Stampede : Is Religion A Opium to Die At Last At Religious Congregation?

"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German economist Karl Marx.Though it was said by communist guru but now it is coming true because people are not only dying at religious congregation but are also being raped and molested in the hands of religious gurus through out the world.

In India alone, religious industry is of 40000Cr of rupee a year but government has not enacted any law or act for safeguard of followers and for providing  fool proof facilities at religious place. The donation mostly comes from black money on which these religious personality relish and flourish. "No tax; No records of sources of donations; no check on donation, and no law even to check them", though most of religious sects have been reported engaged in various crimes.

They may suffix baba, sant, shankaracharyia, mahamendleshwar before their names at his own, there is no body in India who can grand these medels after some "Code of Conduct". Criminals are entering into religious places and people are calling them sant or baba. Alas!

The most shameful attitude of the religious person and the organization are that they never learn any lesson from the past.  To understand this you will have to consider followers as "Customer" of religious bodies. At the tragedy who will take care of their customers? This is agony, that when any tragedy occurs at religious places, no saint or guru bothers about diseased in stampede or any calamity as occurred recently at Uttarakhand, India where thousands of people died due to flood.

 Aggrieved people cry for help not from God but from government. They criticise government machinery for their failures but they never criticise the deity for whom they had gone to get benevolences. No religious bodies comes forward to help them, to evacuate them, to provide medical facilities, etc.  No even any religious guru expressed grief at the deaths of their customers, they eat and live on their donation but at the time of tragedy , they left at the mercy of the government though trillions of dollar of gold are with them- and I am failed to understand why government give compensation to the next relative of deceased in stampede though government is not at fault but they wasted exchequer money to get support of fools.

Even they never took pain to sell a portion of gold to help the aggrieved families in Uttarkhand tragedy. Shameful attitude of religious guru, is it not?

Let us  summarize the a part of incidents which occurred at different religious places in the world, perhaps may we change our attitude and thinking :- At least 115 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a stampede on a crowded bridge across Sindh river leading to Ratangarh temple in Datia district of northern Madhya Pradesh on 13/10/2013 at the closing function of Durga festival..



Before this, at least 36 people were trampled to death on  as pilgrims headed home from the Kumbh Mela religious festival, which drew a record 30 million people to the banks of the river Ganges but neither public nor government learnt any lesson from all these tragedy.
   
Pilgrims have died due to stampedes on previous occasions. Here is a list of the worst stampedes in India since 2008:

2012

November 20: Eighteen women and children are crushed to death in a stampede when a rope bridge collapses at a Hindu festival in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

September 24: Nine people, eight of them women, die in a stampede during morning prayers at a religious celebration in Jharkhand state.

January 14: Ten worshippers die in a midnight stampede at a Hindu shrine in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
   
2011

November 8: Sixteen people including 14 women are killed in a stampede at a religious ceremony at a hermitage near the holy Hindu city of Haridwar.
   
January 14: Some 102 Hindu devotees are killed in a stampede which breaks out when thousands of pilgrims make their way home after an annual pilgrimage in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
   
2010

October 16: Ten worshippers are crushed to death in Bihar when tens of thousands of pilgrims gather for an annual Hindu festival.
   
March 4: Sixty-three people, mostly women and children, are killed in a stampede at a temple where free clothes are being doled out in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
   
2008 

September 30: Some 224 pilgrims die in a stampede when 25,000 worshippers rush to reach the 15th-century Chamunda Devi hill-top temple in the northern Indian town of Jodhpur.
   
August 3: Some 150 Hindu worshippers, including scores of children, are killed in a temple stampede sparked by rumours of a landslide in the northern Indian tourism state of Himachal Pradesh.

List and place of death due to stampede : Kanakadurga Temple, Vijaywada Date: 03.01.2008 Place: Andhra Pradesh No. of people killed: 6 Mata Janaki Temple,Karila Date: 26.03.2008 Place: Madhya Pradesh No. of people killed, injured: 8,11 Jagannath Temple, Puri Date: 04.07.2008 Place: Orissa No. of people killed, injured: 6, 3 Nainadevi Temple, Bilaspur Date: 03.08.2008 Place: Himachal Pradesh No. of people killed, injured: 147,150 In pict: Nainadevi Temple, Bilaspur

The stampede is common in the rest of world  also, here are few news which depicts how people had died when they had gone to religious places to get benovolence but got death.

1. In Phnom Penh Stampede :465 Dead

2. Baghdad Bridge Stampede : 953 Dead

 ___
On August 31, 2005, around one million pilgrims had gathered around, or were marching toward, the Al Kadhimiya Mosque, which is the shrine of the Imam Musa al-Kazim, one of the twelve Shi’a Imams. To reach the shrine, pilgrims had to cross the Al-Aaimmah bridge over the Tigris river, located in Baghdad Iraq.

3.The Hajj :Thousands Dead

The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, known as the Hajj, has resulted in multiple stampedes and crushing deaths over the years.
As many as three million pilgrims arrive at Mecca each year, as those of the Muslim faith attempt to make at least one pilgrimage in their lifetime. For many, their first visit to Mecca would become their last.

4. Bethnal Green Disaster :173 Dead

During World War II, it was common for Londoners to shelter in London Underground (subway) stations. During an air-raid on 3 March 1943, hundreds of people attempted to enter Bethnal Green underground station in east London. A nearby unrelated explosion caused people to panic and a woman with a baby fell on the stairs down into the station, causing many others to fall and in 15 seconds 300 people were crushed in the stairwell, 173 fatally. However, no bomb struck and not a single casualty was the direct result of military aggression, making it the deadliest civilian incident of World War II in the UK. For wartime morale reasons it was not reported at the time.

The full quote from Karl Marx is: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people".
_____________________________________________________________
_ "Democracy means- A government of the people, by the vote of the people, by the money of the people, and for the welfare of the people". Thanks