91Èȱ¬

Good morning.

The Maha Kumbh Mela has started in India. Over the next 6 weeks, the largest ever gathering of humanity is expected to see over 400 million people bathing where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet as part of this Hindu festival. This spectacular celebration, taking place every 12 years, shows just how important a role faith plays in the public sphere when it comes to the subcontinent.

I witnessed some of this myself whilst travelling across India with my husband over the last few weeks. On New Year’s Day, we found ourselves at Patna Sahib, a city on the banks of the Ganges. It’s where Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the 10th Sikh Guru, was born, and his birth anniversary was celebrated last week. Whilst we were there, I noticed that almost everyone who was paying their respects on the first day of the new year were not Sikh. They were locals from other faiths coming to this important religious site to seek blessings for 2025, and enjoy the rituals and spectacle of this holy space.

I was fascinated by this. I last visited Patna in 2010, and at that time, the Guru’s birthplace was hidden behind narrow roads with very few visitors. 15 years later, and it appears to have become a major place of pilgrimage and celebration for people of all backgrounds, regardless of their own faith.

Many visitors had to be told by Sikh volunteers about the etiquette of being at a gurdwara, such as covering their heads, but the general atmosphere was one of respect and awe. They may not have been Sikh themselves, but they understood the reverence with which the place of worship is held, and they wanted to take part in the experience.

This wasn’t a unique incident. At almost every gurdwara we visited across India during our travels, we saw non-Sikhs paying their respects and learning about the faith through direct interactions.

On the first day of our travels, the state funeral procession of Manmohan Singh, the first Sikh Prime Minister of India, commenced just a stone’s throw from where we were staying in Delhi. The live TV coverage showing Sikh prayers being uttered before the funeral pyre was lit was deeply moving, as was watching how non-Sikhs interacted with Sikh customs. One person by the pyre who didn’t have a head covering during the prayers placed his hand over his head to improvise instead, still showing his respect to the beliefs.

So as hundreds of millions gather at the Maha Kumbh Mela, I can’t help but think how many non-Hindus will be taking part in the festivities. I believe that if we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to celebrate with people who are different to ourselves and whose beliefs we don’t necessarily share, we will never truly understand what it means to belong to the oneness of human experience.

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