One could be excused for being weighed down by a sustained spell of sadness on account of last week’s pointless tragedy of an Air India flight crashing into a college hostel and killing more than 270 people in all. One supposes in the same breath that it’s the essence of tragedies—their pointlessness; death without reason.
Despite the heavy toll and the sensational nature of the incident, the fact remains that air travel in India has been getting safer. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, India recorded zero accidents per million departures for scheduled commercial flights in 2023, a marked improvement over the 0.87 accidents per million in 2022. Since 1947, commercial airline accidents in India have claimed a reported 2,173 lives in 52 fatal incidents, with 80 percent of those between 1951 and 2010 attributed to pilot error.
These numbers, however, pale against other types of accidents. Perhaps because we are congenitally more tolerant of chaos as a civilisation, deaths from road accidents result in vast numbers of deaths. Tardy observance of traffic rules is only one factor. The state of the roads themselves is fatality-inducing.
Mind-numbing numbers of casualties are distributed across road traffic collisions, rail accidents, drownings, fires and industrial mishaps. Data from the National Crime Records Bureau paints a funereal picture. Road traffic collisions are the leading cause of accidental deaths in India, far surpassing others.
In 2023, an estimated 1,72,000 people died in road accidents, averaging 474 deaths per day. That’s a lot. The NCRB reported a significantly lower number in some years prior, though. In 2021, for example, the number of fatalities was 1,55,622, with two-wheeler crashes accounting for 69,240 deaths.
This kind of situation calls for thorough discussions at the right forums, including parliament. But how many times have MPs raised the issue?
Despite improvements in road safety in some surveys, the sheer volume of vehicles—295 million in 2019—and lax observance of rules such as seatbelt and helmet usage, and scant road sense, contribute to the crisis.
India’s vast railway network is another terrifying source of mortality. Between 2018 and 2022, rail accidents resulted in 1,07,071 fatalities. Which brings an old nagging question to the fore: why are railway passengers not reasonably insured?
The NCRB recorded 17,993 railway accidents in 2021, a 38 percent increase from 2020, with Maharashtra seeing the highest numbers. Mumbai contributes heavily. An average of seven local train commuters die daily in Mumbai, based on 2023 data reporting 2,590 deaths on the suburban railway network. Only last week, five commuters fell off in a cluster from a speeding local train to their death. Who knew going to work was war? And when was the last time the issue found mention in the assembly?
Determining how accidental deaths are increasing exponentially requires nuanced analysis by experts. For aviation, the trend is clearly downward. The 2011- 2020 decade saw only two fatal commercial airliner crashes in India—one in Mangaluru in 2010 and the other in Kozhikode in 2020, compared to seven in the 1991-2000 period. The Ahmedabad crash, while devastating, is an outlier in an otherwise safer aviation sector.
Road accidents, however, show a more complex picture. While the annual death toll remains staggeringly high, the rate of fatalities per 1,00,000 people—16.6 in 2013, as per WHO—has not risen proportionately with the increase in vehicles or population. Initiatives like the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s online accident reporting portal and road safety audits suggest progress, but the absolute number of deaths remains a public health crisis.
Other accidental death categories, such as drownings or industrial incidents, lack sufficient recent data to confirm trends, but historical patterns suggest they remain persistent challenges. Then there are religious gatherings and pilgrimages where scores die in stampedes. That the gods or godmen, the believers crowd around to have a glance at, have no power to save them from death does not prevent the frequent recurrence of the tragedy.
The Maha Kumbh Mela stampede in Prayagraj in January, resulted in at least 30 deaths. But that is the official figure. Reuters reported a higher toll, with a witness counting 39 bodies in the morgue at Moti Lal Nehru Medical College. A BBC report later claimed at least 82 deaths. That these figures vary points to fundamental flaws in the way we assess even the factuality of such incidents.
All said, aviation remains the safest mode of travel. Still, the crash exposes vulnerabilities. The official investigation is progressing. But as a lay observer, I do wonder how a six-story college hostel was allowed to come up so close along the airport’s take-off path.
Critics have argued that India’s aviation regulator and airport authorities have been lax, with urban encroachment around airports posing risks. The fact is that India’s chaotic urban development— whether it is Mumbai, Bengaluru or Ahmedabad—is innocent of any great rigour in planning.
In contrast, road and rail accidents, which claim far more lives annually, suffer from systemic issues: inadequate infrastructure, weak enforcement and a cultural disregard for safety norms. The public and media’s focus on the rarer air crashes often overshadows these chronic problems.
C P Surendran is a poet, novelist, and screenplay writer whose latest novel is One Love and the Many Lives of Osip B
(Views are personal)
(cpsurendran@gmail.com)