HistoriCity | Maha Kumbh: When Victorian morality collided with Naga Sadhu rituals

Beyond being the world’s largest gathering, the Maha Kumbh has historically been a site for contestation and dispute. Beyond its religiosity, in colonial times, the fair bore witness to numerous instances that, though now forgotten, helped shape its identity.

Naga Sadhus and Victorian morality

While the British banned nudity, it was not easy to enforce it within the arena of a religious festival like the Kumbh. Going around stark naked was a practice and indeed became a key status marker for important Akharas. This contestation of sadhus’ practice and British morality led to curious incidents that reveal how both sides resolved it. Sadhus, for instance, fought among themselves over the right to be naked, as recorded in 1861 and 1872, when the Nirmali akhara attempted to walk naked and was immediately stopped by rival akharas, leading the British to ban all akharas from practising nudity.

This was seen as interference in religion and the British, having learnt their lessons from the 1857 mutiny, devised another way to ensure peace was not disturbed at Kumbh melas.

Kama MacLean wrote in “Pilgrimage and Power: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad”, “sadhus enjoyed their reputation as turbulent and difficult and interpreted British attempts to control them in interesting ways. By the 1880s, the authorities in charge of the mela had found that the most effective way to conduct the processions was to post a European officer to lead each akhara to the waters of the sangam. For the akharas, it was a mark of their importance that a European dignified their procession, and in one incident, at the 1882 Kumbh when an Indian Tahsildar was deputed to lead a procession, the akhara's mahant took it as a slight to the status of his sect and refused to proceed unless he was furnished with a white officer. One was duly supplied.”

Failed attempt to monetise Hindu custom

In true capitalist spirit, businessmen too began looking at the mela as a business opportunity. “Messers Watson and Summers”, for instance, a business firm dealing in uniforms among other goods, hit upon an ingenious idea for the 19th century: they paid ₹200 to the mela fund and sought to collect the hair that pilgrims had ‘offered’ to the Ganga and sell them to wig-makers in London. This is now a widely lucrative business at several temples most notably at the Balaji temple in Tirupati. But back in 1874, this was an entirely new idea. Hindu organisations were able to successfully thwart this attempt by asserting that their religious custom could not be turned into a commercial enterprise.

1924 Kumbh: Why Nehru defied the Bathing Ban

In 1923, heavy rains led to the erosion of the Ganga bank at the sangam making it extremely dangerous for bathing. The British government, therefore, banned bathing at the Ardha Kumbh. This was duly opposed by Hindus who, led by Madan Mohan Malviya, requested the government to undertake urgent repairs and release a sum of ₹20,000 to ensure pilgrims could take the ritual bath. But government inefficiency meant that there was a considerable delay in the release of funds leaving no time to repair the bank, therefore the ban remained in place. Malviya was joined by Jawaharlal Nehru, who would go on to become the first Prime Minister of independent India, in challenging the ban. On the day before Sankranti, on January 13, 1924, Malviya telegrammed the officer in charge of the Kumbh that the ban was “illegal and improper and unjustly interferes with our liberty and performing our religious duties”.

The next day on Makar Sankranti when Nehru reached the Sangam it resembled a garrison town with heavy foot and mounted police deployed to prevent bathing. Malviya and his followers began a Satyagraha in protest, as the day progressed the crowd swelled forcing the district administration to negotiate. The administration suggested that the sadhus bathe first but this was rejected by Malviya on the ground that the British were trying to divide the Hindus.

Though Nehru, a devout atheist had stayed away from religious politics, he saw the occasion as an example of British high-handedness and the government’s unwillingness to accommodate the feelings of Hindu masses. MacLean wrote, “Nehru went to the sangam on the morning of the Kumbh, “with no intention of bathing,” and joined the Satyagraha. After some hours, as the tension grew, he began to suspect that the crowd would be charged. He climbed the barricade and was handed the national flag, Nehru recalled in his autobiography, “Faint memories of revolutionary barricades came to me. At last, I got down on the other side and, feeling very hot after my exertions, decided to have a dip in the Ganges.”

Seeing Nehru defying the ban, many other bathers followed his lead and took the holy dip. In the following days, the British had to accept that they had been mistaken in trying to enforce the ban and eventually took urgent steps to regulate the flow of water, strengthen the bank and ensure that the rest of the Kumbh went off peacefully by incorporating the views and suggestions of Hindu organisations.

HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal.