‘Who is Bhole Baba’, ‘what caused Hathras stampede’—and why was TV news so late to report

'Your children died right before your eyes?' an ANI reporter asked a woman. Such insensitive reporting of the ‘UP Stampede Horror’ was as shocking as the indifference of the organisers of the satsang.

A poster of Bhole Baba along the Sikandra Rao highway | ThePrint

The immensity of the Hathras stampede was spread out before our eyes. Television news channels and social media displayed rows of bodies on the floor and local hospital beds, with dazed women gazing vacantly around them. An elderly woman lay with her mouth wide open as a CNN News 18 reporter asked her questions she could barely comprehend, let alone answer coherently.

News agency ANI found another woman who lost two children in the stampede during a religious congregation of a self-styled godman named Narayan Sakar Hari aka ‘Bhole Baba’. As per the Uttar Pradesh Police, 121 people have been confirmed dead so far.

“Your children died right before your eyes?” asked the ANI reporter. She muttered something inaudible and looked at him with dead eyes.

Such insensitive reporting of the ‘UP Stampede Horror’ (India Today) is as shocking as the indifference of the organisers and the local administration that the media unearthed on the ground.

This lack of empathy is, perhaps, to be expected. After all, leading news channels continued their live coverage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha speech in the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, until it ended Tuesday around 6 pm, before switching to news of the people “trampled to death” (Times Now) in Hathras.

According to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the ‘Satsang of Death’ (ABP News) reportedly occurred at 3.30 pm. Hindustan Times quoted an eyewitness who said the first ambulance arrived after 3 pm; “…by that time we had taken most of the people to the health centre…”

This suggests that the incident took place before 3 pm, which means that TV news took approximately three hours to headline ‘To be near Baba people met with death’ (Aaj Tak). The only mainstream channel that I saw at Hathras before the end of PM Modi’s speech was ABP News.

Ironically, the expectation of the government and the BJP that the Prime Minister’s address would dominate the headlines and prime time for the rest of Tuesday was denied by the Hathras tragedy.

Media finally on the ground

Once they reached Hathras, the news media never left—until Modi made a speech in the Rajya Sabha Wednesday morning and TV news returned to Parliament for its live stream.

Otherwise, newspapers’ digital arms and TV news reported constantly from Hathras. Reporters rushed to the scene of the disaster while debates on most news channels – India Today, Republic TV, Times Now, NDTV 24×7 – criticised the political and administrative lapses that, as anchor Arnab Goswami said, allowed “religious leaders…” to “flout the rules” (Republic TV).

Newspapers and TV news interviewed eyewitnesses and victims’ relatives. The reason TV scored over print was because you could see the dazed expressions of the lost souls: on NDTV 24×7, one man was incoherent with grief, pleading for “nyay” (justice); another confessed, “my brain is not working.”

TV news also did well to show us the site of the event and how people must have fallen over each other in the muddy slush of the open field as they rushed to meet their ‘baba’. “The people went berserk,” said the reporter on India Today, “ to get his blessings…”

Why the rush? Most news reports attributed it to obtaining the ‘soil’ from the ‘godman’s’ feet: Aaj Tak featured an eyewitness who claimed Suraj Pal ‘Baba’ told the gathering to collect the “dhool” from his feet and smear it on the foreheads of those who required healing.

News Nation dwelt on the faith of the poor, who had travelled from several northern states to see ‘Suit Boot Baba’ who liked fancy cars. “The poor, Dalits come to him in their pain…” India Today concurred. Its reporter said, Wednesday, that Hathras demonstrated people’s “faith” in self-proclaimed godmen—a belief that these figures “can help them” where politicians, governments, or the administration fail to.

Lapses in security

Besides distressing visuals of bodies and people mourning—the news media dwelt a long time on who ‘Bhole Baba’ was and what caused the stampede. The Times of India had an unusual story about a constable who died of heart attack from the shock of seeing so many dead people.

The Indian Express’ lead photograph was of a victim’s hand encircled with the admission card to the satsang. On TV, we saw people weeping—and a solitary baby’s milk bottle (NDTV 24×7).

The Hindu, The Indian Express and many TV channels answered the question ‘Who is Bhole Baba?” with profiles of the former policeman turned religious leader.

But no one could explain until late Wednesday afternoon where he was—or as all of them pointed out, why he had not been named in the FIR. Oddly, we didn’t hear any of them ask the police this question.

ABP News was outside his ashram in Mainpuri—with its ‘qila’ walls. It said a solitary superintendent of police went inside and came out saying, “I did not see the Baba’. But since 6 am Wednesday, no police had visited the ashram, the reporter said.

On the causes, newspapers like Hindustan Times, ToI, Express, and The Hindu suggested it was due to the extreme humidity: “Preliminary police reports suggest that suffocation at the crowded venue led to panic, causing people to flee and triggering the stampede,” reported The Hindu.

But there were other reasons too: “FIR points to glaring lapses,”  read an India Today headline, saying the exit-entry was not marked and there was no emergency route out of the venue. “They (people) fell on each other like a pack of cards,” said the reporter on the spot.

CNN News 18 listed out the ‘lapses’ clearly: overcrowding, one exit point, rush to meet the ‘godman’ to collect his ‘dhool’, too many vehicles parked outside the site, blocking any way out. It also said there were only 72 police officers controlling a crowd of over 2 lakh people.

Let’s hope that the media will ask uncover more such facts and not let anyone throw dust in its eyes.

The author tweets @shailajabajpai. Views are personal.

(Edited by Prashant)