DELHI, India (RNS) — For more than three decades, Mohammed Mehmood, a Muslim, had been hired by Hindu holy men to light their tents during celebrations of Kumbh Mela, a festival that every 12 years draws hundreds of thousands of devotees to the city of Prayagraj in northern India for what’s billed as the world’s largest single gathering of humanity.
An electrician from the town of Muzaffarnagar, Mehmood traveled in festival years 500 miles to Prayagraj to drape the tents of the ascetics belonging to the Juna sect of holy men, the largest ascetic group in Hinduism. His work done, Mehmood would stand by the tents of the saffron-robed, matted-haired sadhus, who, his son recalled recently, gave him “respect.”
“The sadhus allowed my father to sit by their padded mattresses as they blessed devotees and gave him space to perform namaaz,” said Mashkoor Ahmed, referring to Muslim prayers.
Despite his father’s death five years ago, Mashkoor Ahmed, who is also an electrician, had expected that the Juna sadhus would continue to hire him and his nephew, who have carried on the business. But with the festival approaching in mid-January, the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, the governing body of 13 Hindu monastic orders, has announced its decision not to allow “non-Sanatani people” — those who are not part of orthodox Hinduism — from entering or putting up stalls at the festival.
The decision comes after videos depicting people — said to be Muslim — polluting the sacred food of Hindus by mixing in urine and spit. “Our age-old religious practices are being corrupted by outside elements,” said Ravinder Puri, the chairman of the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad. “Hindus have finally woken up, and we want to make sure our monastics are not disrespected.”
Puri said the Hindu monks will hold a meeting in Prayagraj in late January to discuss “rising attacks on Hindu temples and ashrams across India.” He believes the event will spark more conversations on how to safeguard their centuries-old practices.
Thousands of Hindu devotees take dips at Sangam, the confluence of three sacred rivers — the Yamuna, the Ganges and the mythical Saraswati — on Mauni Amavsya, the most auspicious day during the Kumbh Mela, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh state, India, on Feb. 4, 2019. The event, which UNESCO added to its list of intangible human heritage in 2017, is the largest congregation of pilgrims on earth. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
Kumbh Mela, celebrated for more than a millennium, rotates among four locations —Prayagraj, Ujjain, Nashik and Haridwar — in a 12-year cycle guided by ancient astronomical observations. The Maha Kumbh Mela, which takes place every 12 years in Prayagraj, is considered the most significant occurrence and is projected to draw about 400 million pilgrims from Jan. 13 to Feb. 26 to a major tent city.
According to Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu released drops of an immortality nectar from a pitcher in the four places. Devotees will flock to Prayagraj to bathe at the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Sarasvati, in the belief that doing so will lead them to moksha, or liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
“This is a big year for us,” said Prabhunand Giri Maharaj, a leader of a Juna order. “Members of the Buddhist, Sikh and Jain communities can set up stalls here, but we won’t allow cow fat to taint our festival,” alluding to the practice of slaughtering cows, which is not permitted by the majority of Hindus.
For centuries, Kumbh has been attended by pilgrims across religious, caste and gender lines. While warrior ascetics from different sects and Naga sadhus with their ash-smeared naked bodies have long pitched their tents at the pilgrimage centers, Muslim Nawabs, managers, shopkeepers and visitors have been regular attendees.
“These pilgrimages are meetings grounds for people of all faiths,” said Shujaat Ali Quadri, the chairman of the Muslim Students’ Organization in Delhi. “But religious hard-liners, both Muslim and Hindu, are trying to destroy India’s composite culture.”
Kumbh Mela pilgrims watch chariot processions of saffron-robed Hindu ascetics at the festival in Prayagraj, India, in Feb. 2019. (Photo by Priyadarshini Sen)
This year, the Hindu monks’ organization is working hard to rally the support of religious and political leaders to impose a ban on the entry of Muslims. The monks plan to later approach the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and propose changing the names of age-old rituals that could be linked to Islamic culture, which they claim are “symbols of slavery.”
Crackdowns on Muslim traders at the festival follow close on the heels of a July order by state authorities in Uttar Pradesh, which includes Prayagraj, directing eateries along the route of the annual Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage of devotees of Lord Shiva to label their shops with the names of owners, which serve to identify their faith backgrounds.
When opposition leaders and civil society activists protested that the motive was to discriminate against Muslims and petitioned the Supreme Court, the court said the eateries have to at least display the names of foods being served.
The Hindu ascetics are confident that the Indian government, dominated by the Hindu nationalist BJP party, will back their decisions. In October, the Uttar Pradesh government, led by the firebrand Hindu nationalist leader Yogi Adityanath, announced a ban on the sale of meat and liquor at the Kumbh festival “in consideration of the sentiments of the entire Sanatan community.”
“Kumbh will set an example to the rest of the world,” said Manav Mahajan, a BJP politician from Aligarh. “Muslim rituals, behaviors, prayers and dress codes will not be tolerated at the festival because the site is sacred to Hindus all over the world.”
Devotees take holy dips in the Ganges River during Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival, one of the most sacred pilgrimages in Hinduism, in Haridwar, northern state of Uttarakhand, India, April 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Karma Sonam)
Mahajan said that just as non-Muslims can’t perform Hajj — the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca — those not respectful of Sanatan Dharma shouldn’t be allowed at Kumbh.
While Hindu nationalist politicians and religious leaders believe marginalizing Muslims will protect the festival, others say it will deepen rifts between followers of the two faiths. “We see thousands of Hindus, even shopkeepers, at Sufi (Muslim) shrines during festivals like Urs,” said Maulana Mufti Shahabuddin Razvi Barelvi, the president of the All India Muslim Jamaat. “Religious pilgrimages should send out the message of peace and unity, not hate.”
Maulana Sufi Hussain Quadri, an Islamic scholar in Bareilly, agreed. “Politicians and religious leaders are playing identity politics over a religious festival,” said Quadri, who added that the exclusion of Muslim vendors is designed to distract from a campaign to clean up India’s sacred rivers. “By alienating some people, they are not only fueling communal tensions but also taking the attention away from more serious issues like water pollution.”
Mashkoor Ahmed, who fears that his father’s death has ended the family’s ties to the Hindu ascetics at the festival, mourned the changes as a sign of growing antipathy across Indian society. “My father never felt like an outsider because the monastics always saw him as a beacon of light, a symbol of Hindu-Muslim harmony.”
source : religionnews service