On January 26, the country was treated to the uplifting sight of a grand spectacle, reaffirming the Republic and its symbolic rituals. The very next day, on January 27, the nation was subjected to the curious sight of the Honourable Home Minister of India taking a dip at the Kumbh𓆏. And, one can bet one’s left arm that we shall shortly be gratified to see the Prime Minister keeping his own date with the holy waters at Triveni.
Many are tempted to see the impresarios from the ruling party hogging the limelight at the Kumbh as another instance of the ‘saffronisation’ of an ancient Hindu ritual. Yet, it is also possible to suggest that Narendra Modi or his senior party managers have no choice but to be seen at such a gathering, performing the same rites and rituals that millions and millions of their fellow-Hindus do. Having loudly proclaimed themselves to be staunch saviours of the Hindu samaj from assorted enemies and having benefitted electorally from such a marketing strategy, the BJP ♌bosses cannot risk not demonstrating their immersion in the ancient ceremony.
The king is enjoined to be seen on the same page as his praja🐟 in matters of common beliefs and dogmas, which could be religious or secular or pagan. Only a ruler whose reign is anchored in despotism can afford to ignore the expectations of most of his subjects.
It is worth recalling that, incongruously enough, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, too, went to the Kumbh and took the holy dip in the company of President Rajendra Prasad and Uttar Pradesh 𝐆Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant. There was, however, no attempt to graft any political purpose on the event. A personal pilgrimage, that was it.
Indira Gandhi made the Kumbh pilgrimage during her prime ministerial days, before she was shown the door in 1977. Sonia Gandhi’s handlers made her go the Kumbh and dip her toe in the holy water; the palaver was designed to position her as a leader on the right side of the Hindus. It was perhaps the first time that the Congress managers were succumbing to the meretricious calculus of the Hindu vote. Curiously enough, neither Atal Behari Vajpayee, as prime minister, nor L.K. Advani ✤as home minister, did the 2001 Kumbh; perhaps the duo did not feel the need to flaunt their Hinduness.
The ever-increasing ease of travel & the strides the hospitality industry has made over the years make the whole Kumbh journey a fun project.
♏It is fortuitous that this Mahakumbh, occurring after 144 years, is taking place when there is a Yogi occupying the Chief Ministerial office in Lucknow. It is inevitable that the BJP leadership in UP and beyond should want to milk the unique occasion for political mileage. To be fair, that is the norm in all walks of life; no area of human activity—sports, cinema, etc.—is exempted from the politician’s marauding calculations. It is perhaps the new normal that the politicians should want to earn political cookies at this historic Kumbh. This time there are rumours that some kind of a “Hindu constitution” would be unveiled. The presumptive political gains for the Yogi crowd from the Mahakumbh are vastly exaggerated.
𒐪It is important to keep in mind that the Kumbh gatherings have been taking place much before imperial/colonial authority poked its nose in the arrangements, in the name of crowd control, or before the politicians started polluting the place with their shabby calculations. It is the finest and perhaps the oldest expression of civil society taking charge of a collective activity.
In that marvellous study, Kumbh Mela-Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity🤪, produced by Harvard University South Asia Institute, professional architects and city planners tell us of the fascinating details of how arrangements get put together for the largest gathering of human beings. And this business has been going on for centuries, much before the rise of the modern Indian state and its major-domos.
♋Compared to other religions, the Hindu religion makes minimal of demands on its adherents, most of the time leaving them to decide when to pray (or not to pray), when to observe a fast, what to eat and what not to eat, etc.; but the Kumbh becomes a call that the votaries put themselves out to some sacrifice, some discomfort, some inconvenience. And, being amid over a crore of fellow-Hindus on any day is a challenging proposition, to say the least.
♑Yet, more and more Hindus are now travelling to be able to boast that they have “done” the Kumbh. No doubt, the ever-increasing ease of travel and the strides the hospitality industry has made over the years make the whole Kumbh journey a fun project. The dynamics of modern commerce, communication and entertainment kick in; still, the ritual of taking a holy dip can only be a personal rite of prayer or penance. A million others may be saying the same prayer, and performing the same ritual, but the act remains a deeply individual essay.
ඣAnd, this individualism at the core of the Hindu pilgrim remains the challenge before the Hindutva manipulators, who have been wanting to move the majority community towards a certain kind of homogenisation. The Hindutva Project is premised on the need to reduce the joyful disparateness of Hindu religious traditions and sects into one unified political community. The managers of the Hindutva Project are entitled to drive comfort from the collectivist sight of crores of Hindus gathering on the Kumbh platform; but, then, when the mela is over, the sectarian and separate identities re-emerge once the devotee is back in the village. Back to square one.
That remains the rub. The homogenisation project comes to a grinding halt. The village’s ugly realities intrude, and the religion is of no use to those at the bottom of the pile who need to navigate the violence and repression inherent in the social hierarchy. The homogenisation project suffers because its managers are no embodiment of spiritual integrity or religious asceticism. Our ruling politicians are not trusted to define paap or punjya♐. By their own conduct, the political leaders devalue the presumed redemptive power of the holy dip. The Hindu in his splendid spiritual isolation is unwilling to cede the role of the guru or even a guide to the modern politician.
In keeping with the timelessness of Hindu civilisation, the modern Hindu vigorously reserves his right to write his own catechism of a good religious life, rather than allow saffronised political entrepreneurs to prescribe and proscribe rules of conduct. The modern Hindu, whether he takes a dip at the Mahakumbh or not, prefers to go along with Sahir Ludhianvi’s famous formulation in Chitralekha: ye paap hai kya, ye punya hai kya, reeto par dharm ki mohre hai.
(Views expressed are personal)
Harish Khare is a Delhi-based senior journalist and public commentator
(This appeared as 'The Dip Test' in print)
