Sea of humanity floods Haridwar for Maha Kumbh (Second Lead)

HARIDWAR - An estimated five million people have thronged the Hindu holy city of Haridwar for a dip in the Ganga Thursday in a ritual bathing supposed to cleanse them of their sins and to herald the Maha Kumbh, a religious fair that occurs once in 12 years.

The ritual bathing begins sharp at the stroke of midnight at Brahma Kund, a large pond at Har Ki Pauri, a Shiva temple.

The Maha Kumbh, which ends April 28, has 11 bathing dates, beginning Thursday.

By the time the mega festival ends, officials say it would have drawn at least 60 million men, women and children from the length and breadth of India and abroad — a sharp climb from the nearly 10 million who came here during the last Maha Kumbh in 1998.

The tents that house most of the sadhus and other devotees are already spilling well beyond Haridwar, one of the most important spots where Hindus worship the Ganga, the river they hold sacred.

The most important bathing dates, according to Rajesh Kumar, a fair official, are Jan 14 (Makar Sankranti), Feb 12 (Mahashivratri), March 15 (Somvati Amavasya) and April 14 (Mesh Sankranti and Baisakhi).

The bathing hours will last throughout the day. The ritual is believed to cleanse the bathers of sins and rid the world of misfortune.

Ash-smeared Naga sadhus - the stark naked devotees of Lord Shiva - will lead the procession to the main bathing spot Thursday, decked in wreaths of marigolds. They carry staves, tridents, swords and saffron flags.

For many sadhus who have renounced the world and live in the mountains, the Kumbh Mela is one of the few occasions when they meet lay people. The mela started centuries ago as a theological discussion among various Hindu sects.

The Maha Kumbh has a sharp message this year - protection of the environment.

This year the Naga sadhus are campaigning for the environment. At a recent press conference in Kolkata, the head of a Naga sect, Soham Baba, lamented that the pristine lakes and water bodies in the Himalayas and across the world are disappearing.

“Sadhus who go up the higher reaches of the Himalayas to meditate know how bad the situation is,” Soham Baba said. “The Kumbh Mela will be an ideal place to protest,” he added.

The pollution of the Ganga will be a major issue at the fair this year. Almost all spiritual sects and the administration have pledged to protect the river.

The Uttarakhand administration has divided the Kumbh Mela region encompassing Haridwar, Rishikesh and Dehradun into 31 health sectors, each equipped with a hospital to prevent any outbreak of swine flu or other commmunicable diseases.

The Haridwar administration has cordoned off the area around Har Ki Pauri so that it is free of lay visitors. At least 200 securitymen, including the Rapid Action Force, have been deployed to guard the area.

Traffic in Haridwar will be regulated Thursday and the public transport will ply on the highway. The rest of the temple town - including the bathing ghats - will be free of traffic.

Addressing the press, a spokesperson of the Uttarakhand government said the state did not apprehend any threat to security.

“Setting up the Kumbh Mela is like erecting a city within a city,” Alok Sharma, one of the senior Uttarakhand officials overseeing the arrangements in a 130-sq km area, told IANS.

The government of Uttarakhand has divided the fair area into 10 zones and 32 sectors. Thirty-four police stations and 42 makeshift posts have been set up on the premises of the fair and 36 temporary fire stations are ready to control blazes.

A central control room with modern communications systems has begun monitoring crowd movement and a state-of-the-art info-tech facility is helping the media make its dispatches.

The Kumbh Mela is celebrated every three years in four locations across India - Allahabad, Nashik, Haridwar and Ujjain. In each location, it is Maha Kumbh every 12 years.

The last Maha Kumbh in Haridwar was held in 1998. It was attended by an estimated 10 million devotees. According to the tourism ministry, 60 million people attended the Maha Kumbh in Allahabad in 2001.

The Kumbh Mela dates back to the Vedic age, when yogis started celebrating river festivals to pay homage to the land in which they lived.

Hindu mythology says four drops of amrit (nectar) fell from the kumbh (pot) at the four places when Lord Vishnu’s vahan (carrier) Garuda was escaping with it to the heavens so that the demons could not get hold of the nectar. The four places where the drops fell are Allahabad, Nashik, Haridwar and Ujjain where the Kumbh Mela — literally the “pot fair” — is held.