becoming increasingly precarious. Hundreds - if not thousands - die at holy places every year and if the numbers are not higher, it’s got to be some divine intervention.

The list is endless and in many remote places, minor accidents and small casualties go unreported. In 2013, a study published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, an affiliate of the Davos-based Global Risk Forum, came up with some startling conclusions. It said that religious gatherings and pilgrimages account for 79 per cent of all stampedes in India.

"Religious festivals, especially when located in remote rural areas and on hilly terrains, and on the foothills or at riverbanks lacking proper pathways always pose a geographical risk to the pilgrims. Steep slopes, uneven topography of the venue, dead ends, slippery and muddy floors, narrow passages, convergence of pedestrian flow to a single point are among the common risks prevailing in religious gathering sites, compromising safety...," noted the study.

Wrote Bharat Dogra, Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now, in an essay: The possibility of such tragedies can be reduced significantly by careful planning and administrative measures implemented with the cooperation of local people and pilgrims. The specific places as well as times when there is greater chance of a stampede or accident should be identified carefully...People can be asked to assemble at a bigger open space and then smaller numbers who can be safely accommodated in more cramped places can be summoned in phases. The movement of people should be in one direction while those coming back should have a different route.”

The importance of crowd management

Experts also point to a feature almost unique to India: crowds tend to grow too large, and too fast, too soon.

The Kalkaji temple mishap, has a similar tale. The congregation, an annual affair, generally is designed to accommodate 2,000 or so people. Suddenly, the numbers had swelled to 15,000-20,000 believers on a Sunday. A Delhi Fire Service officer was quoted as saying that a no-objection certificate (NOC) was not needed for a small gathering on trust property. But what happens when the numbers increase dramatically? Noone can say for sure.

In a country, which gave birth to three of the six major world religions - Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism - and is home to Islam and Christianity that took early roots in India, in addition to smaller religions like Zoroastrianism, Bahai, Jain and Jewish faiths, the immediacy of pilgrimages can scarcely be underestimated. For the moment though, that is not on anyone’s priority list.

Ranjit Bhushan is a senior journalist.