The huge tragedy that has unfolded in the Chinnaswamy Stadium, where a celebration was decided jointly by the Karnataka government and the Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Wednesday, raises many question marks particularly on the law and order front. Some three lakh youths converged at the stadium in a sudden surge after the celebrations were announced around noon without sufficient details. The mass frenzy was palpable as it was after 18 years’ wait that RCB won the IPL match flooring Punjab Kings there at the hands of the Virad Kohli-led cricket team. A deployment of a about 5000 police personnel in normal circumstances might have sufficed but for the fact that their concentration was mainly around the footloose VIP arrivals. This has been so with almost every event today. Policing has transformed into an art of “protecting” the VIPs, the crowds of politicians, ministers, holders of senior positions in government and the judiciary. A crowd formation must, with minimum law and order “arrangements,” fend for itself. Confusion about release of passes for entry to the stadium, where seats were limited to 30,000 or one-third of the crowd strength, apparently resulted in the stampede, deaths and injuries to many.
Today Bengaluru is the City of Chaos. Hailed as the Silicon Valley of India, it drew techies from across states to man the large numbers of IT campuses there. They ride the crest of youth power with their substantially high income, comforts and capacity to spend. The 15-million population as a whole are both beneficiaries of this new-found wealth surge and at the receiving end of its fallouts in the social sector. Infrastructure facilities are reduced to the bare minimum and old-fashioned. The roads are in bad condition. Many principal areas are still not covered by the Metro services. Political and governmental leaderships blinked for long before the Metro system was decided on. Movement by road from one place to another in the city, which progressively bulged to all directions, is a herculean task due to huge traffic jams. Yet, Bengaluru’s facilities catering mainly to the young techies, professionals, business executives and their families, including a vibrant nightlife, its eateries and huge malls, are all high attractions. The hip crowds celebrate life. It was natural that they flooded the Chinnaswamy Stadium in a jiffy at this hour of pride for them. Unfortunately for them a complacent government let them down badly and yet typically showed the gumption to announce a cash compensation for the affected individuals/families.
Admitting errors, even grave ones, is not in the psyche of politicians; much less in the mind of an old war horse like chief minister Siddaramaiah. He would rather find alibis like the “unexpected” surge. An inquiry follows, but as in the past no inquiry made any sense to those who saw how it progressed and ended. Enquiry reports beat around the bush and, in the end, protect the guilty or cast aspersions on the innocent.
