India opens giant Hindu festival for 400 million pilgrims

AFP | New Delhi

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Vast crowds of Hindu pilgrims in India bathed in sacred waters as the Kumbh Mela festival opened yesterday, with organisers expecting 400 million people -- the world’s largest gathering of humanity -- to assemble over six weeks.

The millennia-old Kumbh Mela, a show of religious piety and ritual bathing -- and a logistical challenge of staggering proportions -- is held at the site where the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers meet. “I feel great joy,” said Surmila Devi, 45, after bathing just before dawn. “For me, it’s like bathing in nectar.”

Businesswoman Reena Rai’s voice quivered with excitement as she spoke about the “religious reasons” that brought her to join the sprawling tents, packed along the river banks in the north Indian city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state.

“As a Hindu, this is an unmissable occasion,” said the 38-yearold, who travelled around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Madhya Pradesh state to take part in the festival, which runs until February 26.

Saffron-robed monks and naked, ash-smeared ascetics, many of whom had walked for weeks to reach the site, roamed the crowds offering blessings.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a “divine occasion” that brings together “countless people in a sacred confluence of faith, devotion and culture”.

Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk and Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, welcomed devotees to “experience unity in diversity” at the “world’s largest spiritual and cultural gathering”.

‘Scale of preparations’

Organisers say the scale of the Kumbh Mela is that of a temporary country -- with numbers expected to total around the combined populations of the United States and Canada.

“Some 350 to 400 million devotees are going to visit the mela, so you can imagine the scale of preparations,” festival spokesman Vivek Chaturvedi said.

Some six million devotees had already taken a dip in the river yesterday morning, according to Sunil Kumar Kanaujia, from the state government’s information centre.

Hindu monks carried huge flags identifying their respective sects, while tractors turned into chariots for life-size idols of Hindu gods rolled behind them accompanied by elephants.

Pilgrims exulted in the beat of drums and honking horns. The festival is rooted in Hindu mythology, a battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.

Organising authorities are calling it the great or “Maha” Kumbh Mela.

The riverside in Prayagraj has turned into a vast sea of tents -- some luxury, others simple tarpaulins.

Jaishree Ben Shahtilal took three days to reach the holy site, journeying with her neighbours from Gujarat state in a convoy of 11 buses over three days.

“I have great faith in god,” she said. “I have waited for so long to bathe in the holy river.”