By Dr Prashant Khattri
The 2025 Mahakumbh Mela in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh has already gained the distinction of being one of largest peaceful religious gathering that has ever happened anywhere in the entire world.
No one can give a better testimony to this fact except people of Prayagraj themselves. Since the inception of the Mela on January 13, people are facing massive traffic jams.
Schools, colleges, universities and offices got closed on special bathing days to minimise the crowd on the roads. Swarms of people marching towards the Sangam ghat became a spectacle in itself.
People walked distances close to 10-12 kilometres just to reach the bathing ghats (river banks). One may ask as to what motivates people to take such pains? People of far-off places as well as in and around Prayagraj are coming daily to the Mela. What brings them here?
Is it just their unwavering faith in the concept of getting punya from bathing in the Sangam or there is something more to this story?
Faith and belief definitely sets the master narrative as despite knowing the kind of crowd that is expected in and around the Mela area, people are still reaching. However, the Mela site can also be seen as a place of popular empowerment.
It can be argued that pilgrimage sites such as the Mahakumbh, attracts some individuals more than the others. The majority of people coming to the Mela are using public transport like trains and buses to reach.
Keeping this in mind, governments since the colonial period have given special emphasis on running special trains and bus services that can help people practice their faith.
Mela becomes an occasion of connecting places far away from the urban pilgrimage centre. People from small towns and rural areas form the bulk of the population that comes to the Mela.
The Mela area blossoms not with the coming of the celebrities and the VVIPs but with the coming of the people belonging to the social and class margins.
Abhiranjan, an undergraduate student of Allahabad University doing anthropological fieldwork in the Mela remarks after seeing the crowd- “one cannot separate the crowd from the Mela in the same way as one cannot separate the glitter from the diamond.”
After getting down at several stations in Prayagraj, people start walking towards the confluence of rivers. Popular folk poetry of Kailash Gautam titled “Amausa Ka Mela” captures the Mela crowd in its utmost detail and stands as a testimony of the ‘crowd’ in the popular imagination and memory of people.
The crowd coming to the Mela braves all the hardships that they encounter enroute and still have the energy and courage to complete their pilgrimage.
In this context, pilgrimage can be seen as something that is more that faith, as a means of protest against the marginalized condition. A protest against the everyday hardships that people face.
A protest against the present marginal condition that is seen as a result of paap that has accumulated over several births and people want to get rid of it by taking a holy dip. Marginal condition within the paap-punya dichotomy is seen as a result of accumulated sins.
Pilgrimage becomes an occasion where the citizen gets transformed into a devotee and the rights and claims that a citizen was unable to get are now sought as a devotee.
Huge crowd walking on the streets is a performative aspect of pilgrimage where pain and suffering that people encounter becomes an important dimension of healing.
Kumbh becomes as site of empowerment because it provides the pilgrims with an opportunity to have direct connect with the divine without being mediated by religious functionaries.
Every single person claims and owns the space and rivers. Kumbh belongs to everyone. It is also a site of empowerment as it gives opportunity to the pilgrims to represent not just themselves but their families and entire community at the pilgrimage site as holy dips are often not only taken for the sake of the self but also on behalf of and for the sake of family members, other members of the community and even dead persons.
People feel empowered when they act as a medium by carrying holy water of the Sangam for those who could not attend the Mela.
The river Ganga is perceived as a mother. It symbolises care and fulfilment of wishes that people seek from their mother. Both men and women are seen worshipping and making wishes to the Ganga.
When their wishes do get fulfilled they take a vow to come back and make offerings to the river. The belief of wish fulfilment is another source of empowerment.
(The Writer is Assistant Professor At The Dept Of Anthropology, Allahabad University)
