Pilgrimage to Gangasagar Mela in the Anthropocene: Understanding Sacred Geography and Hydrosocial Entanglements at Sagar Island in the Indian Sundarbans

Gangasagar Mela is the second-largest annual gathering of Hindu pilgrims in India after the Kumbh. Situated on Sagar Island in the Southern Sundarbans, the Gangasagar sacred complex marks the confluence of the holy river Ganga and the Bay of Bengal. Gangasagar is a revered pilgrimage site where Hindu devotees partake in ritual bathing to seek liberation from reincarnation. This paper maps the diverse meanings of Gangasagar Mela by locating the sacred geography of Gangasagar within the vulnerable waterscape of Sagar Island, which is affected by cyclones, tidal events and planetary changes. It employs hydrosociality as an analytical framework to identify the plural discourses of religious milan, communitarian mel and everyday mela associated with Gangasagar Mela. It suggests how mythologies, ecological conditions and the everyday resonate with the spirituality of pilgrims and visitors who travel to Gangasagar and the environmental concerns of communities that inhabit Sagar Island. Historical evidence is compiled with ethnographic details to contextualise pilgrimage from the religious, tourist and everyday perspectives to highlight the diverse yet overlapping experiences of crisis and agency. The paper argues that understanding places of pilgrimage requires emphasising the entanglements that make up its sacred geography. In waterscapes like Gangasagar, where the ebb and flow of water shapes the social, political and economic constitution of a pilgrimage site, hydrosociality foregrounds how the site remains ever-emergent due to the reciprocity between cultural practices, ecological conditions and everyday life.