By Dr Prashant Khattri
A lot has been written on Bhandaras or community feasts operating in Maha Kumbh, 2025 in Prayagraj. Almost all the writings on community feasts have projected them as spaces providing service to humankind by distributing food free of cost. Such spaces are seen as transcending religion, caste, and class barriers and doing charity.
Community feasts at Kumbhhaves been presented within the homeostatic model where such organizations help in maintaining and strengthening the social fabric of the society. Big business houses like Reliance and Adani group have advertised that food will be provided free to anyone who comes to eat at theiBhandarirs.
Religious organizations like the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON), and several Hindu and Sikh organizations are serving food in the Mela. It is believed that feeding people is the best kind of daan (charity) that can be offered. One can see this written over the ISKON Bhandara that reads- “Anna Daan Maha Daan.”
While doing fieldwork in the Mela area with undergraduate students of the Department of Anthropology, University of Allahabad, I have eaten food in many Bhandaras which they call Prasad which is a food that has been first offered to the deity and then served to the public in the name of the deity.
One of the students doing her dissertation on non-government organizations operating in the Kumbh came across several such organizations involved in organizing community feasts. She was tasked with observing and interviewing people in the organization about their goals and intentions behind serving humankind.
She was doing her job when she realized that this was going nowhere. People were repetitively answering that they provide service to people as this earns them punya. The concept of gaining merit by providing food to the pilgrims is central to community feasts. This made me think about how community feasts can be approached to go beyond the equilibrium model. Is there something more to be seen and felt at the Bhandaras beyond seeing them as promoting harmony and doing service?
While we were thinking and discussing these issues, it was almost time for lunch and I asked students to join me for the Bhandara. All agreed except one. I asked him why he would not eat. I first thought that he must not be hungry and therefore denied the food but then he told me that he is not eating at the Bhandara because this may lead to emaciation of the merit (punya ksheen hona). It is at this juncture that I realized that to understand Bhandaras from an alternative perspective, it is important to focus not on people who are eating the Bhandara but on people who are not.
A student who denied eating at the Bhandara further told me upon asking that we all come to a pilgrimage site like the Kumbh Mela to earn merit (punya). One can earn merit not only for oneself but also for others in whose name holy dip is taken. If a person is unable to come to Sangam and if you take a holy dip in his/her name then one-sixth of the punya earned by you gets transferred to that person. He further said that in case you eat at a community feast or Bhandara or Langar in Kumbh then you transfer some of your earned Punya to the person who is organizing the community feast. He was reluctant to eat at the Bhandara as he was not ready to transfer his punya to someone else.
Upon probing this issue further and talking to some more people on the transfer of punya, it came to light that people believe that if a person who can financially maintain himself/herself, eats at the Bhandara then he/she transfers his punya to the organizers. However, it is also believed that such a person can eat at the Bhandara without transferring the punya if he/she makes some donations to the Bhandara organizers.
During the fieldwork, I visited four Bhandaras and found that only one Bhandara kept a donation box where people could drop money. The other three Bhandaras had no such provision. In one of these Bhandaras, my student offered money so that he could eat without worrying about the emaciation of merit but the organizers refused to accept. He also refused to eat as he was not in the mood to reduce his own earned punya and give it to someone else.
I later realized that many YouTube videos are talking on the same issue and advising people how to eat in a Bhandara to avoid emaciation of their merit. At this point, I realized that punya is transacted as a commodity in the Bhandara.
Donation is one way in which you can save your punya and still eat at the Bhandara. However, it is not specified or at least I cannot figure out how much donation can save one’s Punya. But as a commodity that can be exchanged, punya becomes a tradable asset. It is here one can ask to what extent the idea of punya is attached to ethical and moral essence. Having gained the character of an asset, punya becomes a marketable entity. No wonder then to see the government advertisements saying- punya fell, mahakumbh challan (come let’s go to mahakumbh to earn merit).
(Dr Prashant Khattri, Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology, University Of Allahabad)
