Competing for Minds at the Mela

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the way in which the pilgrimage system functioned as a device to communicate a range of ideas in colonial India. Both colonial authorities and nationalists sought to use the occasion of the mela to spread their respective ideas to a broad public. While colonial authorities sought to communicate the benefits of colonial modernity through impressive exhibitions, nationalists found the pilgrimage system an expedient way of spreading ideas such as swadeshi. The ways in which the British sought to manage and manipulate this information mechanism is also delineated. The chapter reveals the advantages and limitations that nationalists — including prominent Congressmen such as Malaviya, Tilak, Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru — encountered in doing this, contributing to recent debates about the relationship between Congress politics and Hindu idioms, symbols, and genres. The chapter also examines the linkages and dynamics between different modes of information dissemination regarding the mela, from Indian and Governmental press reports, to rumours disseminated through indigenous communication mechanisms. During this period, Seva Samitis — voluntary social service organisations — were increasingly deployed at melas to enhance the provision of basic needs and necessities to pilgrims. The management of, and attempt to constrain attendance at melas (predominantly through limitation on railway services) during the two world wars also highlights some of the ongoing tensions regarding British administration of the mela. Grievances and rumours relating to attempts to limit the pilgrimage became a concern for would-be pilgrims, making it clear that even an arrested pilgrimage played an important role in indigenous communication.