Japan K Pathak, Gandhinagar: How foreigners portrayed the Maha Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj 144 years ago in 1881-1882? They portrayed it not at all through spiritual angle. Three news reports found from the year 1882 suggest westeners’ attempt of critically viewing the grand religious gathering.

A news report on Dr. Planck’s visit to the Kumbh Mela discusses sanitation issues pertaining to this event. Dr. Planck was secretary in North Western Provinces (NWP) government. NWP was an administrative region established by the British East India Company in 1836, encompassing a large area in northern India, including parts of present-day Uttar Pradesh and some adjoining regions. This news report mentions presence of three millions people in the Kumbh mela in year 1881. It’s worth to note that India’s estimated population that year was 225 million. Full text:

A Kumbh mela related portion of the news report from 9 October, 1982 stated -‘Dr. Planck describes his visit to the Kumbh Nagh Mela at Allahabad, which was attended by three millions of people. The difficulties of dealing with so vast a concourse for sanitary purposes, are plain enough ; and though the district authorities failed to cope, with complete success, with the overwhelming task before them, the outbreak of cholera, which resulted from the neglect of the simplest sanitary precautions, was shortlived though virulent while it lasted ; and was followed by no severe outbreaks of cholera in the places to which the scattered pilgrims returned. This was due, to a great extent, to the season of the year, which was unfavourable to outbreaks of cholera. Dr. Planck’s picturesque descriptions of the religious mendicants, of the extraordinary great “shaving business”, when the enclosure set apart for this religious ceremonial was knee deep with hair, the longer tresses being taken away by contractors for export, the great bathing day, and the terrible scenes with cholera-stricken patients, fully rival his former reports, which have made his name famous for this form of literary composition, and give a flavour to otherwise very dry reading. Dr. Planck has a further five years’ tour of office, and if he is unable, in nearly 20 years, to make no permanent mark on the insanitation of India, the task may almost be given up as hopeless.‘

Another news report published on 31st January 1882 reports Railways going full and thousands of people walking to Kumbh from all directions – such discription in this news report sounds same as the present day Kumbh. The news report was titled as ‘N. W. Provinces “The Kumbh Mela.” Full text of the article is presented below in full text:

The great religious gathering, which for the last fortnight has been held at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna, will now be gradually melting away. Yesterday was the last of the specially auspicious days for bathing in the sacred waters, and the vast assemblage of pilgrims will soon be dispersing to their homes.

It is unfortunately impossible to arrive at anything like an accurate calculation of the numbers who have this year visited the great fair. The only possible statistics are those furnished by the Railway Company, and though they point to a number far exceeding that of former years, it is certain that a large, if not the larger, number of the pilgrims arrive on foot. For a hundred miles round Allahabad in all directions, the roads are said to be more or less crowded with people going or returning to the sacred camp. The lowest estimates declare that the Kumbh has been visited from first to last by more than a million people and other estimates more than double this calculation. Thousands, too, have been left behind owing to the inability of the railway authorities to forward them to their destination, and at the present time the platforms of the smaller stations along the line are crowded with Hindus anxious to attend the Mela.

The explanation of this abnormal pressure is two-fold; first, the peculiar sanctity of the confluence of the Jumna and Ganges is this year enhanced by astronomical and solar considerations in a way which happens only once in twelve years ; secondly, there is an impression among many Hindus, though this indeed is by no means universal, that the present will be the last Kumbh at the junction of the two rivers. According to this theory the Ganges and Jumna are about to lose their pecular sanctity, which will in future be removed to the Nerbudda. Whether this belief be correct or not there can be no doubt that the pilgrims this year far exceed in number those at any previous gathering. – Pioneer.

But the most critical report was published in another newspaper on Monday, January 23, 1882 questioning the naked Sadhus! This and other news reports by Britishers in those years often described Hindu sadhus as Fakirs (the word used for Muslim fakirs).  While above two news reports mentioned the Mela as Kumbh Mela, this article below rightly calls it a Maha Kumbh Mela. The word Great is used to described this Kumbh Mela as Maha Kumbh Mela.Full text of this news report is presented below:

An Allahabad paper publishes an interesting account written by a native correspondent of some of the scenes to be witnessed at the Great Kumbh Mela in that city. Of the Khak-chowk he says: – ‘There are at least twenty thousand fakirs without any shelter save that of umbrellas, canopies of canvas, and in some cases of miniature tents, the majority passing the cold nights of December and January with no cover over their heads and scanty covering over their backs with a little fire to warm them. In my rambles through the lanes in the Khak-chowk I met a fakir standing on pointed iron nails stuck to a wooden board like the erect nails of the porcupine. There were nearly half a dozen of these men inflicting this kind of self-turture”.

Of the disgusting procession of fakirs, he says: – You know there are several sects of these fakirs, and a spirit of rivalry is rampant among them. The Nagas claim and receive precedence in the order of procession. When one party has finished their ablutions, then is another allowed to leave his encampment, and thus successively does the immense assembly of fakirs proceed to the riverside to perform their bathing ceremony. The naked Nagas, as I have said, went first. These Nagas are a curious people. Being richly endowed with lands and property, the gift of Rajas and wealthy Hindus, they can afford to make a gorgeous show. There were caparisoned elephants, camels and horses preceding the men. Buntings embroidered with gold, some of them priced at a thousand rupees and more, were being carried on elephants and camels. There was the usual accompaniment of the Indian tom-tom music. And after this array of splendour a thousand fakirs filed past, about a hundred and more being without a rag to cover their shame. From their triumphant bearing it would appear they had no shame in the naked display of their body before the immense concourse of spectators of both sexes. The sight was sickening enough, and it were well if Government put it down as it has done several other evil customs. To bathe naked is a practice against the Shaasters, and the fakirs have no religious authority for the adoption of this shameful and outrageous practice. After the Nagas, went the Vaishnavas, then the Udasis and the Nirmalas, the proceeding being in the case of each party the same, except that there were no naked men accompanying them.