Darkness at Sabarimala

The devotion of Sabarimala pilgrims has to be seen to be believed. Clad in spartan saffron or black, they undergo all manner of deprivati...

The devotion of Sabarimala pilgrims has to be seen to be believed. Clad in spartan saffron or black, they undergo all manner of deprivation and discomfort as they converge in their thousands upon Lord Ayyappa’s shrine at Sabarimala on the western ghats with the words Swamiye Saranam Ayappa on their lips. For most of them it is a journey of faith. The least the Travancore Devaswom Board, which administers the temple complex, could have done was to have ensured that no preventable tragedy visited them in their search for spiritual succour. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

The circumstances in which over 50 pilgrims lost their lives on Thursday should certainly have been anticipated and made provision for. Even the most casual witness could have perceived that far too many people had converged upon the hill top at Pampa to watch the makara vilakku, or the festival of celestial light, which is held to be the highpoint of the pilgrimage. According to reports, the stretch between the base andthe summit of the hill, from where the ceremony of light is witnessed — a distance of seven kilometres — was literally teeming with people. Incredibly, the only provision to control this mass of humanity was frail rope fences. How the temple administration could have imagined that these arrangements were sufficient to rein in and control such crowds is amazing.

Over the years, the number of pilgrims to this spot has risen exponentially. A pilgrim spot that had at one time attracted only adherents from the immediate vicinity of the area soon became an all-Kerala phenomenon. Now pilgrims come from all the four major southern states of India and even from regions further north. Managing crowds has thus become the most crucial aspect of temple administration here and the sooner the authorities realise this the better. The problems caused by the crowds go beyond their mere presence. In order to accommodate more and more people, the administrators have been forced to “develop” the area. This, in turn, has hadunhappy environmental consequences. Deforestation and construction activity have made a fragile eco-zone even more fragile, resulting in landslides of the kind that triggered the recent stampede.

Pilgrimage tourism — believed to be the fastest growing segment of domestic tourism — requires better planning and administration at the national level. It’s now almost two years since that calamitous fire swept through pandals sheltering pilgrims in Baripada, Orissa. Over 200 people died in that inferno, but to this day combustible tents and primitive cooking stoves continue to coexist uneasily in numerous pilgrimage sites in the country. There is hardly any attempt to learn from past mistakes and put the necessary regulatory systems in place. An amnesiac mindset is this nation’s greatest failing. Pampa may soon become just another bit of bad news that is quickly forgotten.