Kerala Boat Capsize: A Call to Wake up

The boat tragedy in Kerala causing death of 22 people, mainly women and children out on a holiday, should come as a grim reminder that India is close to earning the dubious distinction of being ‘a dangerous place’ for unsuspecting sightseers, revelers and tourists. Secondly, laxity in matters of enforcing the rules is the norm and tragedies such as the one near the Tuvalthiram beach in Malappuram only momentarily wake up the administration only to go back to their ‘care a damn’ attitude towards public safety.

Reports so far suggest that the double-decker ferry had more occupants than it was permitted to carry. It was originally a fishing boat and had been customized (improvised) as a tourist boat. Thirdly, the lower deck was like a glass cage and did not allow the inmates to wriggle out of the sinking ferry in time. Fourthly, it was not licensed to be deployed as a tourist boat which its owner had chosen to make it. Finally, it was either not equipped with the safety equipment or if it were there, they were not provided to those who boarded it. Perhaps nothing among these should surprise anyone who comes across such tragedies in India in normal course and is used to take them with the usual smugness of a watcher of the Indian scene.

The boat, as reported by bystanders from the beach, had taken more tourists than it was allowed to carry and was tilting to a side while leaving the jetty on the pleasure trip in the estuary and warning to this effect were ignored by the tour organisers. The catastrophe also serves as a grotesque reminder of the September 2009 tragedy, when a Kerala Tourist Development Corporation pleasure boat ‘Jalanayak’ sank in the Lake Thekkady within Periyar Tiger Sanctuary killing 45 tourists. The double-decker ferry had capsized when tourists surged to one side of the boat to have a closer look of wild elephants roaming in the sanctuary. The boat with the designated capacity of 75, had reportedly carried 87 persons.

Curiously, boat tragedies are nothing new to Kerala, a destination for sightseers attracted by its backwaters, forests, and serene hills of the Western Ghats. The former Governments had set up Commissions of Inquiry (CoI)— by Justice K. Narayana Kurup (2002 for Kumarakom boat tragedy, Justice M. M. Pareed Pillay following Thattekkad boat accident, and 2009 Inquiry by Mytheenkunju into Thekkady boat capsize—and their reports have been gathering dust. They all had identified the failure to evenly distribute passengers in the boats, overcrowding and absence of safety jackets as the major causes. A National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) report in 2013 had pointed out the failure to heed the recommendations by these panels