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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 9:59:04 pm

Safety First

The death of two people and injuries to five others after a 22-foot Ganesh idol collapsed during its arrival ceremony in Mumbai is a deeply disturbing accident. It is particularly unfortunate that such an incident should occur barely three weeks before Ganeshotsav begins on September 14. A festival that is synonymous with devotion, community and celebration must not begin under such a gloomy shadow. The incident took place in Bhuleshwar, as the idol of Bhuleshwaracha Raja was being...

Safety First

The death of two people and injuries to five others after a 22-foot Ganesh idol collapsed during its arrival ceremony in Mumbai is a deeply disturbing accident. It is particularly unfortunate that such an incident should occur barely three weeks before Ganeshotsav begins on September 14. A festival that is synonymous with devotion, community and celebration must not begin under such a gloomy shadow. The incident took place in Bhuleshwar, as the idol of Bhuleshwaracha Raja was being transported from Byculla to its pandal. Preliminary information points to the unravelling of loose nuts and bolts in the idol’s supporting frame. Whatever the final findings of the investigation, the fact remains that a structure weighing many tonnes and being moved through a crowded urban neighbourhood cannot be allowed to become a lethal hazard. The prompt mobilisation of the Mumbai Fire Brigade, Mumbai Police, traffic police, 108 ambulance service and civic ward staff deserves recognition. But emergency response, however efficient, is no substitute for prevention. By the time emergency services arrive, lives may already have been lost. That is the lesson Mumbai and Maharashtra must absorb before the festival begins. Ganeshotsav is among the biggest public celebrations in the state. Its arrival processions draw enormous crowds, with towering idols, decorated vehicles, music, electrical installations and devotees converging on narrow streets. The scale of the celebrations has grown dramatically, but safety practices must grow with it. Every Ganesh pandal preparing for this year’s festival should treat structural safety as seriously as religious and logistical arrangements. Frames, fasteners, lifting equipment, transport vehicles and securing mechanisms must be inspected by competent personnel before an idol is moved. Organisers should not assume that a structure is safe simply because it has been used before. A single loose bolt can have catastrophic consequences. The authorities, too, cannot leave safety entirely to organisers. Civic agencies should conduct systematic inspections of large idols and their transportation arrangements, particularly where processions pass through densely populated areas. Traffic management, crowd control, overhead electrical infrastructure and emergency access routes need to be planned in advance. Safety checks should be mandatory, documented and meaningful, not just a box-ticking exercise. There is still time to act. The accident should be treated not merely as an isolated mishap but as a warning. Maharashtra has barely three weeks to ensure that every major pandal and procession has robust safety protocols in place. Ganeshotsav should begin with faith, excitement and the unmistakable sense of a city coming together and not with the memory of preventable deaths. The best tribute to those who lost their lives in Bhuleshwar would be to ensure that no family has to suffer such grief during the celebrations ahead.

Where the Krushna Flows

Mohan Deshmukh’s book From the Banks of Krushna River, originally published in Marathi as Krushnakathavarun, reminds me of my stay in Sangli district (1965-1969), which was one of the most memorable periods in my long government service.

 

His book is a delightful account of Sangli’s rich cultural and artistic heritage. It also tells the story of how a village boy from the district - the son of an honest and upright junior police officer - rose to become a leading builder and later president of the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI), where he sought to bring order to Maharashtra’s often chaotic real-estate sector. More remarkably, it recounts how he walked away from a flourishing business in 2013 in search of inner peace through Vipassana.

 

Although I joined the Maharashtra cadre in 1960, my earlier postings gave me little opportunity to immerse myself in Marathi culture and literature. It was only in Sangli that I came to appreciate, in any depth, the district’s rich traditions of poetry and theatre.

 

In that sense, I was fortunate. Soon after I assumed charge as Superintendent of Police, Sangli, the government acquired a tract of land that had once belonged to the legendary Marathi playwright Govind Ballal Deval (1855–1916). It was chosen as the site for a new police headquarters, complete with a vast parade ground and 300 constabulary quarters, the construction of which became one of my principal responsibilities.

 

Deval wrote at least seven Marathi plays, among them the celebrated Samshay Kallol, broadly inspired by Molière's Sganarelle, or The Imaginary Cuckold. By a happy coincidence, I had watched Samshay Kallol during my district training in Solapur in 1960, long before fate brought me to the land once owned by its author.

 

By 1969 I was able to construct a well-equipped police recreation auditorium and get government approval to name it after the late Deval. The naming ceremony was done by the well-known Marathi writer, the late Padma Bhushan Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar, who later won the Jnanpith award in 1974 for his novel ‘Yayati.’

Sangli was aptly known as Natya Pandhari (“the pilgrimage of Marathi theatre.”) It was here that Vishnudas Bhave, the pioneer of the Marathi stage, premiered Sita Swayamvar, the first Marathi play, in 1843. In my time, nearly every major new Marathi play opened in Sangli. Equally memorable was hearing artistes such as Hirabai Barodkar of nearby Miraj and the poet-lyricist G.D. Madgulkar (Ga Di Mā) of Atpadi, whose Geet Ramayan, beautifully rendered by Sudhir Phadke, became a cherished Sunday ritual on All India Radio.

 

Mohan Deshmukh’s mention of Krushna river, the lifeline of Sangli, its basin and confluence with Warana river also reminds me of my experience of the discordance in Sangli district’s political life. He quotes Ga Di Mā’s wistful poem which had narrated Krushna’s beauty together with its hidden contradictions and sorrows: “Sant vahate Krishnamai, tiravarlya sukhadukhanchi, janiv tijhala nahi” (author’s translation: “Calmly flows Mother Krushna, untouched by the joys and sorrows on her shores”).

 

That was my experience too. Sangli introduced me to some of Maharashtra's political giants—Yashwantrao Chavan, Vasant (Dada) Patil and Rajaram Bapu Patil. Despite my being an outsider, they treated a young police officer with warmth and trust.

The pleasantries, however, were brief. Soon after taking charge in 1965, I found myself confronting a violent anti-famine agitation led by the Shetkari Kamgari Paksh in Tasgaon. For days, protesters clashed with the police as they tried to march on the taluka office. During one confrontation, a young demonstrator struck me on the head with a lathi, blaming me for the violence.


It was an early glimpse of the defiant spirit that the author captures so well. Sangli, he writes, has long been a land of self-respect and resistance, from its defiance of Mughal rule to the freedom struggle, when "Krantisingh" Nana Patil established the Prati Sarkar, alongside revolutionaries such as Kisan Veer and G.D. Bapu Lad.

 

The book traces the author’s childhood in Tasgaon, Budhgaon and neighbouring villages, his struggle for education, and the timely support he received from the Police Welfare Fund. Running through it is his father’s simple creed: remain honest, however poor, and rise only by lawful means.

 

(The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat and member of the two-man high level committee appointed by Govt.of Maharashtra to enquire into the systemic errors during 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. His latest book, ‘India and China at Odds in Asian Century,’ was published by Hurst London and by Pentagon Press, New Delhi) 

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