The Kumbh Mela, which saw over 1,000 people test positive on Monday and Tuesday, was curtailed from the start this year due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Its usual duration of four months was cut down to a month and Covid-appropriate curbs were placed in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, where the Mela is unfolding. Authorities in the state had said they do not have enough manpower to ensure safety measures were being followed by all, which had become a cause to worry as the country sees a deadlier second wave.
However, this is not the first time Mela has been curtailed. Not by another pandemic, but other disasters.
"In the 1938 Haridwar Maha Kumbh, two disasters took place. A fire broke out at a slum along Ganga and there was a cholera outbreak at the mela premises. Both disasters led to huge loss of life and property. People fled the mela premises," Haridwar-based Acharya Vishnu Dutt Rakesh told The TImes of India.
Rakesh said that in 1944 Ardh Kumbh, the then British government banned the congregation, but the mela was still conducted.
Just like this Maha Kumbh, the 1939 Mela was held after 11 years instead of 12, which is considered inauspicious. But the scholar is quoted as saying in TOI that the inauspicious time has passed and the congregation will now "be blessed".