Mega management: Why Western universities are studying Mahakumbh

Mahakumbh Mela is a unique event in the world with none matching it in size or scale. Prayagraj, a city with a population of 5.5 million, will host nearly 40 crore pilgrims during Mahakumbh, compared to the 25 crore footfalls in 2019. The grand event is celebrated every 12 years when the sun, moon and Jupiter align in a specific way.

More than two dozen prominent universities and other educational and research institutes from around the world as well as in the country are going to camp in Prayagraj during Mahakumbh to study various aspects related to the largest religious gathering in the world. Harvard, Stanford, London School of Economics, Kyoto University, AIIMS, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras and JNU are some premiere institutes that are going to send professors, research scholars and students to stay in Prayagraj.

What attracts different researchers is how the gargantuan management of the Mela works without any major disruptive incident, accident or crime.

Why the 'pop-up metropolis' is a feast for researchers
Mahakumbh will see a veritable pop-up metropolis, constructed using tents, pontoons and bamboo structures, which will house millions of pilgrims and be completely dismantled after the festival. The temporary metropolis will feature everything from spatial zoning and infrastructure supply lines to food distribution networks and public gathering spaces.

A 400-km-long temporary road network has been readied for the Mela. 30 pontoon bridges have been laid on rivers and rivulets. A 1,250-km-long water supply pipeline has been set up to distribute water, which would be drawn from 85 borewels. There will be 200 water-vending machines, 96 power sub-stations, 366-km-long transmission cables, 67,000 streetlights, 2,750 CCTV cameras for surveillance, 80 variable display message screens, three viewing centers having LED walls to showcase key religious events and proceedings and a 50-seater command and control room.

"For the first time, we would have institute backed studies on the economic impact, crowd management, socio-cultural manifestation, food distribution chain, anthropological study through ethnographic accounts, faecal sludge management among other areas," an official stationed in the Mela area told TOI. Eight different fields and subjects have been shortlisted by the state government which would be covered by the researchers. Opening the event for global participation, the urban development department had floated the idea of carrying out exhaustive study, sources told TOI.

"While till 2019, global and domestic institutes used to approach us, this time we thought of opening the Mela to researchers from our end in advance. The research papers would help the state government in plugging the gaps for future events. We are going to provide accommodation to the researchers during their stay and offer some stipend upon successful submission of the papers," said the official who added that chief minister Yogi Adityanath had suggested the idea to invite the institutes well in advance.

Divided into two comprehensive categories, the research studies would be focused on planning and implementation of Maha Kumbh and estimating the economic impact and outcome of the Mela. While expenditure done by tourists across various categories including accommodation, food, transportation, religious activities and leisurely activities would provide estimates on the outcome of the Mela, study on spending done by state and central government would provide insights over infrastructure development which helped shape up the pop-up city ahead of the festival.

What Western researchers found at Mahakumbh 2013
MahaKumbh 2013 was far better organised than Fifa World Cup in Brazil and Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, said a book on world’s biggest religious congregation, produced by scholars and students of Harvard University along with architects and town planners of international repute. The book, ‘Kumbh Mela - Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity’, went on to add: “For a country notorious for its ‘lethargic’ bureaucracy, the success of Maha Kumbh is truly noteworthy.” If there was a national outcry and uproar over the poor preparations for the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, the 2010 CW Games were marred by scandals and corruption, despite the fact in the two events there were much more funds and involvement of the federal/central governments, it said.

The book mentioned that barring a few countries hardly any matches its aspirations with the capability. “So is India, which has high ambition to provide everyone everything from farmers to migrants to factory worker. Its ambitions are very high but capability very low, and then it generates disappointment. But the Maha Kumbh management and success belies this notion,” it said.

The book details the “sheer human achievement of creating the temporary and yet complex infrastructure of the 24-square-mile Kumbh city, compared to almost 2/3rd of Manhattan. Calling the entire process of making this city with an expiry date as “astonishing”, the book also described how this city came up for 45 days and took in millions of devotees.

Speaking on the business aspect that his team studied at the Kumbh, John Macomber, senior lecturer in finance and real estate, Harvard Business School, said, “We focused on two aspects: one, lessons from administration and leadership, and two, lessons from infrastructure design, delivery and finance."

A team comprising mainly medical doctors from Harvard University was "largely impressed" with the orderliness of the Mela and the lack of any major disease outbreak.

The main objective of the Harvard team, which had the support of the National Disaster Management Authority and the Allahabad Medical College, was to map patterns of diseases, water distribution, sanitation and disaster management plans. The first reaction of the team was the amazement at the degree of organization. "The electrical grid, wide boulevards, street lights, water supply, sanitation, crowd control, security, sector hospitals and a central referral hospital would be impressive anywhere—but the fact that this is all temporary and will be gone by the end of March—makes it an absolutely astounding organizational feat," said the doctors.

"The systems are indeed streamlined. But while there are parts that worked, some didn't," said Dr Satchit Balsari, who led the team of 25-odd doctors from Harvard University's FXB Center for Health and Human Rights to Allahabad. A researchers said Kumbh could be better managed if some minor issues such as smoke from choolahs and ambulance management were ironed out.

(With inputs from TOI)