Editorial: Infernal affairs

Every mishap that occurs in India, be it a major accident or a natural disaster, unfailingly exposes gaping frailties in our administration. There is a mountain of evidence to support the case to treat our governments, municipalities and regulatory agencies as accomplices to murder, or at least accessories to it, every time a tragedy occurs. This month has been particularly macabre in respect of such occurrences. Despite the compelling histrionics of ruling parties in the current election campaign, these unfortunate events have managed to grab our attention, each containing in its ugly entrails the truth that our administration is irredeemably rotten.

The collapse earlier this month of a huge advertising hoarding in Mumbai, killing 17 people, brought to light how lopsided our civic concerns are. The monstrosity was three times the legally permitted size and stood on a foundation no more than 4 feet deep. Yet not only was it not flagged down, it received an entry in the Limca Book of Records for being the largest advertising billboard.

Then we have had the Pune rash driving case—whose grotesque entrails are still spilling out—in which the entire law book seems to have been violated: under-age driving, DUI, manipulation of evidence, bribery, miscarriage of justice, threat to witnesses, and that uniquely feudal trick of using a henchman to take the rap for the master’s misdeeds. All this confirms the widely held belief that our criminal justice system operates on the principle that law enforcement is a tool to make the poor toe the line and let off the rich.

As if those two cases were not enough, two more tragedies in the past one week have brought to fore the lax vigil kept by our civic regulators even where children are at risk. The fire at a video gaming arcade in Rajkot, which killed 28 people including nine children, and the blaze at a Delhi hospital in which seven newborns died, both illustrate the casual attitude of businesses towards fire safety norms as well as the laxity of our administrators in enforcing them.

By any reckoning, the Rajkot gaming arcade tragedy was preventable had basic fire safety stipulations been followed. For more than two years, the gaming arcade had been operating from a temporary tin structure in a location that was hard to reach for fire tenders. It was licensed despite having no proper fire safety certification. Further, the spark for the tragedy last week was provided when welding work was taken up amid flammable plastic inventory.

The safety violations that led to the fire at a neonatal care facility in Delhi too are equally recurrent. The hospital was overstocked with oxygen cylinders while having zero fire extinguishers. It had only one access to the facility where the babies were kept and no fire exit at all. The staff had no training on what to do when a fire starts, and the firemen reaching the hospital were provided no building plan to work with.

This is an infuriatingly recurring trope for fire mishaps in our country: dodgy certification, difficult location, infrequent inspection, penny-pinching by businesses when it comes to fire safety facilities, flammable inventory not properly stored, poor awareness among staff and callous disregard by workers. It stems from the very low priority businesses accord to customer and worker safety and the tendency of regulators to be satisfied with dodgy paperwork.

The Gujarat High Court spoke for the entire country when it said, while hearing the Rajkot fire case, that it no longer has any trust in the administration and the government. How can we, if four tragedies occur in four different parts of the country but with one common narrative of failed governance?