November 2004: Stampede at New Delhi Railway Station, 5 dead. Reason: Chhath Puja
May 2010: Stampede at New Delhi Railway Station, 2 dead. Reason: Summer Vacation
February 2025: Stampede at New Delhi Railway Station, 18 dead. Reason: Maha Kumbh
The stampede that happened at the New Delhi Railway Station on the night of February 15, Saturday, was neither the first stampede nor the first incident where the public was blamed for it.
Amid the noise in social media, politicial mud-slinging, allegations and counter-allegations, nobody has noticed that the incidents of stampede have a crucial commonality; they all happened in an area where the people come to the platforms through the Ajmeri Gate area of New Delhi. Every time, the people that are the victims of the stampedes have come for trains that run to the areas of UP, Bihar and Jharkhand we commonly refer to as ‘Purvanchal’.
Nobody has talked about the fear with which a typical Purvanchali living in Delhi NCR carries with him or her, each time they board the above-mentioned trains from the same NDLS station to their hometowns in Bihar, UP and Jharkhand.
I come from that area called Purvanchal. Each time I travel with my family from the NDLS, boarding the same trains, that fear has travelled with me like an invisible burden.
Why did the stampede happen at NDLS?
If we believe the official statements by the Railways, there were no announcements for ‘change of platform’ for the special train going to Prayagraj. In the space between Platforms 14 and 15, on one side, there were people gathered to board the ‘Prayagraj Special’ and on another side people were gathered to board the Swatantrata Senani Express.
In the meanwhile, the station official announced on speakers that the ‘Prayagraj Special’ train would come on Platform 16. The ‘Bheed’ that had gathered for the train, started rushing towards the staircase to reach Platform 16. In the jam-packed platforms where the crowd started rushing all at once, some people slipped, some fell, the ‘Bheed’ kept moving, climbing over the fallen, kicking and crushing those who could not rise.
Stampedes, ‘Bheed’ and the social media keyboard warriors
Social media was quick to pronounce judgments. “Biharis do not have civic sense”, ‘Dehaati Indians don’t know queue discipline’, ‘uneducated labourers cannot obey civic rules’ and whatnot. Some experts even claimed that Indians have been travelling more because their purchasing power has increased. Indians are apparently travelling more with their families and elderly parents because they love it, because they can now afford to. Some asked why are the people even going anywhere when they know the places would be crowded. Some opined why are the people even taking trains where there is so much rush “Why do they even need to go to the Maha Kumbh?”
Some philosophers have spelled doom, that the crazy population levels in India mean such incidents will keep happening. ‘Nobody can control such a crowd.’ Another class of keyboard warriors feels there must be a conspiracy behind ‘causing’ the stampedes.
I am a part of that cursed ‘Bheed’
I am too a part of the same Bheed that lacks ‘civic sense’, that takes the overcrowded trains from the overcrowded platforms of the NDLS. I keep travelling on the same trains where people push each other, even kill each other to get on and even die in the process. You might feel that i may have been lucky that I wasn’t a among the victims that died or got injured in the Chhatth stampede, my wife and children weren’t among the unfortunate souls who were in the summer vacation stampede crowd, my parents were not among the crowd on the platform that wanted to go to Maha Kumbh.
But I am not. I am not lucky to have escaped getting crushed in those overcrowded platforms trying to board overcrowded trains. Because each time I travel to my hometown in Bihar, I see the same crowd, with the same desperate efforts to board a train, the platforms lacking even an inch of space, the people pushing each other, waves after waves of the same ‘Bheed’.
Every time I have travelled, I have faced the same crowd, every time I manage to board the train, I have to struggle to access the toilet from my berth. Every time the platforms are a sea of humans, without an inch of space to breath. Each time, the friend or relative who comes to drop me off, leaves from outside the station entrance, because, nobody knows when the station staff would stop selling platform tickets for those platforms where the Purvanchal trains come.
I am used to it, used to the overcrowded trains, the struggle, the dysfunction and the chaos. Because this is what the system has taught me. I wasn’t taught ‘civic sense’ by the system. The system taught me to live with the chaos, to struggle to carry myself, my family and our luggage through the crowd, to suffer the overcrowded train inside the so-called ‘reserved’ coaches too, because that is what the system allows, enables.
I did follow the queue
We are talking about the New Delhi Railway Station here, not about some other stations that you see in movies, where sprawling lawns and open spaces welcome travellers and where there is ample space to enter and exit. Passengers coming to this NDLS are bound to follow the queue discipline because there is no other way. Nobody can waltz into the station platforms without following queue. Nobody can bring any random stuff inside here. The baggage is scanned through a scanner where policemen are present. Anything ‘problematic’ is confiscated immediately. The passengers follow all these to reach the platform where their train is scheduled to arrive. Nowhere during this process, the ticket of the passengers, or the platform tickets of the non-passengers are checked. When one reaches the platform, there are always more people than expected. There is always pushing and shoving involved to get inside the train. The situation is worst for the general coaches, a little less than worst for sleeper coaches, a further less for AC 3 tier and usually absent for AC 2 tier coaches.
So the passengers do come with civic sense, they do enter the platform with civic sense, but the ‘system’ on the platform and the station in general somehow lack this civic sense.
It is the system that turns humans into ‘crowd’, this is how
- Existing railway rules say that you can purchase a reserved train ticket at least 60 days before your journey. Due to demand, all trains going towards Purvanchal sell off all available tickets as soon as the 60-day window opens. The waiting lists run long. People pay for the waiting list tickets with the hope that it might get confirmed.
- One can come to the platform absolutely ticketless. The system has ensured that. Ticketless passengers can and do get inside NDLS. ‘System’ ensures that there are TCs on the platform who can be approached by these ticketless travellers. They ask for a fine, and give a ticket that is pricier than normal tickets. This way, ticketless passengers throng inside the platforms, because they know there is a system in place to assure them a ticket, albeit with a heavier price.
- After you get a ticket from the TC at the platform, you can board the train. The railways knows that the train has been booked beyond capacity. They know that the waiting lists are full too. They still issue these ‘tickets’, with a superficial warning that these new passengers are expected to board only unreserved coaches. But there is usually no system in place to ensure that the unreserved passengers do not board the reserved coaches. The result? The unreserved passenger who just paid more for a ticket, now considers it his right to board a reserved coach and find a place anywhere.
- The security personnel in the station allow unreserved passengers to board in exchange for money. Pantry car space, generator compartment space, coach attendant space, every inch of space inside the train is sold for a price. The crowd is allowed to board the train with the full knowledge of the railway staff that the train has been booked beyond capacity. The crowd at this point is no longer human, it is just crowd, faceless, nameless, dignity-less. The system that is paid to ensure rules, instead ensures chaos and mayhem.
You can say that the average Bihari or average Purvanchali has no civic sense. But where has the civic sense of the system gone? What is this senseless system that does not even allow me to travel peacefully after paying the full fare for my reserved seat?
Is there any way to prevent humans from turning into the faceless crowd?
The migrants from Purvanchal come to Delhi-NCR seeking livelihoods, to earn and take care of their families. They come seeking the schools, colleges and hospitals of Delhi because they do not have them in their hometowns. Quality healthcare and quality education in these areas will ensure that there is no ‘bad quality’ crowd in the capital city.
Indian Railways needs an urgent and massive infrastructure overhaul. There is no space outside the NDLS station from the Ajmeri Gate area. There is a need for more trains, and more trains that run on time. The Railways need to address the overcrowding issue and realise that they are the ones causing overcrowding, by issuing these extra tickets with fines, knowing the trains are already fully booked. The Railways need to lose this sheer greed of emergency general ticket revenue. They need to ensure quality services to passengers with tickets.
The Railways need to ensure and train its staff in a way that overcrowding of passengers is not allowed in any train. The trains, even the unreserved, general coaches have a capacity limit. The Railways keeps issuing general tickets without any cap. There must be a cap to the number of general tickets issued per train.
An average Indian does not become anti-Modi or anti-India just for expecting a better system
Seeking accountability from the government and expecting the government machinery to ensure quality service for citizens is NOT anti-government behaviour. The average Indian knows that the Prime Minister, who comes from a humble background and not some ivory palace, knows the struggles of ordinary citizens. That is the reason he worries about basic amenities like toilets and roads. It is for that reason the average Indian seeks a better accountability and better services from the Modi government. The common voter knows that these problems have been existing for decades, they know that the Modi government has been trying to develop Railway infra for years and that these efforts need time.
But attempting to whitewash or cover up the incidents is not the solution. ‘Bhakts’ need to understand that by making desperate attempts to save the image of their favourite political party, they are causing irreparable damage, creating rifts between voters and the government that will leave a lasting impact of distrust and negativity.
Hard times await us as a country, as a populace. And hard situations demand hard questions. Hard questions need to be asked and accountability needs to be ensured at all levels. PM Modi holds the weight of a billion expectations, because a billion Indians hope that the man who achieved impossible things, can address their problems and solve them.
Yes. I agree that we, the Biharis or Purvanchalis, do not have civic sense. But please tell honestly, does the system in this country have any civic sense?
This article was translated from Hindi. The Hindi version can be read here.
