The Hindu Pilgrims of the Kumbh Mela – Part One

Pilgrim bathes in the cold water of the “sacred” river.

My trip to Hardiwar was in 2010 but I wanted to share my impressions with my STORIES FROM ASIA readers….

We started in the cold darkness to take a taxi from Dehra Dun in the northern state Uttarakhand to Haridwar, 35 miles away. The taxi delivered us to a staging area 5 miles from the actual bathing area. I never thought I’d be so cold in India. We took a man-powered rickshaw for the first segment. I could see the puffs of his labored breaths as he took us a couple of miles. I was amazed by the number of people who had already been to the Ganga (Ganges) River for the ritual bath that is supposed to take away their sins at the Kumbh Mela.. Most were shivering in the early morning air…

The Hindu Pilgrims of the Kumbh Mela – Part Two

Man waiting to take the ritual bath

The Indian government’s efforts to control what was supposed to be a million dippers today turned out to be unneeded. This Kumbh Mela was different from 12 years ago as luxury camps were set up and tour busses dropped off the wealthier folk right next to the Ganga River for their holy dip. Stockades were contructed to slow down crowd movement – sort of like the way they do at airport check-in counters, weaving back and forth. I found myself in such a security stockade now as we worked our way to a place where we could see the special dip of the thousands of Sadhus and their smaller counterpart, the Nagas.

The Hindu Pilgrims of the Kumbh Mela – Part Three

As we made our way back to the ghats or bathing areas I noticed strings of beads like dried and wrinkled apricots in many of the shops. JG told me they are Rudraksh seeds and are a charm against all sorts of sickness and evil. Most of these hanging were the fakes most Hindus would wear as the real Rudraksh seeds are quite expensive they are kept in a locked case. These seeds are all the more precious if a priest would bless them – for a fee of course!

Meera’s Story

A young woman in Mumbai outside the Gateway of India.

Meera (now 35) was born a Hindu in a poor dysfunctional Indian family. Meera’s real father left her Mom pregnant and she was almost aborted. Life was tough for Meera and her family. Since the family was poor and there was no provider her mother stayed with a man whom Meera was forced to call father. But this man did not see Meera as a daughter and she was sent to a job in a small store at a very young age.

The owner of the store raped her and she was taken to the hospital that registered a case against the rapist.

A Fight to Save Baby Girls in India

The daughters of India

Posted in the NY Times March 7, 2013. By KAMALA THIAGARAJAN

USILAMPATTI, INDIA — Back in the 1980s, this rural patch of the southern state of Tamil Nadu had the dubious distinction of the worst reputation for “gendercide,” or murder of unwanted baby girls, in India.

There were no official statistics, of course. Just as no one keeps a tally of how middle-class Indians today use scans to determine a baby’s sex and whether to abort a female fetus, the child deaths in the Usilampatti region, home to about 85,000 people, were whispered about, not totaled.

Often, births were unregistered, conducted by a village midwife who would then also kill unwanted girls.

Pastor in India Lured into Violent Trap

NEW DELHI, October 21 (CDN) — A group of Hindu extremists in Madhya Pradesh earlier this month beat a pastor unconscious and chewed off part of his ear, pelting him with stones after he fainted from the pain.

Hinduism in Indonesia

Hinduism was the main religion in Indonesia before Islam came to the country through Muslim traders in the 12th and 13th centuries. Hinduism came to Indonesia as early as the 1st century. By the 4th century, Hindu states had been established on Java. Hinduism spread throughout the rest of Indonesia and reached its peak in the 14th century. Although most of Indonesia was Muslim by the end of the 16th century, Bali remained Hindu. In 1959, the Indonesian government recognized Hinduism as an official religion. Indonesian Hindus practice Dharma Hinduism because of this. It was a major reform movement that lobbied for Hindus’ rights in Bali. This reform helped start a revival of Hinduism in Indonesia.