The tragedy of the Rajinder Nagar deaths is compounded by the political bickering in its aftermath.
The deaths of Shreya Yadav, Nevin Dalwin and Tanya Soni on July 27, after they were trapped in the flooded basement of a UPSC coaching centre in Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar, tell a grim story of criminal failures. There is, first, the failure of the coaching centre to prioritise the safety of the students over profits. It flouted the city’s building by-laws to house a library and reading room in the basement, with just one exit/entry point. When water gushed in following the bursting of a nearby drain, there was no way for the students to escape as the door remained shut. Then, the failure of callous local authorities that allowed the unregulated growth of the coaching industry, with overcrowded centres operating in residential buildings, disregarding safety norms. But the tragedy also points to a larger failure — of a government being run, allegedly run, by a chief minister in jail. The AAP government seems much too convulsed by its internal disorders to attend to the tasks of governance in India’s capital city, including building and maintaining the infrastructure that can support the aspirations of students who flock to it.
Even as the lapses that led to this incident are investigated, a larger reckoning is called for, accountability must be fixed at multiple levels. The business of coaching is a multi-crore, nationwide behemoth built on the anxieties of young people hoping to crack the civil service exams as a ticket to success in a jobs-starved economy. The pursuit of profit is legitimate but too often, it comes with administrative negligence and a regulatory system that exists only on paper. Witness the industry’s exponential growth riding on centres that lack basic safety equipment, or toilets or proper electrical wiring, evident in past incidents — such as the 2019 fire in a Surat coaching centre that killed 20, after the sole exit from the rooftop class, a wooden staircase, was engulfed in flames. Following this incident, an inspection by the Delhi fire department found that several coaching centres around the city had flouted fire safety norms and called for their closure. But little has changed on the ground. When a fire broke out in a Mukherjee Nagar coaching centre last year, students had to use ropes and wires to rappel down the building. That young people around the country are forced to study in unsafe conditions in such institutes, points to the need for a law which can enable regulation of the industry — not mere guidelines, like those issued by the Union government earlier this year.
The tragedy of the Rajinder Nagar deaths is compounded by the political bickering in its aftermath. The blame-game between the AAP on one side and the BJP and the Delhi Lieutenant-Governor on the other, is predictable and unseemly. It also distracts attention from the real governance problems in a state where, in the absence of a firm and clear line of accountability, basic municipal responsibilities, such as desilting and clearing of drains, have become so contested that the High Court is forced to demand a timeline. The deaths of the three students must be investigated urgently. But justice for them can only come when those who are responsible for their safety and well-being act decisively to set their own house in order. The highest court has to clean up the mess after an exam paper leak, maybe grieving parents now need to knock on its door for justice.
