India’s vast Kumbh Mela Hindu festival is set to wrap up with final ritual river bathing ceremonies ending six weeks of celebration that organisers say have been attended by hundreds of millions of devotees.
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Despite two deadly stampedes that killed dozens, the festival in the northern city of Prayagraj has been hailed as a triumph by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, bolstering its carefully cultivated image as a steward of Hindu resurgence and prosperity.
The Kumbh Mela, held every 12 years is rooted in Hindu mythology, a battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.
Both Modi and his ally, firebrand Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh where the festival is being held say the millennia-old Mela has been the “grandest” yet.
Source: AFP
