Excessive above the hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims strolling the grounds of the Maha Kumbh Mela, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India beams down from big billboards and posters so far as the attention can see. Elsewhere, there are life-size cutouts of the chief, luminous at evening, together with his fingers folded in greeting.
The Maha Kumbh, a non secular pageant broadly thought-about the most important gathering of humanity, is going down this yr within the metropolis of Prayagraj, the place the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers meet. Hindus consider {that a} third, legendary river referred to as the Saraswati joins them there. Throngs of devotees take a dip within the holy waters within the perception that doing so will purge them of sins and grant them salvation.
It’s a mesmerizing spectacle. There are ash-smeared monks, bare ascetics, clergymen with vermilion paste on their foreheads, odd pilgrims, vacationers with selfie sticks, awe-struck foreigners, entertainers, small distributors and massive advertisers. Additionally it is a feat of city planning, an in a single day megalopolis constructed on land borrowed from the receding Ganges within the state of Uttar Pradesh, with tents, bogs, roads, streetlights and even automated ticket merchandising machines.
For Mr. Modi and his shut ally Yogi Adityanath, the hard-line Hindu monk who’s the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the Maha Kumbh gives a advertising and marketing alternative like no different. It’s a platform to indicate off India’s achievements — and subsequently their very own — earlier than a rapt citizenry and a watching world.
The political sensitivity of the occasion was obvious this previous week when 30 pilgrims died and 90 have been injured in a stampede, in response to official counts. Mr. Adityanath appeared to attempt to minimize the episode, because it took him practically 15 hours to acknowledge that individuals had died and to supply a dying toll.
Mr. Modi expressed grief and supplied assist, however in any other case stored a distance from the tragic information. For him, the Kumbh represents an vital alternative to promote himself as the person who will rework India right into a well-governed, environment friendly, tech-savvy and business-friendly heavyweight.
A optimistic image of the pageant additionally helps Mr. Modi, a Hindu nationalist, to fulfill a need amongst his right-wing base to advertise a wonderful Hindu cultural and spiritual previous.
Mr. Modi “is somebody who has blended faith and politics, faith and state,” mentioned Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an writer who has adopted the rise of the Hindu proper because it has sought to uproot the secular basis laid down by India’s Structure.
Keenly conscious of the significance of picture, Mr. Modi has enhanced his energy by projecting himself not solely as a political chief, but in addition because the caretaker of Hindu traditions. He’s each the prime minister and “the top priest of Hinduism in your complete nation” performing rituals acquainted to many Hindus in public settings, Mr. Mukhopadhyay mentioned.
Mr. Modi is anticipated to take his holy dip on the Maha Kumbh on Wednesday, the identical day that the capital, New Delhi, holds regional elections. The media highlight on him that day will spill over to his Bharatiya Janata Get together because it contests the election.
Mr. Adityanath has been equally lively in looking for political benefit from the non secular occasion.
Final month, Mr. Adityanath, who has been seen at instances as a possible successor to Mr. Modi, held a particular cupboard assembly for state ministers in Prayagraj. There, they introduced infrastructure tasks and bathed on the confluence of the rivers — one more signal, Mr. Mukhopadhyay mentioned, of the more and more blurred strains between faith and state.
Per week later, after the stampede, Mr. Adityanath labored to spin the catastrophe as showcasing the prowess of the Maha Kumbh’s rescue operations.
The Kumbh Mela and different ritual bathing occasions have been round for hundreds of years. Hindu legend holds that when gods and demons fought over a pitcher, or “kumbh,” of the nectar of immortality, the gods spilled drops in 4 locations — every an Indian metropolis that holds a Kumbh Mela each 12 years.
For many years, the pageant was overseen largely by numerous orders of Hindu monks. However governments have lengthy been facilitators, making certain that the occasions are orderly and protected.
Kumbh Mela festivals have steadily elevated in measurement over the a long time, from a complete attendance of some million individuals to a whole lot of hundreds of thousands, as higher infrastructure and amenities attracted extra pilgrims.
The central and state governments earmarked a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for this yr’s occasion, referred to as the Maha Kumbh, or “Nice” Kumbh, as a result of it coincides with a uncommon celestial alignment final seen 144 years in the past. The pageant started in mid-January and can finish late this month.
Authorities involvement is inevitable given the vastness of the pilgrimage, however “individuals don’t come to the Mela as a result of it’s marketed or promoted by the federal government,” mentioned Diana L. Eck, a professor emerita at Harvard Divinity College who labored on a 2015 study referred to as, “Kumbh: Mapping the Ephemeral Mega Metropolis.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Adityanath has gone to nice lengths to pitch this yr’s pageant as a vacationer occasion, with Kumbh “expertise” packages, luxurious tents and efforts to draw celeb company. As he made it a P.R.-driven affair, some attendees mentioned he had distracted from the essence of the pageant.
“Politicians ought to do politics and saints ought to do their non secular work,” mentioned Narender Kumar Sahoo, a pilgrim from the state of Madhya Pradesh who runs a grocery retailer in his village.
The stampede additionally led to criticism from opposition events that Mr. Adityanath’s courting of rich and influential attendees got here at the price of preparations for odd pilgrims.
Amanda Lucia, a professor within the Division for the Research of Faith on the College of California-Riverside, has attended the Kumbh Mela many instances. Dr. Lucia recalled being astounded throughout her first go to to a smaller model of the Kumbh in 1997, boarding a packed practice from the Indian metropolis of Varanasi to Prayagraj, the place she was compelled to sit down beneath a sink for the roughly three-hour journey.
Promotion of the occasion, each domestically and globally, elevated considerably after Mr. Modi got here to energy in 2014, Dr. Lucia mentioned. In 2019, months earlier than Mr. Modi was elected to a second time period, he and Mr. Adityanath upgraded a “half” Kumbh Mela that happens each six years right into a so-called full Kumbh, a transfer meant to win assist for his marketing campaign.
“Lots of people have been calling it the ‘authorities Kumbh’” and complaining that the overtly political ploy had cheapened the occasion, Dr. Lucia mentioned.
One main change for this yr’s Kumbh is its heavy advertising and marketing as a cultural and developmental showcase — “The Biggest Present on Earth” for Hinduism — relatively than as a non secular occasion. The state has highlighted how income from commerce related to the pageant will add to official coffers.
The federal government of Mr. Adityanath has wowed devotees by showering them with rose petals dropped from helicopters. Billboards and digital shows trumpet the federal government’s investments in infrastructure. Officers share limitless knowledge factors, together with the variety of bathers and overseas vacationers, feeding the hype.
State authorities posters have marketed the Maha Kumbh as “divine, grand, digital” — a contemporary twist for a rustic that sees itself as a mannequin of homegrown high-tech innovation.
Digital know-how has made it far simpler for individuals to search out their method across the momentary metropolis. QR codes present hyperlinks to resorts, meals, emergency help and the Mela administration authorities. Nestled amongst these choices is a code with a hyperlink to the “achievements” of the state authorities.
Officers mentioned they have been utilizing refined know-how powered by synthetic intelligence to observe and handle crowds. On the lost-and-found middle, employees have been utilizing facial recognition know-how to trace lacking individuals.
Non-public corporations have equipped synthetic intelligence software program that may report particular data just like the variety of individuals taking holy dips at a sure hour, mentioned Ashok Gupta, a police inspector overseeing the Built-in Command and Management Heart.
The software program can even decide the influx and outflow of individuals in a sure space and handle the danger of overcrowding by redirecting individuals, though that system couldn’t cease this week’s stampede.
For most of the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, nonetheless, the marvel of the Maha Kumbh Mela is neither political nor organizational.
Dharmendra Dubey, 28, walked for miles towards the confluence of the rivers, reaching the waters after darkish. As he toweled off after his dip, shivering because the temperature hit the low 50s, Mr. Dubey, who works in a personal financial institution, mentioned he felt energized.
Regardless of the lengthy stroll, he mentioned he may go into the chilly water once more.
“No tiredness now,” Mr. Dubey mentioned. “It’s gone.”
