<body><div><figure><img src="http://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0VcFBi_0JxYWqPn00" alt="http://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0VcFBi_0JxYWqPn00" width="550" height="360" ></figure>Hundreds of foreigners came to witness or participate in the start of Kumbh Mela, a mass Hindu pilgrimage that sees devotees take ritual baths in a sacred river, in the northern Indian city of Prayagraj, on Jan. 15. — Dubbed the largest gathering of humanity on the planet, the Unesco-listed festival expects to see over 120 million Hindus and tourists visit the site where the Ganges and Yamuna converge in the coming weeks.Hindus believe that doing so will cleanse them of their sins and free them from the cycle of birth and death. — Themela (Hindi for fair) is held in Allahabad, recently renamed Prayagraj, every 12 years.Observers say that this year's event has received unusually strong state support and government funding as the pro-Hindu ruling party eyes the coming national elections. The festival kicked off this week with tens of thousands of Hindu ascetics, many naked and covered in ash, flooding the river to "cleanse" it for the millions of pilgrims expected to follow,The Guardian reports.Prayagraj is one of four locations where the festival is celebrated. According to legend, it was bestowed with healing powers after gods and demons fought over an urn containing the essence of immortality, causing precious drops to spill into the city and its rivers. — Pilgrims often wait days just to spend seconds bathing there, as they jostle for space with tens of thousands of other devotees."People come here to taste the nectar of immortality," Sarabhang Giri, an Australian who was ordained a sadhu, or Hindu saint, in 2004, was quoted as saying.But for the ruling pro Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is an opportunity to shore up nationalism and woo Hindu voters, pundits say. — "In many recent Kumbhs there's always been a political presence of some sort," said Kama Maclean, who teaches at the University of New South Wales."For most people who go it's a religious event. But from the 1930s people were going to the Kumbh Mela, bathing in the Ganga, and then going up [India's first prime minister] Jawaharlal Nehru's house and learning about nationalism."</div></body>

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Hundreds of foreigners came to witness or participate in the start of Kumbh Mela, a mass Hindu pilgrimage that sees devotees take ritual baths in a sacred river, in the northern Indian city of Prayagraj, on Jan. 15. — Dubbed the largest gathering of humanity on the planet, the Unesco-listed festival expects to see over 120 million Hindus and tourists visit the site where the Ganges and Yamuna converge in the coming weeks.

Hindu festival takes on political undertones in election year