The Mahakumbh in Prayagraj was preceded by a long publicity campaign which included posters and hoardings of the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister inviting people there, preachers- both male and female, proclaiming that “A Hindu that did not visit the Kumbh was a traitor”. A veritable mass hysteria was sought to be built to serve political ambitions by invoking the bogey of Sanatan pride. The invitees were assured of a high-quality infrastructure that would render transport, security, accommodation, clean bathing ghats as well as 5-star hotel like facilities for those willing to purchase them. When the event commenced on 13 January on the day of Paush Purnima, the mass influx began to occasionally challenge the preparations in the city and the Mela ground. The recourse taken was to shift the parking to a distant location and let the devotees walk on foot, distances as long as 15 to 20 km to reach the Sangam. Every day, a VVIP, VIP, a high-ranking government official or a minister would be present in the mela and become a source of traffic jams. The CM was literally operating his camp office from the mela ground. On the auspicious day of Mauni Amawasya on 28-29 January, when the largest number of devotees prefer to take a holy dip, the 60,000 odd strong security contingent, aided with thousands of CCTVs and AI assisted surveillance devices proved ineffective in monitoring and controlling the deluge of masses that came pouring in. A stampede resulted in the death of many innocent pilgrims. A similar stampede in 1954 in Sangam had stained with blood the city of Allahabad.
Incidentally, in the 2013 Kumbh, an accident occurred at the railway overbridge in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) in which many devotees lost their lives. The actual number of deaths was made public. The then incharge minister of the mela, Azam Khan had resigned after taking the moral responsibility for the mishap. However, this time, the state machinery was busy hiding the actual number of deaths and even went to the extent of intimidating journalists in the name of curbing rumours. Even after a few TV channels played visuals of corpses lying in hospitals, the Chief Minister, after many hours of the mishap, went public with reduced numbers of the dead and appeared more inclined towards warning against rumours. A similar stampede was reported in the Jhusi area near Sangam.
It would shame people to know that within hours of the stampede, the belongings of the dead were hurriedly removed from the site by JCB and tractors to facilitate the bath of the saints and rose petals were air dropped over them, just adjacent to the site where many had lost their lives a few hours ago. Was it not possible for the saints to observe a minute’S silence in the memory of the dead? Would it not have been more sensitive to refrain from showering petals?
Some of us had been observing the influx of masses in the city and were keeping our fingers crossed for their safety. However, the ground realities were presenting a disturbing picture. Before the Mela started, a warning had been issued against the entry of Muslims in the mela. The reality however was found to be different. Many labourers working in the mela were Muslims. Two Muslim labourers had already lost their lives while constructing the road overbridge from Soroan. The Khusro Bagh mosque near the railway station had been barricaded. Some mosques and churches lying on the route from the city to the mela ground witnessed provocative slogans from some mischievous devotees but the people displayed their maturity and no untoward incident was reported. As a gesture of harmony, many Muslims living in areas of mixed population handed over their houses to their Hindu neighbours for accommodating the devotees. The 500 odd buses arranged by the state government proved inadequate in transporting the devotees. Before Makar Sankranti on 13 January, the transport vehicles were ordered to be parked 15 km from the mela ground, leading to immense hardship to the devotees who had to travel on foot to reach the mela ground. The vehicles of VIPs and VVIPs were however allowed to ply right into the mela ground, thereby causing hardship to the pedestrians.
On the day of Mauni Amavasya (28 January), my acquaintance Shatrughan Nishad, who runs a tea shop near the Dasashwamedh ghat informed me that the security forces were forcing the devotees into small bylanes and locking them there. The question is that when the situation had become alarming on 28 January morning itself, what steps did the administration take to manage the crowd so that the stampede on 29th morning could be averted. The Home Minister had taken a bath on 27th morning and a high-level meeting was convened by the Chief Minister on 27th evening. Why did the administration, equipped with modern surveillance equipment not take measures to control the large numbers of devotees who had started gathering from 27th morning itself.
During the intervening night of 28-29 January, the art editor of the magazine Samkaleen Janmat, Ankur walked 10 km to reach the ghat at 12.30 in the night. He was shocked to hear the sound of the sirens of ambulances there. He presumed that maybe a mock drill was being conducted there. But later he realized that a stampede had taken place. His co-journalists like Sushil Manav, Mohd. Anas and senior photojournalist S K Yadav were busy shooting the whole scene.
The high-profile hightech 100 bed hospital, built at the mela ground was flooded with men and women after the stampede, with doctors and medical staff struggling to provide medical care. Later, the dead bodies were moved to the medical college mortuary and the Swaroop Rani hospital mortuary. Other than the list of the 30 dead that was displayed on the main gate of the post mortem house, no information about the missing, dead or injured was made available till 2 February. Ganga Prasar centre 1, one of the over ten lost and found centres built in the mela, sheltered 38 women till the night of 1 February.
The name of Allahabad was changed to Prayagraj before the last Kumbh. An anti-Muslim hate campaign launched then had failed to dampen the spirit of communal harmony that was part and parcel of the civic life of the city. The citizens of Allahabad and the Muslims residents came out to help the people reach the railway station. To avert any untoward incident because of the swelling crowds, the residents of the old city areas like Ghantaghar, Nakkhas, Raushan Bagh and Khusrobagh opened the gates of their mosques, dargahs, madrasas and schools to provide shelter to the devotees. They provided food and clothing to the needy during 29 and 30 January. On the other hand, there was no relief forthcoming from the grand Akhara tents, corporate rest houses and 5-star tents. On the morning of 30 January at 4 am, I met an elderly lady Yashoda, hailing from Gulabpura village of district Auraiya, who had walked 20 km and had to walk another 5 km to reach the Subedarganj railway station. She thanked Ganga maiyya for saving her life though she was worried about her swollen legs.
The sanitation workers working day and night at the mela were harassed by the police and the companies. Their leader Balram Patel of the Safai Mazdoor Ekta Manch, Allahabad handed a memorandum to the mela administration on 1 February. Even after spending 7300 crores, there appears no end in sight to the troubles there. The multinational event management company Ernst and Young, which was awarded a multi crore order for event management, Dabur, Nestle, Blinkit etc. had filled the mela spot with their advertisements. They had turned it into a mela showcasing the corporate-political nexus. Adani sponsored a 45 day food distribution camp in collaboration with ISKCON.
I cannot end here without asking a question to my Prime Minister. The first tragedy occurred in the Kumbh in independent India in 1954. Some people were trying to shield Nehru by saying that he was not physically present during the stampede and he had left a day earlier after taking stock of the preparations. However, Nehru accepted on the floor of the house that he and Dr. Rajendra Prasad were physically present near the site when the accident occurred. He offered an apology for the accident. The then chief minister of UP, Govind Ballabh Pant wanted to hush up the accident. A.N. Mukerjee, a senior journalist of Anand Bazar Patrika who was injured in the stampede took photographs of the accident and they were published in the newspaper on 4 February. Pant told him to tender an apology for publishing false news. Mukerjee did not bow down and secretly reached the place where the dead bodies were placed to be cremated. Again on 5th February, these photos were printed. Shishir Kumar Ghosh, the editor of Anand Bazar Partika had been persecuted by the British and his paper had been banned but he started a newspaper with the name Yugantar in 1937. How could such a man succumb before the threats of a CM or a PM?
It is pertinent to note that during the recently concluded Delhi elections, the PM was offering his condolence for the bereaved souls of Kumbh stampede, the officials like the SSP of Kumbh were busy parroting the statement that no stampede had taken place. Will the PM take some steps and at least tell the nation the actual figure of the dead? It is worth recalling that during the Kumbh of 2019, the PM had blamed Nehru for the 1954 stampede. The PM had himself visited the Kumbh a month ago for laying the foundation stone of many projects and had proclaimed that CM yogi was on the job. The CM had invited all Hindus who believe in the Sanatan dharma to participate in the Kumbh. So would he now take the responsibility for the deaths in the tragic stampede. UP minister Azam Khan, who had resigned after the stampede at the railway station was being castigated for being a Muslim and organizing the Kumbh by the CM and his Deputy CM. Has not the time come for CM Yogi to resign too? Or would the whole matter be hushed up by forming a three-member inquiry committee comprising of a retired judge of the High court, an IAS and an IPS officer? The committee did ask some questions from the mela organising committee but when will the nation know about the actual number of the dead or the whereabouts of the more than 1500 still missing.
On 3 February, in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge paid condolences to the thousands that had lost their lives in Kumbh. The Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and the Vice President Mr. Jadgeep Dhankar protested and asked Kharge to take back his words. Kharge replied that this figure was his estimate of the dead and if the government feels that the data is wrong, it should come forward with the actual data. He added that he would apologise if proved wrong. The statement by the leader of the largest opposition party of the country about the figure of the dead and the reluctance of the government to issue the actual figure lends credence to the claims of the opposition about the large number of unreported deaths.
[Translated and slightly abridged version of the article published in Samkaleen Janmat. The title is borrowed from the fourth line of the poem ‘Upon returning from Dhaka’ by Faiz Ahmad Faiz.]
Statement:
CPI(ML) mourns the loss of lives in the tragic stampede at New Delhi Railway station
February 16, 2025, New Delhi:
A tragic stampede at the New Delhi Railway Station has claimed 18 lives and left several injured on 15th February, Saturday, The stampede, triggered by the delays in multiple services during the Maha Kumbh rush, is a direct indictment of the Central government’s callous mismanagement of India’s railways. Despite clear warnings from ticket sales data—which showed 1,500 general tickets sold hourly—railway authorities failed to deploy adequate crowd control measures, leaving platforms dangerously overcrowded. Passengers, including women and children, were left to scramble for space, crushed under the weight of systemic apathy.
The severity of the incident was such that, the first responders rescuing the people were the coolies of the railway station. The railway administration didn’t have emergency measures in place to deal with an incident of this magnitude. It is clear, the Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw whose focus is primarily on PR management and content creation has failed to strengthen the railway safety and administration.
Despite the Minister ordering a high-level enquiry, the abject failure of his leadership has repeatedly led to common people losing their lives in ever increasing train accidents and his gross failure in strengthening administrative mechanism. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw must be removed from his post forthwith.
The massive propaganda of the Modi-Yogi government stating that the Maha Kumbh has been organised keeping the pilgrims in focus, is exposed as each day passes. Both the state and central governments have failed to ensure a safe Maha Kumbh that was visible through the tragic deaths in the more than one stampede at Maha Kumbh, huge traffic snarls, abysmal planning of facilities and ease of movement for the general public, and whereas VIPs are being provided with green corridors.
It is time that the double engine government is held responsible for people’s miseries and deaths due to its gross mismanagement.
