Still suffering from world-class delusion

The horrific fire on Wednesday at Delhi's Mi Casa Inn, which snuffed out at least 21 lives, is yet another damning indictment of India's abysmal safety culture. It lays bare the grotesque complacency of authorities and casual negligence of citizens, both complicit in a system where fire safety is treated as a decorative afterthought more suited for 'delicate First Worlders'.

In a city that flaunts its malls, boutique hotels and rooftop lounges, basics remain scandalously absent. Far too many exits are blocked, alarms ornamental, extinguishers dusty props, and inspections either perfunctory or overlooked. When flames erupt, escape routes vanish, and people are reduced to grim statistics. The Malviya Nagar hotel fire comes three days after a multi-storeyed building collapsed in nearby Saket killing 6 - and 29 yrs after the Uphaar cinema fire in Green Park that killed 59 people. That should have changed mindsets. It did not.

The rot runs deeper than officialdom. Citizens, too, have normalised this decay. We tolerate illegal constructions, shrug at missing fire drills, and accept 'chalta hai' as civic sense. Citizens rarely bother about triflings like valid fire NOCs. Mi Casa reportedly didn't. The fire, and building collapse before, can be spun as aberrations. But they're the logical consequence of a society that values convenience over caution, profit over protection. Until regulatory bodies enforce standards with teeth, and citizens demand accountability with urgency, Delhi will be an oversized village with 'world-class' delusions. A 'viskit' city or country would use this latest tragedy as a corrective turning point. For, if the national capital can't impose standard safety measures, the scene for the rest of the country is dire.