Mahakumbh has been an incredible experience for the nation and those who believe in Sanatan Dharma. By the time this mega event concludes on February 26, the number of devotees to Mahakumbh will be approximately 65 crores. That means almost half of India’s population would have been connected to Mahakumbh, directly those 65 crores who have visited Prayagraj and another 5 crores indirectly who would have been associated with managing the ecosystem. These 5-crore people would include the relatives of visitors, those associated with travel, habitat, food, security, administration and the host population of Prayagraj, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Lucknow and areas in vicinity.
There has been plenty of politics over two unfortunate incidents of stampede; one in Mela area on early morning of 29 January and the second stampede on 16 February at the New Delhi railway Station. Both the incidents are being touted by the opposition as example of poor management in the government. Though every death or injury is unfortunate, let us put things in perspective where more than 1 crore people have visited Mahakumbh every day. Some days, more than 7 crore people have visited Prayagraj in one day. Now imagine the density of such a huge mass of humanity, restricted to a maximum of 10 km by 10 km area. With such high density of population cramped in a restricted area, there is a possibility of stampede every day. It is to the credit of Mahakumbh administration that only one stampede happened in the Triveni Sangam area, over 45 days event.
Just to put things in perspective, India had approximately 493 road accident deaths per day in the year 2024 (180,000 road accident deaths in one year). In addition, there was injury to 4.63 lakh people in the road accidents in one year. Now the crowd and road density in all the road accidents would be far less as compared to Prayagraj and cannot be compared with Mahakumbh. Yet the flawless management of human traffic and vehicular movement ensured minimum accidents and deaths during Mahakumbh. But for highest standards of supervision, command and control, managing such dense crowds is virtually impossible. Therefore, the politics over stampede deaths related to Mahakumbh is not at all justified. It is very demoralising for lakhs of administrators, security personnel and supervisors to demean their tireless contribution to ensure successful visit of approximately 65 crore people to Mahakumbh.
The second contentious issue relates to amount of faecal coliform bacteria in Ganga water at Mahakumbh reported by the National Green Tribunal (NGT). Now NGT is a judicial body that handles environmental cases. With due regard, the report by the NGT appears to be a case of judicial overreach over the religious sentiment and devout faith of the millions of people. It is understandable that with such huge magnitude of devotees taking a dip in Triveni Sangam would affect the quality of Ganga water but that does not make any difference to the devotees. In addition, there is much evidence to suggest that Ganga water has self-cleansing property. In addition, the NGT report was contradicted by UP Pollution Control Board. This incident again proves that we need genuine experts in the statutory and administrative bodies. We also expect such bodies to exhibit more maturity to issues related to the faith and religious sentiment of more than 100 crore Sanatanis.
Apart from this, some irresponsible statements about the relevance of Mahakumbh, which were politically motivated were also heard. Mahakumbh is being praised and appreciated all over the world. I am sure that many institutions of management have studied the organisation of Mahakumbh as a research topic and data analytics. Thousands of youths of the country must have learnt a lot from this mega event. In fact, the Mahakumbh was hugely successful in linking the youth of the nation with faith and spirituality. I had the opportunity to meet many devotees in the last 45 days who were very satisfied with the management of the Mahakumbh. Therefore, it would be an exaggeration to say that the management was good only for the VIPs. The common person enjoyed the Mahakumbh equally and was overwhelmed by a wonderful experience.
While all the credit is due to the central government and UP government for the successful conduct of Mahakumbh, I am sure that they would have documented the lessons learnt. There is always scope for improvement and the government would build institutional memory to further enhance the spiritual experience of the devotees. But the dividends from this spectacular event cannot be measured so quickly. The mega event has once again highlighted the commitment, passion, dedication, supreme resolve and superlative supervision of Bharat to do the impossible. Many world records have been created in Mahakumbh but the biggest record lies in uniting and bonding the 100 crore Sanatanis and Indians. Let Mahakumbh be the harbinger of national unity and positioning Bharat as Vishv Guru. Jai Bharat!
