By Aditya Aamir
Can we say hurtling technology killed the 60 in Amritsar? And we’re not talking of bullet trains. The two trains that mowed people to death would have been least bothered if there were no folks to kill on the tracks. Regardless, it would have hurtled on. What killed the people were the people themselves, bang on the tracks and engrossed in smart phones held head high to make videos of Ravana burning!
Good triumphing over Evil.
That said there was neither good nor bad behind the unwanted slaughter. The trains shouldn’t have been running if the Railways knew of a Dussehra crowd taking over the tracks. But trains are there to run. “Who let the trains run?” is the valid question. But, if the driver was new to the job or to the place and did not know, he cannot be blamed. It’s crazy dangerous to hold such an event right next to the railway tracks.
Somebody should ask if the railways had forgotten that Dussehra next to the railway tracks has been a feature for 40 years. The simple answer to that is “it struck nobody.” That was criminal. Forty years is a long time to get acquainted with the regularity of an annual event. Killing Ravana is not something people get tired of.
In an absolute sense, it could be said that if Ravana was not killed this year, the 60 or more killed and the scores wounded wouldn’t have been standing on the railway tracks. But that is going down a rabbit hole: If there were no railway tracks, there wouldn’t be a train heading that way… But the tracks are there and Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and his wife Navjot Kaur are being blamed for the slaughter.
Kaur is an ex-MLA of that area and was chief guest at the Ravana burning. She says she had warned the crowd to get off the tracks several times, and that she left the venue much before the trains came barging into the festivities. But Kaur being Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife adds to the focus: This tragedy could have been avoided if only the organizers had anticipated such an event and taken corrective measures.
For Navjot Singh Sidhu, it is not a laughing matter. He’s now in full-steam protecting his wife’s fair name and saving himself from the backlash. The man was miles away when limbs were severed and torsos separated, but to pin the blame on him is so much more exhilarating. Sidhu has enemies in Punjab and Amritsar and he is not a friend of Chief Minister Amrinder Singh. The two get on like a mongoose and a snake.
Opposition BJP and the Akali Dal are spewing fire and the media has a full box of matchsticks to keep scratching the surface. 24/7 news coverage has kept the marauding TV news channels fully engaged on Amritsar, drawing attention from other happenings and issues, including ‘Mandir’ and ‘Rafale’. The impending assembly elections also took a backseat. What, even the Sabarimala standoff between Law and Faith and MJ Akbar’s #MeToo fixation were relegated to the background.
The railways have made a clean break from the tragedy with Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha making a visit to the spot and giving the Railways a clean-chit despite the fact that the killers were trains. In previous years, the Railways took “safety” measures to avoid just such an unfortunate event, but this time it did not. “Why?” Sinha did not provide an answer.
Navjot Singh Sidhu, Navjot Kaur, railways. The victims themselves and the trains (“saw but did not slow!”) and their drivers are all being blamed. But the smart phones are making a clean getaway. Smart phones make dull people. Every smart phone that evening in Amritsar was slanted to the sky to capture the burning demon. The trains did not know that and Ravana wouldn’t care. The Rama clan was celebrating and Navjot ‘Sita’ Kaur was gone with the wind.
Now there is false equivalence being created and a moral dilemma. A false equivalence is an informal fallacy that describes a situation where there’s an apparent similarity between two things when in fact they are not similar. There may be common characteristics but there are also important differences. Because they are linked to a common tragedy, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Navjot Kaur and the railways are being linked.
The probe faces a moral dilemma for it will be false equivalence to indict Navjot Singh Sidhu just because he happens to be Navjot Kaur’s husband and Amritsar-East MLA, a seat his wife held before him. Navjot Singh Sidhu maybe a much reviled man for his friendship with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan but that doesn’t make him a Ravana! Extrapolation is also a strict no-no. (IPA Service)