Scholar says his paper was doctored to falsely justify the ‘revival’ of Kumbh Mela in West Bengal

A retired Canadian anthropologist on Thursday said that his research paper had been doctored by Hindutva supremacists to justify the revival of a claim that a Kumbh Mela was being celebrated after 700 years in the Tribeni area of West Bengal’s Bansberia city.

“The historical fact is that there never was a Kumbh Mela at Tribeni, and the so-called ‘revival’ is based on falsified research,” Alan Morinis wrote in an article for The Telegraph. “I say this with confidence since the source of this disinformation is a sentence in my doctoral dissertation at Oxford University that someone doctored and then circulated widely.”

Morinis’ claims comes three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his Mann ki Baat programme on February 26, had spoken about the “revival” of the Kumbh Mela in Tribeni.

He had said that more than eight lakh devotees had participated in the “Tribeni Kumbho Mohotsav” in the city, which is located in the Hooghly district in West Bengal.

“...Unfortunately this festival which used to take place in Tribeni, Bengal, was stopped 700 years ago,” the prime minister claimed. “It should have been started after Independence, but that too could not happen.”

In his address, Modi had thanked Kanchan Banerjee, a resident of the United States, and the Tribeni Kumbho Porichalona Shomiti for “not only keeping a tradition alive but also protecting India’s cultural heritage”.

Prior to this, Aditya Neogi, the chairperson of the Trinamool Congress-run Bansberia Municipality, had claimed credit for organising the Kumbh Mela, reported Article 14.

Neogi told the news website that local Hindutva members and non-resident Bengali “researchers”, including Banerjee, had persuaded him as well as vice-chairperson Amit Ghosh to believe that a Kumbh Mela used to be held in Tribeni until 700 years ago.

On February 8, several Hindutva activists, sitting along with Neogi and Ghosh, had cited Morinis’ academic work, according to Article 14.

“In page 74 of the book, he wrote that a Kumbh snan [a bathing ritual] of greater grandeur than Gangasagar [in Uttar Pradesh] used to be held in Tribeni,” they said. “He wrote that Kumbh snan took place here till 1319…”

The activists added: “We have got to know, not from any Tom, Dick and Harry’s writings but an Oxford University research paper, that a Kumbh mela used to be held here until 700 years ago.”

On Thursday, Morinis alleged that “someone with an agenda” doctored his research paper to justify the “revival” of the Hindu pilgrimage at Tribeni.

“I had written that every period of solar transition [sankranti] was ‘auspicious for a bath in the Ganges’,” Morinis said. “The original phrase appeared in brackets; the forgers removed my words and fit within those brackets the words: ‘a Kumbha-mela was held here in past.’”

He stated that this was done with an agenda to destroy the burial place of Ghazi Zafar Khan, a 14th-century leader, who had a major role in the Muslim conquest of the region.

“The presence of building materials with Hindu iconography has led some to claim that this dargah was built on the site of a Hindu temple, ignoring the fact that Buddhist and Jain images are found as well,” Morinis wrote in the article. “The agenda of the forgers seems to be not just to ‘revive’ a pilgrimage but, in the process, also destroy a Muslim site.”

‘Altered text’

According to an investigation by Article 14, the altered version of Morinis’ research paper was quoted as part of an article that was published in a book by the organisers of the Kumbh Mela.

The article was authored by Ashok Gangopadhyay, a retired school teacher from Tribeni.

When questioned about the discrepancies, Gangopadhyay told Article 14 that he believed that the research paper cited in the article was the original one. He also shared a copy of the 470-page paper, which had the altered version.

“I did not download the document myself,” Gangopadhyay said. “Someone gave it to me. I will try to download it from the website to check for myself and also ask the person who shared the document with me about the discrepancy.”

He, however, refused to disclose who provided him with the document.