NOT LEAVING IT TO CHANCE

A successful Mahakumbh is crucial to building Brand Uttar Pradesh and making the state a $1 trillion economy.

- ARCHIS MOHAN

"Chance-directed, chanceerected, laid and built on the silt" is how Rudyard Kipling described 17th century Kolkata. He could have just as well written these lines to paint a picture of the Mahakumbh Mela. The massive tent city, which comes up on the banks of the Sangam in Prayagraj every 12 years, will do so again a month from now.

Considered the world's largest congregation of religious pilgrims, the Mahakumbh has in the past been equally infamous for deaths of devotees in stampedes, general chaos that inspired 'lost and found' tropes of Hindi movies, and for outbreak of diseases because of poor sanitation.

For Uttar Pradesh's Yogi Adityanath government, which is moving heaven and earth to ensure that for 45 days, from January 13 to February 26, the Mahakumbh Mela passes off without untoward incidents, the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy. A Mahakumbh, with economic spinoffs for the state's women self-help groups and its symbolism of reaching out to the Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes (OBCS) will also be crucial for Adityanath's hopes of leading the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a third successive win in the 2027 UP Assembly polls.

According to the Uttar Pradesh government, an estimated 400 million devotees will visit Mahakumbh and the Adityanath government is busy organis ing roadshows abroad and in state capitals in India to showcase infrastructure development, such as the laying of the country's largest network of expressways, and its commitment to cultural renaissance, with the construction of the Kashi Vishwanath Dham corridor and the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The successful management of the Mahakumbh will also help Adityanath earn national and international recognition as an efficient administrator.