India’s great Hindu festival, the world’s largest religious gathering, begins in the north

• The Maha Kumbh Mela, or Hindu Festival of Jugs, begins Monday in the northern Indian city of Prayagraj.
• Officials expect at least 400 million people to visit Prayagraj in the next 45 days.
• Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the festival has become an integral part of the advocacy of Hindu nationalism. The festival is expected to boost the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s record in promoting Hindu cultural symbols to its support base. Critics say the party’s philosophy is rooted in Hindu supremacy.

Millions of Hindu devotees, mystics and holy men and women from across India flocked to the northern city of Prayagraj on Monday to launch the Maha Kumbh festival, billed as the largest religious gathering in the world.

Over the next six weeks or so, Hindu pilgrims will gather at the confluence of three holy rivers—the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati—where they will participate in elaborate rituals, hoping to begin a journey to achieve the ultimate goal of Hindu philosophy: freedom from the cycle of rebirth. .

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Here’s what you need to know about the festival:

Religious gathering at the confluence of three holy rivers

Hindus worship rivers, and only the Ganges and the Yamuna. Believers believe that a dip in their water will cleanse them of their past sins and stop their reincarnation process, especially on auspicious days. The most auspicious of these days occur in 12-year cycles during a festival called the Maha Kumbh Mela or festival of pitchers.

The festival is a series of ritual baths by Hindu sadhus, or holy men, and other pilgrims at the confluence of three holy rivers that dates back to at least the Middle Ages. Hindus believe that the mythical river Saraswati once flowed from the Himalayas through Prayagraj, where it met the Ganges and Yamuna.

Bathing takes place every day, but on the most auspicious dates, naked, ash-smeared monks rush towards the holy rivers at dawn. Many pilgrims stay throughout the festival, observing austerities, giving alms and bathing at dawn each day.

“Here we feel peaceful and attain salvation from the cycle of life and death,” said Bhagwat Prasad Tiwari, a pilgrim.

The festival has its own roots in the Hindu tradition which says that the god Vishnu stole from the demons a golden pitcher containing the nectar of immortality. Hindus believe that a few drops fell in the cities of Prayagraj, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar — four places where the Kumbh festival has been held for centuries.

The Kumbh changes between these four pilgrimage sites approximately every three years on a date prescribed by astrology. This year’s festival is the biggest and grandest of them all. A smaller version of the festival called Ardh Kumbh or Half Kumbh was organized in 2019, when 240 million visitors were recorded, of which around 50 million took a ritual bath on the busiest day.

Maha Kumbh is the largest such gathering in the world

At least 400 million people – more than the population of the United States – are expected in Prayagraj in the next 45 days, according to officials. That’s about 200 times more than the 2 million pilgrims who arrived in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage last year.

The festival is a big test for the Indian authorities in the representation of the Hindu religion, tourism and crowd management.

A vast area along the banks of the rivers was transformed into a sprawling tent city equipped with more than 3,000 kitchens and 150,000 toilets. Divided into 25 sections and spread over 15 square miles, the tent city also has housing, roads, electricity and water, communication towers and 11 hospitals. Murals depicting stories from Hindu scriptures are painted on the city walls.

Indian Railways has also introduced more than 90 special trains that will make nearly 3,300 trips during the festival to transport devotees, apart from regular trains.

About 50,000 security personnel — a 50% increase from 2019 — are also stationed in the city to maintain law and order and manage crowds. More than 2,500 cameras, some powered by artificial intelligence, will send information about crowd movement and density to four central control rooms, where officials can quickly deploy staff to avoid stampedes.

The festival will strengthen Modi’s support base

India’s former leaders have used the festival to strengthen their relationship with the country’s Hindus, who make up nearly 80% India has more than 1.4 billion people. But under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the festival has become an integral part of championing Hindu nationalism. For Modi and his party, Indian civilization is inseparable from Hinduism, although critics say the party’s philosophy is rooted in Hindu supremacy.

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The state of Uttar Pradesh, led by Adityanath — a powerful Hindu monk and a popular hardline Hindu politician in Modi’s party — has committed more than $765 million to this year’s event. He also used the festival to boost his and the prime minister’s image, with huge billboards and posters across the city featuring both of them, alongside slogans praising their government’s welfare policies.

The festival is expected to reinforce the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s past in promoting Hindu cultural symbols for its support base. But recent Kumbh gatherings have also been mired in controversy.

Modi’s government changed the name of the Mughal-era city from Allahabad to Prayagraj as part of its Muslim-to-Hindu name change efforts across the country ahead of the 2019 festival and national elections won by his party. In 2021, his government refused to cancel the festival in Haridwar despite a rise in coronavirus cases, fearing a backlash from religious leaders in the Hindu-majority country.