It is a pity that the Uttar Pradesh administration and the railway authorities in Allahabad did not show the ingenuity to anticipate unmanageable or difficult crowd situations during the period of the Mahakumbh Mela in this city which becomes hallowed ground to millions of devotees who arrive to recharge their faith, earn religious merit and cleanse their souls.
If those charged with making appropriate arrangements had been both diligent and innovative, it is possible the tragedy at the railway station on Sunday evening, claiming the lives of about 40 people, may just have been averted, although sceptics might say this is too much to expect in a country in which accountability is at a perpetual discount.
In this case it appears that the police resorted to its favourite method of crowd control, the all-too-disgusting, colonial era lathicharge, when tens of thousands rushed towards a particular platform at the railway station in response to routine arrival and departure announcements.
No stampede is likely to have resulted if the police had sought to bring order to the situation in a calm, civilised way instead of rushing to rain lathi blows on mostly poor pilgrims from the hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who had arrived in the city of the Sangam for the holy dip on the day of Mauni Amavasya.
A violent lathicharge on a narrow overhead bridge cannot but cause chaos. The men in uniform who attacked with lathis pilgrims in a hurry to catch the return train home, and those who ordered them to do so, deserve to be officially charged and asked a few tough questions. As a rule, the police in this country conduct themselves disgracefully. They are known to make themselves scarce when citizens in need seek their prompt help and behave like a pack of marauders when ordered to use state violence against ordinary folk, especially ordinary folk.
Obviously it is not just the police that is to blame, although its brutal methods frequently produce chaos rather than order. The Mahakumbh is the largest gathering of people on earth. Especially in a short period during which 35 million people take a bath at Sangam, the railways and the Uttar Pradesh administration needed to have a suitably efficient staggering system in place to try and disperse crowd intensity.
It is not just a question of running more trains, for which railway minister Pawan Bansal has sought to usurp credit, but also managing the limited space of a railway station, and other railway resources, so that surging crowds do not get desperate and break the arrangements made for them. It appears the arrangements were good at the Mahakumbh for top politicians and filmstars, but not for the ordinary citizens.