When the Sutlej stilled 24 voices

ON September 29, 1982, joy turned into gloom on the Sutlej near Nangal. Students of Our Lady of Fatima Convent High School, Patiala, had spent the morning at Gobind Sagar Lake and visited Bibhor Sahib Gurdwara. Before returning home, 62 children, their teacher, a villager and ferryman Udho Ram boarded a wooden ferry. The river at that point stretches almost 400 metres wide. Midstream, the overloaded ferry capsized. By the time the water stilled, 22 children, the boatman and the villager were no more.

The ferry was 25 ft long, 8 ft wide, licensed for 25 adults. Its planks were rotten, patched with jute. There were no life jackets, no ropes, no rescue gear. Yet it was allowed to operate. The ferry contractor, Daya Ram Saini, collected the fares; Udho only rowed. That day, the load was more than double the safe capacity.

For villagers, such crossings were routine. For the authorities, they were invisible. No one asked if the boat was fit. No one cared if the children aboard could swim. Safety depended on chance — and on one boatman’s arms.

When the ferry tipped and went under, Udho fought the current. He saved eight children before he disappeared. His body was later found with four children still clinging to him.

Panic gripped the river, but some children fought back. Archana Jain pulled her teacher and two classmates to safety; Sanjay Sethi dragged children into a rescue boat until the river pulled him under; Tanya supported younger classmates in the water until help arrived.

Others clung to the overturned hull or to each other in pairs. These stories remind us that courage can emerge in the smallest hands. They also remind us that lifesaving skills — swimming, rescue, first aid — should not be left to chance.

Help first came from villagers. Chiranji Lal rowed into the current, followed by his 13-year-old cousin Shirri, whose own boat capsized in the effort. Survivors were hauled back to shore in repeated trips.

Official help arrived far too late. Divers from the Bhakra Beas Management Board and later the Navy began work only about 15 hours after the accident. Bodies were recovered slowly, over the next three days. One child, Mandeep Sekhon, was never found.

Each time a body was lifted from the river, wails rose from the banks, where families waited in anguish. A father, standing with his two brothers, rushed forward when his child was found. He lifted the body into his arms and refused to release it, holding on against the current and against the world.

Patiala was plunged into mourning. The school closed for over two weeks; its silver jubilee function was cancelled. Leaders paid a visit. Gallantry awards were proposed for the brave children. A memorial plaque was built — with the names of the students, but not of the boatman who had given his life.

The police registered a case under Section 304A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC against Daya Ram and even against Udho, though he had died saving lives. Questions were raised in Parliament, but accountability dissolved with time.

The Nangal boat tragedy was not just an accident. It was the result of systemic neglect: an unfit ferry, unchecked overcrowding, no safety equipment, no rescue readiness. In its editorial at the time, The Tribune wrote: “The lessons of the boat tragedy must be learned, not forgotten.”

Forty-three years later, those lessons remain urgent. Survivors, now in their fifties, still carry the river inside them. The Sutlej flows on. And the memory of those 24 voices — children full of promise and a boatman who gave everything to save them — urges us to treat safety not as an afterthought, but as a duty owed to every life.