Crowd Violence: A Contextual analysis of various incidents at Delhi

By : Suresh Kumar, Sapna Yadav

Page No: 295-304

Abstract
The present study aimed to identify the emerging behavioural patterns and triggers in various crowd incidents at Delhi. To achieve the aim of the study, 34 case studies of various crowd incidents were collected from 94 Delhi police officers having experience of 3 to 30 years in crowd handling. The case studies were analysed by using content analysis method of qualitative assessment. All collected case studieswere classified into 7 domains representing specific contexts. Domain 1 consisted case studies where people assembled due to safety and other basic need issues. Domain 2 deals with sudden assembly of crowd, domain 3 consisted crowd incidents against rape and eve teasing. Domain 4 and 5 includes cases of schools and colleges students protest, domain 6 represent communal violence and domain 7 deals with protest against reservation policies. The analysis of these case studies indicates that the violence in these gathering triggered by confrontation with security forces, misguided rumours, provocative speeches by leaders, trivial messages on social media and sudden and unjustified action of security forces. The probability of violence in these crowd is also high when it includes maximum youth and antisocial/national element in it. Preventive measure to reduce the probability of violence are also highlighted by case studies. The finding of the present study having a strong implication to design the crowd violence management strategies particularly in Delhi.

Authors :
Sapna Yadav : Junior Research Fellow – Defence Institute of Psychology (DIPR), DRDO.
Suresh Kumar : Scientist – Defence Institute of Psychology (DIPR), DRDO
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/JPR.2020.15.01.25