- Thursday, February 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
NEARLY a million Hindu worshippers are likely to assemble on the banks of River Ganges on Friday (14) and Saturday (15) for a holy bathe even as Covid infections rise across India, an official told Reuters on Tuesday (11).
India reported 168,063 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, a rise by 20 times in a month.
However, most of those infected by the new Omicron variant of the virus have recovered at home and the level of hospitalisations has been half of that witnessed during the devastating second wave recorded in April and May last year.
A number of states have yet called for restrictions, including night and weekend curfews. National capital Delhi has also shut private offices and restaurants and bars to contain the fast-spreading variant.
A debate has been underway over allowing thousands of people to assemble for the annual Ganges festival or Gangasagar Mela on an island in the eastern state of West Bengal, which has reported a high number of cases.
“The crowd may swell to anywhere between 800,000 to one million. We are trying to implement all COVID protocols,” Bankim Chandra Hazra, a state minister in charge of organising the festival, told Reuters.
“We have also arranged for sprinkling of the holy water from drones so that there is no crowding … but the sadhus (Hindu holy men) are bent on taking the dip. We can’t prevent them,” he said.
Last year, a similar big Hindu religious festival (Kumbh Mela) in the northern state of Uttarakhand aided the spread of the Delta variant which infected millions and killed several thousands.
The Gangasagar Mela issue has reached the courts and the Calcutta High Court in Bengal ruled on Tuesday that all pilgrims arriving at the festival should be tested for Covid-19. The court’s ruling came in response to a plea from doctors who expressed concern that the festival could become a virus “super spreader” event.
The doctors had also appealed to the court to not allow the festival this year.
Bharamar Mukherjee, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, told Reuters that the festival could prove to be “disastrous”.
The pilgrims visit Gangasagar village to take a holy dip at the confluence of the Ganges river and the Bay of Bengal on January 14 every year on the occasion of Makar Sankranti. They firmly believe that by doing so, they wash away their sins and those of their ancestors.
