Devotion and Dispossession: Caste, Labour, and the Mahakumbh Mela 2025

Abstract

The Mahakumbh Mela 2025, a grand religious gathering, underscores the intersection of devotion, caste, and labour. While the festival generates massive economic benefits, it also exposes stark social inequalities, particularly in the roles assigned to marginalised communities. Sanitation workers, primarily Dalits, bear the burden of maintaining the event's 'purity' yet remain socially 'impure.' Despite political gestures of inclusion, caste hierarchies persist, limiting Dalit participation to menial labour. This article critically examines the paradox of purification, where millions seek spiritual cleansing in the sacred waters of the Sangam. However, caste-based discrimination and exclusion remain deeply entrenched in the ritualistic framework.

The Mahakumbh Mela 2025, held in Prayagraj, was a monumental religious event deeply rooted in Hindu astrological traditions and the narrative of Samudra Manthan. Occurring at the sacred Triveni Sangam—where the Ganga, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati rivers converge—the Mela attracted a staggering 650 million pilgrims over 45 days, surpassing initial estimates of 400 million (Dhar, 2025; Li, 2025). The event, determined by specific planetary alignments, is categorised into Maha Kumbh (144 years), Purna Kumbh (12 years), Ardh Kumbh (6 years), and the annual Magh Mela (Deshvidesh, 2025).

Economic Expenditure and Impact

With a record-breaking economic footprint, the Uttar Pradesh government allocated $2 billion for infrastructure, security, and religious tourism (Financial Express, 2025). The Kumbh has historically generated enormous revenues—?12,000 crore in 2013, ?1.2 lakh crore in 2019, and an estimated ?2 lakh crore in 2025 on an expenditure of ?5,000 crore (Taparia, 2025; Kotak Securities Team, 2025; Hindustan Times, 2025). This influx stimulated employment in tourism, transport, hospitality, and retail.

The event transformed Prayagraj into a 'pop-up megacity' spanning 4,000 hectares (Behal, 2025), with 1,60,000 tents, 1,50,000 toilets, 40 km of roads, and security monitored by 50,000 personnel and 2,700 cameras (Iyer, 2025). Connectivity enhancements included 3,000 special trains, 13,100 train services, 132 flights, 14 new flyovers, and 7,000 buses.
While the economic benefits are evident, concerns over environmental degradation, pollution, and overcrowding persist (Wagh & Kohli, 2024; Kanaujiya & Tiwari, 2023). Large-scale waste management challenges and deadly stampedes have repeatedly raised safety concerns (The Hindu, 2025). These issues underscore the urgent need for sustainable planning to balance faith, economy, and ecological well-being.

Informal Economy and the Woes of Sanitation Workers

While Mahakumbh Mela’s massive budget and infrastructure projects highlight India’s economic prowess and provide a massive boom to hotels, transport services, and local businesses (Dhingra, Agarwal, & Kazi, 2025), thousands of temporary jobs were also created. However, its execution remains deeply entangled in historical social structures. The festival's smooth functioning depends on labour overwhelmingly drawn from marginalised caste groups—particularly sanitation workers, who bear the burden of maintaining the ‘purity’ of the event. This raises an essential question: If purity is being ritually restored at the Sangam, why do those who enable this purification remain ‘impure’ in social perception? The event’s sanitation workforce—primarily Dalits—was responsible for maintaining cleanliness, with 15,000 workers managing 1.5 lakh toilets, amounting to a staggering ratio of 43,333 pilgrims per worker (Dayal, Rajesh, & Fernandez, 2025).

Though government gestures, like PM Modi’s 2019 foot-washing of sanitation workers, aimed at inclusion, many workers report continued discrimination, low wages, and poor living conditions (Srivastava, 2025). Pyare Lal, a Valmiki worker, notes their exclusion from religious spaces and inadequate amenities in worker camps. Similar narratives unfold in the informal economy, where Dalits build roads, set up tents, and work as vendors while upper-caste groups dominate high-profit enterprises. The Akhara Parishad’s ban on Muslim businesses further restricts economic participation (Mukherjee, 2024; Manav, 2025).

Accounts from the field shed light on the poor conditions the sanitation workers have to work in. Suresh Valmiki, labouring alongside his 17-year-old son, Vikas Valmiki, lamented the Sisyphean nature of their efforts: "I clean and clean, but people make a mess of it in barely 10 minutes. " His wife Geeta, echoing his statement, highlights the pervasive disdain they encountered: "People say it's our job to clean, so why should others bother?"

Sushil Manav hoped to run into a Dalit Mahamandaleshwar (high-ranking Hindu seer), which was a highly publicised plan to grant the title to 370 Dalits in 2024; unsurprisingly, he finds that Dalit participation, 'Sanatan Pride,’ was mostly limited to sweeping, toilet cleaning and garbage removal. Manav notes how he would receive absolute avoidance when inquiring about Dalits or their status being raised to Mahamandaleshwar, to different factions of saints, akharas. In the earlier Kumbh, he recalls how there used to be an open ground where members of the Akhadas defecated, and the caste associated with manual scavenging; the Mehtars used to clean up the area. The vivid account by Manav describes how caste plays in these massive religious gatherings as forms of a temporary form of informal employment, which does satiate their hunger for a few days but does not provide permanent relief.

The sanitation workers mainly hail from 28 districts of Uttar Pradesh and from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Uttarakhand, for which they make only Rs. 410 per day, providing them with just over Rs. 18,000 for the entirely of the Kumbh. The Dalits are also building and repairing the roads at the Mahakumbh, with people from the Kol community hired for Rs. 500 per day, making Madha or huts for the babas. The beggars that line the roads up to the bathing ghats are from the Musahar community; small girls from the Nat community perform stunts with their parents all day to earn around Rs. 500/day. While Dalits and lower-caste communities are engaged in informal ways of earning, such as hawker stands of groundnuts, grams, toys, and tea, banjaras from Madhya Pradesh sell rudraksh malas, the big businesses, and formalised jobs are operated by upper castes and wealthy people. Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad (ABAP) bans Muslims from operating businesses and has allowed only Sikh, Buddhist, or Jain shopkeepers to do so (Mukherjee, 2024). The government unofficially banned the entry of Muslims and other non-Hindus into the Melas, and the source of income for a few Muslim communities selling altas or asafetida, as Manav notes, is snatched away from them. (Manav, 2025) This move hurts the nation's social unity and goes against the constitution's values by creating animosity and negative feelings among the citizens.
New Dalit religious groups, like the Valmiki Sadhu Sant Parishad, demand equal recognition in Sanatan Dharma, including participation in the Shahi Snan, but remain sidelined by the Akhara system (Mani, 2024). Meanwhile, sanitation workers, burdened with clearing 17,440 metric tons of waste over 45 days, continue to struggle for dignity and fair treatment long after the devotees leave.

The Paradox of Purification

The Mahakumbh Mela, centred on the ritual bath in the Triveni Sangam, embodies the Hindu belief in purity and pollution. While the sacred dip is seen as a universal act of spiritual renewal, dissolving caste distinctions momentarily, this illusion of equality is short-lived. The caste hierarchy remains intact beyond the waters. Ambedkarite critics argue that such religious events perpetuate caste-based oppression, Brahmanical supremacy, and cultural homogenisation, reinforcing rather than dismantling social inequities (Ambedkar, 1948). They challenge state patronage of the Mela, contending that it aligns with Brahmanical Hinduism instead of fostering social democracy (Dalit Times, 2025).

“Hence, The Kumbh Mela, despite its claims of universality, remains a contested space where social realities undermine the promise of spiritual equality."

Louis Dumont’s framework of purity and pollution (Dumont, 1980) reveals how caste functions at the Kumbh Mela: Brahmins, as custodians of purity, remain at the top, while Dalits, essential to maintaining cleanliness, are relegated as “polluted.” For upper castes, the dip affirms spiritual merit without challenging their status. For Dalits, it offers a fleeting moment of symbolic equality, only for caste stigma to resurface upon emerging from the water. Vaibhav Kharat critiques this as “ritualistic hypocrisy,” drawing on Freud’s theory of repression (Madison, 1961) and Mary Douglas’ concept of purity as a social construct (Douglas, 1966) to show how caste Hindus seek personal purification while sustaining oppressive hierarchies (Kharat, 2025).

M.N. Srinivas’ concept of Sanskritization (Srinivas, 1966) further explains how lower castes attempt social mobility through ritual purity, yet sanitation workers—mostly Dalits—remain trapped in a paradox. Their labour is indispensable for maintaining the event’s cleanliness, yet their caste status deems them impure.

The contradiction is glaring-if the Ganges can purify all, why does caste impurity persist? Why does a sanitation worker who spends days cleaning the waste of millions remain polluted in the eyes of society, even after immersing in the same waters that absolve a Brahmin’s sins? This reinforces the fundamental truth that caste impurity is not just ritualistic but social—it is not washed away by holy water but reinforced through social structures and everyday interactions.

The Mahakumbh Mela is not just a religious gathering but a microcosm of India's caste order. The pursuit of purity is upheld by those deemed impure, reinforcing structural exclusion. The dip in the Sangam symbolises spiritual liberation but does not lead to social emancipation for Dalits and informal workers. Rather than viewing these inequalities as administrative lapses, they must be recognised as systemic failures. If the Mahakumbh truly seeks spiritual transcendence, it must redefine purity—not by exclusion, but through justice and dignity.

This contradiction speaks to a larger reality of caste and devotion in India. The ritual dip in the Sangam symbolises spiritual liberation, yet it does not translate into social emancipation for Dalits and informal workers. The Mahakumbh exposes how purity is an exclusionary construct that reinforces caste hierarchies even in moments of collective transcendence.
Rather than reducing these inequalities to mere administrative inefficiencies, it is crucial to recognise them as systemic failures. Suppose the Mahakumbh is to embody the spiritual ideals it proclaims genuinely. In that case, it must become a space of inclusion—one that acknowledges, values, and protects the dignity of those who sustain it. Beyond policy interventions, what is required is a reimagining of social ethics, where devotion does not come at the cost of dignity, and purity is not defined by exclusion but by justice.

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