Hindu devotees take selfies against the huge poster of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the spiritual-cleansing Kumbh Festival in Allahabad.—AP
Dr Surendra Jain, the international secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Organisation, a Hindu nationalist group allied with the BJP, downplayed the religious orientation of the Kumbh.
“The Kumbh is a pot which is able to contain many things, so our concept of Kumbh is all-inclusive,” he said, adding that “when Hinduism is promoted, obviously humanity is promoted. The values which we call the ideals of India are the values of Hinduism.”
To be sure, it's not the first time Indian politicians have capitalised on the Kumbh to invoke their relationship to the country's Hindu ethos. For years, the central government has given the sadhus a boost.
In 1954, the Congress Party-led government of Indira Gandhi had injected the Mela with nationalist objectives, timing Republic Day celebrations to take place during the Kumbh and setting up booths on family planning and public health, according to Australian academic Kama Maclean, author of the 2008 book “Pilgrimage and Power.”
When Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, the former prime minister's daughter-in-law, entered Indian politics in 2001, newspapers featured photographs of her in a sari wading into the Ganges during the Kumbh, symbolic of her adopted Hindu heritage and the washing away of her foreignness, said political commentator Arati Jerath.
“Obviously the BJP will use this to drum up Hindu support. Congress is trying to move into that space as well, but [the Kumbh] can't be an election issue because this election is going to be fought on economic grounds,” she said, adding that Indian voters “can tell the difference between a festival and their own economic reality.”
Rahul Gandhi, the Congress Party leader and Sonia Gandhi's son, has been visiting Hindu temples across India in the run-up to the vote, and is planning to take a dip at the Kumbh, party officials have said.
But for some Kumbh pilgrims, Hinduism belongs at the forefront of Indian elections.
“This is a very important fight,” said Reva Goyal, a 49-year-old homemaker from New Delhi. “And in this, politics and religion are mixed. I feel the BJP government has done a lot for us, and should come back into power.”
Narendra Giri, the head sadhu at the Kumbh, said the government's arrangements and facilities for the religious festival would “obviously affect the election,” and that while previous governments had also adhered to the “guest is a god policy,” the BJP's performance this year had outdone them all.