DNA Edit – Kumbh as showcase: The government plans to globalise India’s largest fair

The world’s largest congregation of religious pilgrims, inscribed on the UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, has just been accorded another profile. The Union government’s decision on the weekend to take 70 New Delhi-based foreign missions to witness preparations for the Allahabad (or Prayag) Kumbh mela, is an attempt to showcase the mega meeting as a high point of Asian culture, which is what the mela was in the medieval era. The Prayag Kumbh of 2019, expected to attract 12 crore visitors, including 10 lakh foreign visitors, will be showcased like never before. The step needs to be welcomed. There is no reason why India should not display its heritage, just as many countries in the world do. The special flight that carried the envoys to Allahabad has turned out to be a grand exercise in public relations, as the reaction of the Dean of Diplomatic Corps, suggests.

By all accounts, the visitors had the time of their lives getting a peek into subterranean Indian culture, of which Kumbh remains a magnificent exposition, a point confirmed by the diplomats as well. The Modi government has plans to make this congregation memorable. Public welfare schemes will be launched personally by the Prime Minister and the Rs 4,200 crore needed to host the fair, will be shared equally between the central and state governments. There are elaborate plans to ferry people to the site of the pilgrimage, Triveni Sangam. The Inland Waterways Authority of India has set up four floating terminals and small ships will be deployed for the movement of pilgrims, in addition to other means of transport. That Allahabad or Prayagraj is gearing up for the big show, is an understatement. The UP government has banned all marriages in the Allahabad area between January and March, 2019, when the fair will be in full swing. The infamous chemical-belching tanneries of Kanpur have been asked to close shop for the period, so as to keep the water clean for devotees. With such preparations underway, buffeted with the arrival of foreign diplomats, maybe the time has come to take Kumbh back to the times of the yore. 

Accounts of foreign visitors who went to the Kumbh fairs in ancient and medieval India, makes for fascinating reading. Until the arrival of the East India Company, Kumbh fairs were managed by ascetic akharas of various denominations. The saints were not just heavily armed, but were involved in trade as well. According to a 1858 account of the Kumbh fair by British civil servant, Robert Montgomery Martin, visitors at the fair included people from a number of races and religions. Besides religious mendicants, priests and soldiers, the fair was attended by horse traders from Bukhara, Kabul, Turkistan, Arabia and Persia. In addition to Hindu Rajas, Sikh rulers, Muslim nawabs and Christian missionaries were regular visitors, marking out the cosmopolitan character of such meetings, much before the word came into being vogue. To restore it to its pristine glory, is indeed, an exciting prospect.C