Maha Kumbh Mela: world's largest religious festival gets under way in India

Hindu devotees from across India flocked to the northern city of Prayagraj yesterday as the world's largest religious festival began.

Over the coming 45 days, an estimated 400 million Hindus are expected to come together for Maha Kumbh Mela. The festival is held every 12 years but the "Maha" or grand Kumbh Mela takes place only every 144 years, "marking the 12th Kumbh Mela and a special celestial alignment of the sun, moon and Jupiter", said The Guardian.

'Spiritual purification'

It is one of the most sacred pilgrimages for Hindus. It has its roots in a Hindu legend that holds that the god Vishnu seized a golden pitcher containing the nectar of immortality from demons, with a few drops falling in the cities of Prayagraj, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.

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The Maha Kumbh Mela represents a "symbolic journey of self-realisation, purification and spiritual enlightenment", said Sky News. Its "ritualistic dip" in the "sacred rivers" serves as a "spiritual purification" and a "symbolic cleansing of the body and soul" which "renews the connection with the divine".

Pilgrims believe that the ritual baths can ultimately help them "achieve Hindu philosophy's ultimate goal: the release from the cycle of rebirth", said The Associated Press.

Herculean task

Many pilgrims stay for the entire festival, "observing austerity, giving alms and bathing at sunrise every day", said the AP news agency, which means the authorities face a "herculean" task to manage such a large gathering, said The Times.

State authorities in Uttar Pradesh have "put in place state-of-the-art security measures", including drones, 268 AI-powered systems, and more than 2,750 CCTV cameras, said the Times of India. There are also 700 marked boats with life-saving buoys along the riverbanks.

A "vast ground" has been converted into a "sprawling tent city" complete with more than 3,000 kitchens and 150,000 toilets, said AP. It spreads over 15 square miles and has housing, roads, electricity and water, communication towers and 11 hospitals.

Hindu nationalism

In the past, India's leaders have "capitalised" on the festival to "strengthen their relationship with the country's Hindus", who make up nearly 80% of the more than 1.4 billion people.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the festival has "become an integral part" of his "advocacy of Hindu nationalism" as, for him, Indian civilisation is "inseparable from Hinduism".

This is the first Maha Kumbh Mela to be held under his party's rule after it changed the town's earlier Muslim name of Allahabad to the Hindu Prayagraj in 2018. So a "successful" Maha Kumbh is expected to "burnish" his project of "reclaiming India's cultural symbols" for his "Hindu base" after he "suffered a humiliating setback" at last year's election, losing his party's parliamentary majority.

But for the pilgrims flocking to the festival, it remains a spiritual, rather than political, experience. This year, it is "extra special", Hindu seer Mahant Ravindra Puri told the BBC, because "the current alignment of planets and stars" is "identical to what existed at the moment of the spill", and "such perfection" is "being observed after 12 Kumbh festivals or 144 years".