When faith turned to power

Once a quiet riverside ritual, Dev Deepawali has evolved into UP’s largest soft-power spectacle — merging faith, art, and enterprise into a global cultural brand that reflects the state’s growing confidence

- AYUSHI SINGH

On the night of Kartik Purnima, Kashi becomes an ocean of light. From Assi to Rajghat, the ghats shimmer with millions of diyas, their flames mirrored on the slow, dark waters of the Ganges.

Classical ragas echo off temple walls, drones trace divine patterns in the sky, and the scent of ghee and marigold thickens the air.

It's said the sacred full moon on the night of Dev Deepawali marks the end of the Hindu month of Kartik, when the gods are believed to descend to bathe in the Ganges, and now the world comes to watch them do it.

Each year, the spectacle grows larger. What began as a small ritual, held 15 days after Diwali, has now become Uttar Pradesh’s grandest soft-power showcase — a convergence of faith, art, and enterprise into a global cultural brand that reflects the state’s growing confidence.

The modern chapter of Dev Deepawali began in 1984, when five teenagers, led by Vagish Dutt Mishra, revived the festival at Panchganga Ghat with two cans of donated oil.

Over the years, their effort spread from one ghat to another until the entire crescent of Kashi’s riverfront glowed with lamps. By the late 1990s, it had turned into a citywide movement. The scale changed when the government stepped in. In 2024, the Yogi Adityanath administration declared it a Prantiya Mela (a provincial fair) formally recognising it as a state-backed cultural event.