There is a rather inappropriate but very appropriate saying in Kannada which when translated means – “The grandmother was in such a hurry, that she ended up getting her menstrual periods back”. This rather appropriately explains two major events of the past few days.
Bangalore Stampede:
After 18 years Royal Challengers Bangalore won the title and their star player was Virat Kohli a much-admired batsman. This lack of victory for 18 years was such a sore story for all cricket fans that the victory this time drove them crazy – literally. That the cricket fans would go overboard was so obvious to anyone simply observing those around. The temple priest went AWOL, 97-year-old mother-in-law was glued to the TV till late night, college and school groups were posting messages faster than the sixes in the match and after 1930 hrs one could cross the road without looking both sides except for that one mad driver running late to catch the action.
It would have taken a deaf, dumb, half brained idiot to even think the celebrations and crowds would not be anything less than over the top. Crowds danced and cheered into the wee hours of the night blocking main arterial roads. A friend took 2 hrs to cross the crowds to get an emergency patient to hospital during the night.
- RCB players were in a hurry to get back home given that the schedule went haywire due to the India Pakistan conflict.
- The franchisee was in a hurry to encash upon the jubilant mood and before the players left.
- The political leadership in the state was in a tearing hurry to shift the spotlight from Operation Sindoor and leverage this for their personal image with one upmanship.
- The crowds were in a mad hurry that many jumped the ticket turnstiles at the metro station forcing them to stop service.
- The KSCA was in a hurry to encash on the victory since they had little or no role to play in the whole thing. They apparently did not even open the gates fully.
Further, if one goes by news reports, the Chief Secretary approved the celebratory event before the final match had been played. The cynical would say this was a fixed match. The police had warned against this, but nobody was bothered.
With everybody in such an unholy hurry, nobody planned anything, nobody observed anything including the crowded street with lakhs of people and nobody even gave a thought about the citizens who they wanted to attend this celebratory event, but everybody wanted to be a part of it. The stampede and deaths were inevitable. It was preordained that there would be a disaster because 5 horses were pushing in 5 directions each thinking that the other horse knew what to do.
- RCB team as usual travelled in a closed, dark tinted bus on the roads – when they were supposed to be “participating” “interacting” with their fans outside.
- The franchisee was busy doing god knows what but were actively marketing the event by inviting the whole world free. If they thought that a 35,000 capacity stadium was sufficient for their fans, they must be having a stupidly poor expectation of their customer/ fan base.
- The Chief Minister hogged the limelight at the Vidhan Soudha while the Dy CM went racing to the airport to receive the team. Given the stature of the tournament, owners stated above, what protocol demanded that the top leadership of the state be so involved?
- Even after seeing, reading, hearing about the crowded streets through the night, knowing the capacity of the stadium, every person joined the crowd, many with children in tow, expected to be a part of the 35,000. That takes remarkable optimism or bravery or stupidity by the fans.
- The IPL CEO said his job was over the moment the finals was over, the BCCI said that this was IPL with its own management, the KSCA said that the franchisee had hired the stadium.
- The franchisee washed its hands off public crowd management since they were under pressure from players wanting to get back home.
The police with a zillion things to do, cannot coordinate and manage a sudden surge of people when the numbers were in the region of 300,000. Even if the figure was 100,000 it is still huge.
The sensible thing to do would have been for the franchisee to arrange an open roof top bus parade through the city and culminate at the stadium. They could have had multiple events over 2 days in different stadiums – 3 stadiums in proximity can together handle about 80,000 people - and thus distributed the crowd.
Everybody failed. Everybody thought nothing will happen. Everybody was focussed on themselves. The perfect storm where everybody including the crowds allowed a disaster to happen. That much of the celebrations happened, continued after knowing about the stampeded, deaths only reinforce the individual objectives with zero leadership.
The star player earned about Rs. 27 Cr from this event alone. The total earning of the RCB players was about Rs. 120 Cr. Honestly, in my personal view the players should have offered to give some financial assistance to those who died/injured, should have visited the families of those who died. The players are what they are because of these crazy fans. Even the players utterly failed.
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Trump – Musk Meltdown:
Yet again a case of folks in a hurry stumbling over everything in the way and in the end blaming each other for not achieving their goals. Seriously? Hardly 5 months on the job and just the entire expose of USAID etc, actions against the anti-Semitic universities and illegal immigrants itself are a great job done. They aren’t facing public headwinds there.
But their unholy hurry of MAGA in 5 months was ridiculous. Such efforts take years.
Trump wanted some victory that he could boast about, and Elon wanted god knows what. Elon should have been planning a 10-year effort with Trump 2.0 and Vance 1.0 to achieve his goals.
India's diplomatic outreach:
As we go to press, as the hacks would say, the various Indian delegations have been having a seemingly good trip globally. Two leaders, coincidentally from Congress, Tharoor and Salman Khurshid seem to have got the headlines with Owaisi close behind with the cheers.
That the media management by India at a global level has been poor is obvious. For long we have believed in doing rather than telling the world what we do hoping that the media will see us for what we are. Sorry, the world doesn’t work like that. Every media needs money to run and prima donna journalists, TV anchors, need fancy cars, farm houses and fat bonuses. So, they find rich egoistic folks to bankroll them. Here is a small list.
India as a government either needs to cultivate the owners or spend money in other ways to keep such folks happy. When politicians themselves or with clear political ideologies are media owners, such cultivation becomes very tough. Even if think tanks and such are encouraged, one still needs mass media to disseminate the views. India didn’t do it and even if they start now, it will take decades before they can get traction. India needs to make that beginning right away.
Given that China (for Pakistan and itself) has nurtured media, think tanks and universities globally over decades, the Indians have little choice except to target those with short term interests. On that basis, an Indian political delegation meeting various political figures globally makes eminent sense since two politicians can speak the same language, exchange deals, make plans and in the short run India can benefits in many cases.
To that extent, from a short-term viewpoint this decision was excellent. Given the diverse political spectrum, language, gender, religion and other identities, the delegations made a compelling argument in themselves – hopefully giving the different governments a better understanding.
Trade or actual wars are today as much a war of narratives as actual effort. India needs to realise this reality immediately and start working.
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