Vaibhav Kharat
The ongoing Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj presents a remarkable case study to understand the ritualistic hypocrisy of caste Hindus, particularly in relation to the myth of purity that governs the Hindu psyche. This grand religious spectacle, where millions gather to bathe in the Triveni Sangam (Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati confluence). This act of spiritual and devotional purification is an attempt to rid oneself of sins, absolve moral transgressions, and secure divine blessings. However, beneath this ritual performance lies a deep contradiction: while the Savarna castes obsess over purity, they simultaneously engage in behaviors that physically and symbolically pollute the very spaces they revere.
The Ganga, the Yamuna and the mythical Sarasvati are regarded as the most sacred rivers in Hinduism, and treated as the highest purifiers capable of washing away the sins of humanity. Yet, those who claim to hold it in the highest regard are also its greatest polluters. The river and the riverbanks are littered with plastic waste, human excreta, religious offerings and the reports of physical assault/violence by the religious gurus expose the cognitive dissonance at the heart of Hindu ritualism. For Instance, a viral video made by a girl showed how Sangam river site is contaminated with human excreta and many other videos where spiritual gurus are seen openly assaulting the common devotees including journalists.
While caste Hindus insist on maintaining the purity of their bodies, temples, and kitchens, they display no real concern for the physical sanctity of the rivers. This paradox is not incidental; it is structurally embedded in the Brahminical order, where purity is not about hygiene or natural entities or environmental consciousness but about maintaining the caste system and the brahminical hegemony intact. To understand this ritualistic hypocrisy, we need several analytical tools such as Freud’s theory of repression, Mary Douglas’s concept of purity as a social construct, and Ambedkar’s critique of caste-based religion. The Hindu psyche, shaped by centuries of caste conditioning and socializing therefore becomes a state of mind, it operates under the belief that ritual acts rather than moral/ethical behaviour determines one’s purity. This belief serves as an escape mechanism, allowing caste Hindus to engage in corrupt, violent, and oppressive practices while absolving themselves through symbolic acts of purification.
Sigmund Freud, in his study of religion and neurosis, argued that rituals function as psychological coping mechanisms—they help individuals deal with unconscious guilt, psychic dilemma and moral anxiety. The Hindu obsession with purity rituals, particularly the act of bathing in the Ganga, can be understood in this light. It is not simply an act of devotion but a collective catharsis, a way to cleanse one’s conscience without confronting real wrongdoing. This allows caste Hindus to maintain a false sense of moral superiority while continuing to participate in structural injustices against the Avarna and non-Hindus. Similarly, Mary Douglas’s ‘Purity and Danger’ (1966) provides another critical framework for understanding how purity myths sustain power hierarchies. She argues that ritual purity is not about actual cleanliness but about maintaining social separation/boundaries. In Hindu society, purity codes are deeply linked to caste/varna hierarchical culture, ensuring that the Savarna castes remain uncontaminated by the touch, presence, or even the shadow of Avarna and non-Hindu communities like tribes. This logic manifests in everyday practices—where caste Hindus refuse to eat food touched by Avarnas, deny them access to public wells, and exclude them from temple rituals or keeps no social endosmosis — but collapses in spaces like the Kumbh Mela, where the same people who enforce these taboos bathe in a river alongside millions of others without concern for bodily contact. This contradiction highlights an ideological inconsistency in the Brahminical notion of purity. If purity were truly about maintaining hygienic sanctity, then caste Hindus would be at the forefront of environmental conservation, waste management, cleaning campaigning and public health initiatives. Instead, the same people who insist on the sanctity of the Ganga treat it as a dumping ground for religious waste—idol immersions, flower garlands, and the ashes of the dead. The belief that the Ganga is self-purifying further absolves them of any responsibility for its material cleanliness, reinforcing the myth that ritual purity is divorced from material conditions
Ambedkar, in his continuous writings on Hinduism and caste especially in Untouchable (1948) exposed the fundamental dishonesty of Hindu belief system. He argued that Brahminical purity is not a spiritual ideal but a tool of social control, designed to legitimize caste-based exclusion while offering the upper castes symbolic ways to absolve their sins. The Kumbh Mela serves as a perfect example of this illusory moral framework—where caste Hindus, instead of engaging in genuine moral introspection and retrospection, participate in mass ritualism that allows them to escape the burden of ethical accountability. This is why, despite its scale and grandeur, the Kumbh Mela does nothing to eradicate caste violence, social inequality, or economic exploitation or educational upliftment. It is a spectacle that sustains Brahminical hegemony by reinforcing faith in the ritual system rather than encouraging critical thought.
The hypocrisy of Hindu ritual purity becomes even clearer when we examine how it is selectively applied to Avarna and non-Hindu communities. The same Brahmins who claim that the Ganga is so pure that nothing can defile it also insist that a non-Hindu’s touch pollutes drinking water. This contradiction exposes the true function of purity myths—they are not about protecting sacred spaces but about maintaining social hierarchies. The belief that Savarna caste Hindus can wash away their sins in the Ganga while simultaneously believing that an Avarna person’s presence defiles a temple or a public well reveals that purity in Hinduism is a caste weapon, not a spiritual truth.
The political instrumentalization of this myth of purity can be seen in state-sponsored religious projects, highly advertised, social media promotion like Namami Gange, which claim to protect the sanctity of the river but are primarily used to reinforce Hindu identity politics. While the government spends billions on ritual spectacles like Kumbh Mela, it does little to ensure real ecological restoration or sanitation infrastructure. The responsibility for cleaning the Ganga ultimately falls on sanitation workers, manual scavengers, and marginalized communities, whose labour remains invisible and unacknowledged. This reinforces the hierarchical nature of Hindu purity myths, where ritual cleansing is the domain of the upper castes, but actual cleaning is imposed on the lowest rungs of society.
In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) Émile Durkheim argued that religion serves to unify society through collective rituals. In this framework, the Kumbh Mela functions as a sacred gathering that reinforces social cohesion. Hindu religious gatherings like the Kumbh do not unite all people; they consolidate caste solidarities while systematically marginalizing Avarna and non-Hindu voices. Ambedkar’s critique of religion in the caste society shows that religion does not merely create social bonds—it enforces social stratification. Thus the ritualistic hypocrisy of caste Hindus is not an anomaly but a structural feature of Brahminical Hinduism. The belief in ritual absolution rather than moral transformation ensures that caste Hindus can engage in exploitative and oppressive behaviour without experiencing moral guilt. This is why as Dr. Ambedkar argues Hinduism has failed to produce a tradition of ethical introspection comparable to Buddhism, Jainism, or even radical atheism. Instead, it thrives on ritual formalism, dogmatic purity codes, and symbolic spectacles that distract from real social injustices.
Overall, the Kumbh Mela is not merely a religious festival but an ideological apparatus that sustains Brahminical dominance by reinforcing the myth of purity. It is a space where ritual absolution replaces ethical accountability, where pollution is mystically erased rather than materially addressed, and where Avarna and non-Hindu communities like Muslim and tribes are systematically excluded from the sacred order while being forced to labour in its service. A true challenge to this ritual hypocrisy requires an Ambedkarite, rationalist, and anti-caste politics/philosophy, one that exposes the fallacy of purity and demands a radical transformation of society based on equality, reason and scientific temperament.
References
Alley, Kelly D. (2002). On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River. University of Michigan Press.
Ambedkar, B.R. (1936) Annihilation of Caste.BAWS.
Ambedkar, B. R. (1948). The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? . BAWS.
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge.
Durkheim, É. (1912) . The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
Freud, S. ( 1927). The Future of an Illusion.
Image courtesy wikipedia:
~~~
Vaibhav Kharat is a Research Scholar in the Sociology Department, DSE.
