Facing the hurdles of the recent stampede outside the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium with stiff criticism at the Karnataka Assembly, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, even so, saw the stampede as mass hysteria coming from the first-ever IPL victory of Royal Challengers Bangalore.
For him, the loss of eleven lives was a new low in a political career spanning forty years, with no question of the tragedy coming about because of an irresponsible administration.
Stampedes Beyond Karnataka
To drive home the point further, Siddaramaiah summoned the ghosts of other stampede tragedies that have haunted regions of India in very much the same manner, some of which took place on territory sovereign to the BJP.
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The list was not too long and included the likes of the 2008 Naina Devi tragedy that destroyed about 144 people in Himachal Pradesh, followed by the 250 who died in the Jodhpur accounting nightmare later that year, the 2013 Ratangarh stampede, the 2021 Haridwar tragedy and the 2023 Sehore tragedy in Madhya Pradesh. Others include the 2024 Hathras stampede in Uttar Pradesh, claiming 121 lives, and then the incident of 2 deaths in a Kumbh Mela in 2025 at Prayagraj. He dares not forget the 2022 Morbi bridge fall in Gujarat. One-hundred thirty-five lives were lost due to the Maldivian one.
Grief and Responsibility
Ignorant as he may be of grief, Siddaramaiah felt it was fair to express sorrow. He said, “The mishap that took place outside the stadium will befall me forever. For my 42 years of public life, 11 died in some unpleasant stampedes. I was deeply pained by it and expressed my sorrow to where it was received.” He tried to reconcile with his feelings by stating, “…heavens have more than 11 lives.”
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He was genuinely caught in the wasteful bemoaning of morally empty politics, as he appreciated the relative loss of his position as well as those of the families who have become the victims of situations that demand immense capability and control of the kind that have not been attempted to date.
Celebration and Unforeseen Consequences
The Chief Minister made the point that because of RCB’s maiden IPL triumph, the public, within a trice, could call forth such lamentable restraint, beginning with death, which spoils the renowned occurrence within Bengaluru. He raised the question of collective, truly remarkable moments wherein the dizzy exhilaration ran rampant and saw the overflowing crowds forming outside the stadium. “The mass hysteria created by RCB’s win led to this incident,” he said. The Chief Minister further added that he saw himself as elected since he attacked him with the mob, but that democracy often summoned its leaders to be mere caricatures of the wishes of its people.
Indeed, the charges of a very spontaneous nature strongly erode any line of defense and the concomitant reaction of how the state agencies, and its citizenry prepared for these cataclysms. Such celebration of pride must not mow down human life again. The responsibility of the administration is not at all to deny the charge of blasphemous force but to be good to humanity and accommodate it by raising never ending claims and creating ways for being defensive.
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