Kanwar chaos and a state of surrender

The state has submitted meekly to hooliganism. The hockey sticks or deafening decibels aren't supposed to be a part of the solemn journey, piety and penance are. The state is proving over and over again that you need to be part of a herd to be heard.Kanwariyas move along the Delhi-Haridwar Expressway during the Kanwar Yatra in Haridwar. (Image: PTI)In Africa's Serengeti and Masai Mara, over 1.5 million wildebeest, along with zebras and gazelles, participate in the Great Migration every year. Individual animals, young and the feeble, get trampled in what is the greatest animal movement on earth. As tens of thousands push ahead, there is a herd mentality at play. And in the jungle, might is right.The civilised world, however, has been built around the concept of an individual's rights, freedoms and duties. Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.That right gets trampled in India whenever a crowd of people descend on the streets. Be it to protest. Be it to mourn. Be it to celebrate. It just gets worse when religion is a driving force. Be it the Shab-e-Barat bikers or Kanwar Yatra walkers, we have seen what happens when religion tries to showcase street power.India has celebrated community-based living for centuries. We have rejoiced the drum beats of festivals and observed the shraddh as a community. Then there are the rituals that had been observed as an individual or in a small group of twos and threes, which have now taken gigantic proportions. Most millennials and boomers will have memories of how the kanwar yatra used to be a pilgrimage of devotion and strict observance. A code of conduct was adhered to, lest the yatra got 'khandit'. The journey with self was a time for introspection.Though the younger lot did it for fun, there was a social code, if not a religious one, that was adhered to. In the last 10 years, the solitary journey has taken the shape of Mad Max Fury Road, Doof Wagons in tow. That's the annual mass movement when kanwars armed with hockey sticks and rods have the right of way, and no one dare cross their path. They march through Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and the heart of Delhi. Traffic comes to a halt and the heart almost so, struggling to survive the deafening decibels and woofer thump.India Today Digital on Tuesday (August 11) recorded volume levels of over 110 decibels (dB). This while the permissible levels in residential areas is 45 dB and industrial areas 75 dB. The bass paglus need to be told ab bass.Spiritualism has given way to wild spirits. The common tagline is 'Bhole ki Fauj, Karegi Mauj'. While there is no dearth of devotees, the intoxicated lot stand out.The state emboldens them with its submission if not as an active enabler.In several districts of Uttar Pradesh, schools have been shut for 10 days after kanwariyas attacked a school van with children inside. The government realises the damage that a herd can do to the young. Anyway, bachao comes before padhao in our empowerment slogans. Safety first, siksha later.The herds slowly snake through Delhi with their Doof Wagons blaring, passing by schools where children are trying to study.A society must have space for all. Students will study, workers will work and pilgrims will make their pilgrimage. It is in conflicting situations that the state faces a test. It is its actions that reveal its priorities.Then there is the messaging. When the chief minister and top cops shower rose petals from choppers using taxpayers' money, nothing is lost in transmission to the policeman on duty on the ground.Over the years, the state's surrender to lawlessness has only emboldened the hooligans among the kanwariyas. They get away with smashing vehicles with terrified women and children inside. They go unpunished for attacking and injuring office-goers.On their part, the kanwar yatra tolis have understood that the only way they get to have their way is to form bigger groups and carry louder DJ systems.Forget Rosa Parks, who single-handedly triggered the American civil rights movement by not giving up her seat, in India you need to be part of a herd to be heard.It was only groups of farmers that could force the government to take back laws passed by Parliament and a swarm of marching cockroaches that forced a Union minister to resign.Contrast this with a lone activist who wanted to silently head towards Gandhi Smriti against E20 implementation but was confined in his house by police.This is where the words of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi warn us of majoritarianism."It is slavery to be amendable to the majority, no matter what its decisions are. Democracy is not a state in which people act like a sheep. Under democracy, individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded...," Gandhi wrote in Young India in 1922. It's been over a century since.A mature democratic society is one which protects an individual's rights and freedoms even against a million-strong mob. That's what separates Serengeti from Singapore and Masai Mara from Missouri of Rosa Parks. If we have to fear those on a religious yatra, we need to introspect where we have ended up as a society.- EndsPublished By: Sushim MukulPublished On: Aug 11, 2026 16:19 IST