Even as much has been said about the grand event of the Maha Kumbh festival, one rather telling thing remains to be observed.
It has been the defining ideological pitch of the Hindutva players over the last many months that Hindus must learn to obliterate all forms of division among themselves in order to be safe and invulnerable.
There has also been little ambiguity as to who it is from whom danger ostensibly to Hindu supremacy emanates.
Thus, the frustrating faultlines of caste, region, dialect, gender, political turf wars etc. have come in for disparagement from both the grand icons of Hindutva, namely, the prime minister and the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh which hosts the Maha Kumbh festival.
As the fatal stampedes happened, widespread public comment came to the fore, bemoaning the bottlenecks caused by the exclusive arrangements made for the VIPs and VVIPS.
Some media outlets were bold enough to come forward with criticism to this effect.
We may recall that a similar differentiation between ordinary pilgrims and VIPs had been in evidence at the time of the inauguration of the new Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
Also read: Is 2025 Maha Kumbh Really a ‘Rare’ Event Held After 144 Years?
We do not know how many died in the Kumbh stampedes at Prayagraj.
You see, the magical new digital tool of AI seems to count only the living and not the dead.
This discovery by itself may, of course, have furnished an important research input to the whiz kids who invented AI, so that we may in future expect that the dead may also come to be counted by this god-like technology.
Had AI been equipped to count the dead, why surely the in-your-face chief executive of Uttar Pradesh would not have shied away from sharing the extent of the carnage with fellow Hindus across the realm.
At any rate, Hindutva being philosophical in the extreme, when push comes to shove, it was left to a noted seer, Shri Dhirendra Shastri to instruct the flock how those that died attending the Maha Kumb attained Moksha or salvation.
Why more of the living who after all were attending the Kumbh precisely to secure salvation did not think of this option remains a matter of deep spiritual cogitation.
But here is the point: in seeking the unity of all Hindus against the ever-menacing threat from the Saracen, cancelling all fault lines, the one faultline that remained unaddressed was that of class.
Clearly, where caste, region, dialect, gender, political interest are all to be set aside if Hindu supremacy is to be ensured, there seems no call on the great mass of Hindutva followers to also unite across classes.
That the powers-that-be don’t think this desirable or an opposite part of the call to unity was clear from the poshly discreet arrangements that were made for privileged and important Hindus to take their salvational dip pronto, without hassles from the mass of less endowed devotees.
One might also speculate whether the great seer cited above would have said what he said of those that died should the dead ones have come from among the important and very important Hindus.
Nor might it have been possible for the Hindutva government to plead inability to either count or be accountable for those that died seemingly in droves.
So you see, come to think of it, even as faith continues to be pressed into service to camouflage the cruel realities of economic divisions, the organisation of the grand festival at Prayagraj has once again proved the truth of the leftist maxim: you may obliterate as many fault lines as you wish but even the history of Hindutva consolidation remains slave to the overriding divisions between those that have and those that do not, however they may all be very devoted followers of Hindutva.
How consequential this truth may be made in the future of the republic is of course quite another matter.
Badri Raina taught at DU.
