NEW DELHI (RNS) — The highways leading east out of India’s national capital, typically fast-moving commuter routes, slowed to a crawl this week as a saffron wave of young men in orange robes walked steadily, bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders hung with pitchers full of water collected from the sacred Ganges River.
These men are participating in Kanwar Yatra — a centuries-old pilgrimage that takes place during the monsoon month of Shravan. They walk for days, traveling 100-500 kilometers, to fetch water from the sacred cities of Haridwar, Varanasi or Baidnath to pour on lingams, or icons, of the Hindu deity Shiva in their hometowns and villages.
In recent years, the pilgrimage has seen a sharp surge in popularity, with some 40 million taking part last year; this year, that number is expected to rise to 60 million before the festival concludes Saturday (Aug. 9).
With the growing numbers of celebrants, Kanwar Yatra has increasingly become not just a spiritual affair but a showpiece for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s politics of Hindu nationalism. Several state governments headed by members of Modi’s ruling party, the BJP, have rerouted highways, axed trees and shut down schools, all while ramping up security. In some places, petals have been dropped from helicopters.
With the signals of government support, too, have come another hallmark of Hindu nationalism: violence aimed at excluding non-Hindus from the festival.
On July 8, along the 150-mile route from Delhi to Haridwar, a group of young male worshippers, known as kanwariyas, vandalized a roadside eatery after they were allegedly served onions — triggering objections linked to notions of ritual purity. In the …