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By:

C.S. Krishnamurthy

21 June 2025 at 2:15:51 pm

When Safety Fails

The devastating fire at a lodging facility in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar, which claimed 21 lives, had barely faded from public memory when another catastrophe unfolded in Lucknow. Fifteen students and staff members perished after a blaze engulfed a 3D animation centre housed in a commercial building in Aliganj. Several others sustained injuries, with some jumping from the first floor in desperate attempts to escape. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi...

When Safety Fails

The devastating fire at a lodging facility in Delhi’s Malviya Nagar, which claimed 21 lives, had barely faded from public memory when another catastrophe unfolded in Lucknow. Fifteen students and staff members perished after a blaze engulfed a 3D animation centre housed in a commercial building in Aliganj. Several others sustained injuries, with some jumping from the first floor in desperate attempts to escape. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief, a high-level inquiry was announced. Property owners and officials came under scrutiny. Yet, amid the familiar expressions of anguish and promises of accountability, an unsettling question surfaced once again. Why do such disasters continue to recur despite countless lessons from the past? Initial reports indicated that the Lucknow fire may have been caused by a short circuit. Eyewitnesses alleged that fire services took nearly forty minutes to arrive, by which time flames had engulfed the entire building. Wooden interiors reportedly accelerated the spread of the blaze. In Delhi, preliminary investigations suggested that the six-room Bed and Breakfast establishment had expanded into a 26-room operation, while a licence issued for a tea stall allegedly covered a full-fledged restaurant. The similarities are too striking to ignore. Buildings become death traps not overnight, but through years of accumulated violations, administrative indifference and societal complacency. Shared Burden From the Karol Bagh hotel fire of 2019 to the Mundka commercial complex tragedy in 2022, the Vivek Vihar neonatal hospital fire in 2024 and now the twin horrors of Delhi and Lucknow, a disturbing pattern emerges. Regulations exist. Investigations follow. Arrests are made. Yet prosecutions move slowly, and memories fade until the next tragedy strikes. Blaming owners alone provides only partial answers. Legal responsibility undoubtedly rests with them, but the failures are institutional as much as individual. How do multiple violations continue in plain sight? How do unauthorised expansions, blocked exits, unsafe electrical systems and inadequate fire protection remain unnoticed by agencies entrusted with public safety? Even Delhi Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra admitted that it was impossible that nobody knew what was happening at the Malviya Nagar property. The Municipal Corporation, police, tourism department and fire authorities all possessed pieces of the regulatory puzzle, yet the complete picture escaped attention until lives were lost. Economics compounds the problem. Businesses often prioritise profitability over compliance. Tenants seeking premises focus on affordability and location. Consumers seldom ask whether a restaurant, coaching centre or hotel possesses valid fire clearances or emergency exits. Safety becomes somebody else’s responsibility. Sadly, this indifference extends even to hospitals, schools and care centres, where vulnerable individuals have little chance of escape during emergencies. Preventive Governance Experts increasingly argue that India must move from reactive firefighting to preventive governance. Japan offers an instructive example. Following devastating earthquakes and fires, stringent regulations were supplemented by independent certification systems and insurance mechanisms. Buildings that fail to comply face financial consequences. Safety is viewed not as a burden but as an investment. Several Indian cities have also begun employing technology-driven solutions. Geographic Information Systems and digital platforms now allow public access to approvals and fire safety clearances in selected zones. Transparency enables both authorities and citizens to verify whether establishments operate within permissible limits. Yet technology alone cannot compensate for weak enforcement. Routine inspections have often been diluted in the name of ease of doing business. Random audits become paper exercises. Fire drills are conducted merely to satisfy procedural requirements. Such cosmetic compliance creates an illusion of preparedness without guaranteeing actual safety. Perhaps the most urgent reform required is cultural rather than administrative. Safety must cease to be treated as an inconvenience. Emergency exits cannot serve as storage spaces. Electrical systems cannot remain neglected. Structural audits cannot be optional. Societies are ultimately judged not merely by how efficiently they punish the guilty after disasters, but by how effectively they prevent avoidable deaths. Every tragedy leaves behind grieving families and solemn promises. Delhi and Lucknow are separated by hundreds of kilometres, yet both tell the same painful story. Human lives were extinguished not simply by fire, but by a chain of compromises stretching across institutions, businesses and society itself. The true measure of progress lies not in the speed with which compensation is announced or arrests are made. It lies in ensuring that safety never becomes an afterthought and that convenience, profit and administrative complacency never outweigh the sanctity of human life. (The writer is a retired banker and author. Views personal.)

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Mamata is seeing a ghost of Bangladesh behind the massive outrage and waves of protest over rape and murder of the trainee doctor. And the reasons are many.

It’s been over a fortnight. Yet with each passing day the voice of protest is getting louder and stronger. From the streets of Kolkata it’s pouring into roads of hinterland. The cry for justice for a rape victim has consolidated into a wail of demands to set a lot of wrongdoings right. Here in lies the fear and trepidation. Wasn’t the issue that brought the youth of Bangladesh out on the thoroughfares a simple, innocent one of quota reform?

The chief minister of Bengal, known for understanding the pulse of people better than many, was quick to read the signages floating in the political horizon.

The most obvious reason for her to be tensed is that both the regime change in Bangladesh and the mass protest in Bengal, were student-driven to begin with. The two incidents---end of 15 year old Sheikh Hasina government and turbulence in West Bengal, over the heinous crime, falling back to back, the first on August 5th and the latter from August 9th onwards, give natural scope for comparisons. More so, because in both the cases the movement strayed beyond an affected constituency to include aggrieved people at large, cutting across socio-economic demography. If the quota reform protest started by students in Bangladesh became a mass uprising against an autocratic regime, the campaign demanding justice for the rape victim and overall safety and security of women in Mamata Banerjee’s Bengal soon snowballed into a movement of no-confidence against the government. Slogans--”Mamata must resign” also got floated in social media much in line with the call for ouster of Sheikh Hasina. In fact “Resignation of Hasina” became the single point agenda into which all other fringe demands coalesced.

Incidentally, even before people started drawing parallels, that there could be a thread of commonality in the way the upheaval in Bangladesh and Bengal played out, Mamata was quick to point out that the Opposition were trying to pull off a Bangladesh by politicizing the tragic incident: “A coordinated approach has been executed by the BJP and the CPIM with support from the Centre to defame Bengal and exploit the situation....They want to make a Bangladesh here. They are taking cues from student unrest in Bangladesh and are attempting to capture similarly. I have no longing for the chair. I came here to serve people.”

Not only Mamata, her political lieutenants are consistently equating the turmoil in Bengal with the mayhem in Bangladesh. Cabinet minister for North Bengal development Udayan Guha threatened to take stern action against those, who would be trying to exploit the situation by emulating a Bangladesh like movement. “ Even after the hospital was vandalised, the police did not open fire on anyone. The police will not allow a Bangladesh type situation. We will not allow Bengal to turn into Bangladesh, Guha thundered.

Is the government’s fear unfounded?

Apart from the similarities on ground zero, as to how and where the future course of events are heading to, there are ample reasons for Bengal to mull on-- as to what led to a Bangladesh like boiling point. To begin with, it’ll be appropriate to talk of Bangladesh and the prevailing situation, that made the students’ protest become big in magnitude. The students were out on the streets because of a high reservation in public jobs. Unemployment and stagnant job market in private sector coupled with a high rate of inflation drove the educated youth to rebel against the government.

But soon the students found enormous number of sympathisers, who were equally at the receiving end. According to Bangladesh citizens, the last two terms of the Sheikh Hasina government were a mockery of democracy. Even elections would be compromised. As Hasina grew from strength to strength, she politicized institutions. The rank and file of police owed allegiance to the ruling dispensation. Extortion, harrassment and raids by police and people in power became rampant. An atmosphere of fear and repression reigned and people got restless to overthrow the government.

Politicization of institutions has been happening in Mamata government too. Allegations are quite strong that police in Bengal functions at the beck and call of political bosses. The lapses and alleged loopholes on the part of police in handling the rape and murder of the young doctor have yet again revealed a sense of confused or misplaced loyalty.

But above everything else both Hasina and Mamata governments allegedly seem to have twined in accepting corruption as a way of life. In Bangladesh jobs of primary and secondary teachers got sold at premium, Rs 10-12 lakh in the Hasina regime. Even police had to pay up for prized postings and transfers. In Bengal busting of the teacher’s recruitment scam has revealed how unsuccessful and ineligible candidates got government jobs in schools in exchange of bribes.

Similarities are multiple and inescapable. Mamata has good reasons to be apprehensive. It’s not only she, who can see and connect the dots. People, out on the streets, clamoring for justice, can see a providential pattern somewhere in the unfolding of future events in these two places-- Bangladesh and Bengal. True, they share more than 2,217 odd km of border. They share the same umbilical cord, other than language, culture, ethos, icons. Even emotions are the same. So she cannot take any risk.

(The writer is a senior jounalist based in Kolkata. Views personal)

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