2025 Mahakumbh was an unforgettable experience

The number of pilgrims visiting the Mahakumbh at Prayagraj kept escalating each day. Before the greatest human congregation on the planet ended on Feb. 26, Mahashivaratri, the total number of pilgrims who ventured for the holy dip was reported to be close to 700 million. This meant that almost half the population of India had visited Prayagraj.

Even if this number is exaggerated, anyone who has been to the 2025 Mahakumbh knows that the crush of pilgrims. They thronged the roads, the ghats, the railway and bus stations, even the airports.

It took us over three hours from the airport to reach our tent city erected on the riverbed. The roads were jampacked; despite the police escort, it was impossible to move faster.

The arrangements were better than expected and, given the gargantuan challenge of handling so many, quite extraordinary. There were porta toilets aplenty and garbage disposal was swift. Metal plates riveted to the river sands created motorable roads throughout the pilgrim site. Each denomination and guru had their own tent, where they met devotees and followers. There were daily discourses and prayers.

I was invited to the Kumbh Global Summit on Sustainability organised by the India Foundation and the Uttar Pradesh government. Although there were many last-minute changes, including the compression of a two-day event into one day, the opportunity to come to the Mahakumbh Mela was not to be missed. Indeed, I felt that those of us who identify ourselves as spiritual had to make our presence felt. In a world riven by religious conflict and rivalry or dominated by materialists, globalists, capitalists, or warmongers, we also count. Together, we can make a difference.

Beneath the staggering statistics and the global attention that the event attracts lies a deeper, more profound truth: the real essence of the Mahakumbh is not its scale or spectacle, but in the quiet, unshakeable faith of the ordinary men and women who journey there against all odds. The underprivileged — those who brave unimaginable hardships — who embody the true spirit of this sacred gathering. Their sacrifices and devotion offer a humbling lesson to the bourgeoisie, whose demand for luxury amid a pilgrimage reveals a stark disconnect from its spiritual core.

For the common folk, the Mahakumbh is not a mere event; it is a calling rooted in centuries of tradition and belief. These pilgrims — farmers, labourers, small vendors, and homemakers — travel hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles on foot, by overcrowded trains, or in rickety buses.

They carry little more than the clothes on their backs and a meagre bundle of belongings, enduring harsh weather, scarce food, and the chaos of millions converging on the banks of the Ganga, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati.

Sanitation is rudimentary, shelter is often a patch of ground beneath the open sky, and yet their faces radiate a serenity that defies their circumstances. This is faith in its rawest form — not a performance for social media or a checkbox on a bucket list, but a deeply personal act of surrender to something greater than themselves.

For them, the Mahakumbh is an opportunity to cleanse their souls, seek blessings, and honour the divine, no matter the cost. They sleep on the streets, carry children on their backs, walk hundreds of kilometres, and brave incredible odds to arrive at the Mahakumbh. In the end, no one is disappointed. Everyone has had a chance to get the holy dip.

For the rich and privileged, the Mahakumbh can become yet another instance of spiritual tourism. It is another experience to garner and narrate at high-society gatherings. FOMO drives them — not the fear of missing spiritual enlightenment, but the anxiety of being left out of a cultural phenomenon.

They book tents priced at Rs50,000 a night, complete with air conditioning, gourmet meals, and private sanitation, transforming a pilgrimage into a sanitised vacation.

Misunderstanding of Mahakumbh’s purpose

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with comfort, this insistence on luxury at a site of austerity reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the Mahakumbh’s purpose.

Pilgrimage, by its nature, demands sacrifice, a shedding of worldly attachments to connect with the divine. The bourgeoisie, cocooned in their opulence, may physically be at the Kumbh, but they are spiritually distant from its heart.

The disparity between these two groups underscores a broader truth about human experience: privilege often blinds us to the resilience and depth of those less fortunate. The underprivileged pilgrims, who sleep on the cold ground and share what little they have, demonstrate a strength that the wealthy might never know. Their faith is not a convenience; it is a lifeline.

Whether or not real benefits accrue from taking the sacred dip, there is no doubt in my mind that the real benefit of the Mahakumbh is to bathe in the great faith in this ocean of pilgrims.