Link to Article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rwjnr12lwo
According to BBC, on Wednesday January 29th, 30 pilgrims were killed in a devastating crowd crush at the largest religious festival, the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela. The devotees on the riverbanks in the city of Prayagraj were trampled by other pilgrims who were rushing to take part in the sacred day of ritual bathing. With 90 injured being found, 30 of the devotees had died. This event happens every 12 years, meaning there are going to be massive crowds of people ready to participate. However, crowd crushes are common in India due to its large population. Last year, more than 120 people were killed in Hathras district, also in Uttar Pradesh, during a religious gathering. Some pilgrims also blamed authorities for the disaster. They asked why there was no police presence where the crush happened. “We do not want to take a holy dip like this,” a pilgrim added. “The government should just ask people to stay home at this point.”
This article stood out because it shows a government’s inability to protect its people and prepare itself for a large religious festival. It demonstrates people showing trust in their authorities and having those authorities fail them. This could lead to the government losing the popular support of their people. Once the people are unhappy it leads to slowing down internally and could even cause revolts, protests and other uproar.
The officials simply instructed the pilgrims to stop gathering at that point at the river, but this failed to end the fatal crowd crush as it was already overly packed. They sent a search and rescue to look for victims and has begun to identify the injured and the dead. Many people lost loved ones and spent hours searching into the night. There should be a public address from the government, apologizing for the misconduct and disorganization of the event.
We are currently discussing national and international security in class which best connects to this event. I believe that this event was a national security threat as it was a “man made disaster”. This means that the crowd crush in India was something, if better prepared for, could have been avoided. This means that the Indian government will have to come up with a way to make these kind of religious gatherings orderly and safe in order to defend national security and pose as a rising global power to the international community.