Among the prominent and ancient Sastha temples in India, Sabarimala Sree Ayyappa Temple is situated in the Western Ghats of the Pathanamthitta district in the state of Kerala. Sabarimala Sri Dharmasastha Temple is among those few Hindu temples in the country, which is open to every type of faith. The Sabarimala shrine happens to be a remote shrine located in South India. Yet the shrine sees the inflow of large number of people every year. About 4 million pilgrims are attracted to this shrine, every year. Nestled within the dense forest and the mountains, it is believed that the Ayyappan meditated at Sabarimala It serves as a popular pilgrimage destination in the God’s Own Country, Kerala. There is a belief among the people that that “Parasurama Maharshi” while retrieving Kerala from within the sea threw his axe and established at Sabarimala, the statue of Ayyappa, in order to worship Lord Ayyappa.
The pilgrimage commences in November and continues till the month of January. Pilgrims are attracted to this temple not only from Southern India, but from different corners of the country and abroad as well. November to January happens to be the main season for pilgrim. It is during this time that the temple is thronged by most number of people. The 2 major events that takes place during the main pilgrim time, are Mandala pooja in the month of November and and Makaravilakku in the month of January. Except during the Vishu in month of April and the 1st 5 days of every Malayalam month, the Sabarimala Temple remains closed for the remaining parts of the year. The pilgrimage is seen as and believed to be a symbol of equality, love, and devotion.
2011: Huge Rush of Pilgrims to Sabarimala
In the year 2011, during mid January, Sabarimala saw an unprecedented rush of people who gathered to be a part of the Makara Jyothi that is the celestial light appearing on the horizon during Makar Sankranti. Every year the number of pilgrims visiting this shrine goes up. According to Ravi Kumar, the Sabarimala Police Station in-charge, the number of pilgrims who visited the shrine this year has crossed all the past records. To quote him:
“It appears that there is not an inch of space left and pilgrims are now stranded en route to the temple top because the crowd is really huge. Many of them are waiting for more than 12 hours to have a glimpse of the light which will appear around dusk.”
The Sabarimala shrine is situated at a height of about 914 meters from the sea level. It is 4km uphill from Pamba in the district of Pathanamthitta (Central Kerala).
Sabarimala Pilgrimage Season Ends with a Tragedy!
The very popular and sought after Pilgrimage Season of Sabarmali finally ends but unfortunately with a tragedy to be remembered ever in the pages of history. It was 14th of January, 2011, when the Sabarmali Tragedy took place. As the devotees were returning in huge numbers after having a watch of the most important event at the temple, the sight of the divine celestial light that is the Makara Jyothi light, a jeep lost its control thereby ramming into the pilgrims and triggering a panic among the devotess. As a result of this, a devastating stampede took place at about 8 p.m.
At least 102 pilgrims have been killed and 5o injured at the Sabarimala accident that took place at Pulumedu, a forest area located 10 km from the town of Vandiperiyar, and 30 km from the Sabarimala Shrine.
Among those killed at the disaster, 29 devotees were from Tamil Nadu, 16 were from Andhra Pradesh, 3 were from Kerala and 25 were from Karnataka. A pilgrim from Sri Lanka was also found dead at the stampede.
Just after the incident, Kerala announced 3 days mourning for those who lost their lives in this tragic incident.
To quote Aneesh, one of the locals-
“I have never seen such a huge crowd at Pulmedu in my life. The flow of pilgrims returning was much more than anybody’s expectations.”
Kadannapally Ramachandran, the Kerala Deveswom Minister commented that-
“Though arrangements for controlling the crowd were on a usual scale, the flow of people had been much more than all expectations.”
The Sabarmali pilgrimage that started in the middle of November was incident free till 14th January 2011 night. Over 30 million people paid a visit to the temple during the pilgrimage season.
President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi expressed their condolence for the dead pilgrims.
A relief of Rs 1 lakh has been sanctioned by the Government to those families who have lost their dear ones and a sum of Rs 50,000 will be given to those injured.
Sabarimala Tragedy: India Wake up!
20th January 2011 witnessed the end of the pilgrimage season at Sabarimala as the gates of the popular temple were closed down. The Sabarimala temple, which is considered to be a symbol of equality, love, and devotion, has thrown up yet another question for India! After the end of the pilgrim season with more than hundred deaths, the question is what is there in store, next for the people in India? Who would be responsible for the loss of so many lives in the stampede, without their fault?
Hari Kumar, a driver, belonging to Thiruvalla and a devotee of Ayyappa Lord, was found saying that the authority should take on the blame. He told the media that-
“The crowds of people arriving at the temple have gone up drastically in the past one decade. The steep increase is on account of an increasing number of devotees from the South Indian states….. Those in charge of controlling traffic, especially on the Thekkady border, have to be alert. If they had done that this time, the Pulumedu tragedy could have been avoided. ”
There happens to be two important entry points to the Sabarmali Temple. Of these, the Thekkady-Kumily route on which Pulumedu is situated happens to be a treacherous one owing to the narrow roads and topography.
K. Sivadasan Nair, the Pathanamthitta legislator who has been a part of many discussions prior to the pilgrimage season, said that appropriate scientific planning is what is necessary now. According to him-
“if we start that now, we could make huge positive gains ahead of the next pilgrimage season…I am told that the National Remote Sensing Centre in Hyderabad has in principle agreed to come to our help to prepare a satellite imagery of the places in and around the Sabarimala temple.”
He also added- “I will request the state government to seek their help because they have used this technology in disaster management in Andhra Pradesh.”
With 2 big tragedies of the same sort happening in the last 12 years and over 150 lives lost, we can only hope as we did in the past that the authorities would come out of the blame game first that ultimately leads to no where. They are then expected to study the previous reports and decide on what to do next.
With the High Court of Kerala asking for a detailed report on the accident, from the state government, hopes are building up among the people that the authorities will now act. The Government also needs to take further initiatives and limit the number of pilgrims to the region, every year. Further, the Government should take active part in making the pilgrims aware that the celestial light that they consider to be divine and come to visit every year is nothing but a man made phenomenon. The authorities should adopt appropriate measures to make people come out of their superstitions because there is nothing more important than the live of people. However, if like all other times, the authorities don’t act then probably we would be left with nothing but to ask each other when will India wake up?
The Sabarmali disaster in Kerala has been one of the worse in recent times with deaths going up to about 102 people. With the task to prevent any kind of disasters in the future, ISRO or the Indian Space Research Organization has decided to offer satellite photographs of the landscape and every area of the region.
According to Dr K Radhakrishnan, the ISRO Chairman, 3 dimensional images of the region would enable the temple board in coordination with the state government to improve on the infrastructure in the Sabarimala region so that such mishaps can be avoided in future.
