Chapter 2E: The Kumbh 1921 was a crazy hit. Ten million people attended the Ardh Kumbh at Haridwar and the Simhastha at Ujjain. It was the first sponsored and aggressively marketed Kumbh in history. It had ten times the attendance of any Kumbh. British officers wrote back that they had never seen anything like this. BN organised a helicopter for the first time in the history of the Kumbh to show them around.
To manage the tents, BN supported a Kanpur startup called Lalooji & Sons. To date it is the largest tent house in the world. The IIT events use tents erected by Lalooji. The Mahakumbh 2025 at Prayagraj was done by Lalooji. I got to meet the family members who now run the company and am hoping to get some authentic photos from them. The firm morphed into a Pvt Ltd company in 1980. More here:
But this was not a war zone. And the tents were not moving forward. Sanitation was not in place. And there was widespread breakout of disease.
150,000 people died.
100,000 were lost.
These were sad numbers.
But BN had proven once and for all that the horse to ride was some combination of religion and business. And fighting with the government was bad for both. He prefered dialogue over disobedience. Business over emotion. War was his business – but not at home. For him, war was an export product. Fools fight. Wisemen profit from them.
In the competition between the Aga Khan and BN – round one had gone to BN. No two ways. But the Aga Khan was not to be left behind. His followers spoke Gujarati and he needed to rally Muslims around his cause. The problem was that there weren’t enough Muslims and unlike BN – he didn’t have enough money.
BN was eyeing replacing the Jewish bankers. He had penetrated the British system deep enough to know that true power vested not with the British Monarch but with the Medici who funded the wars. After all the Medici and the Jews paid for his goods. He wanted to replace the Medici. He wanted to make the British monarch his puppet. He was not just any Indian.
In 1921, the Prince of Wales visited India. Keeping an evening for drinks and Kababs with BN. Tandoori Chickem and Dal Makhani had been recently invented. The British Monarch relished these.
The Aga Khan could sense the ground shifting below him. He needed to raise the voice of dissent. The Maharashtrians and Bengalis had their own agenda and thinking. He needed to sponsor his own.
And so emerged two leaders seeking relevance. Both lawyers. And friends of Mohammad Jinnah. It was time for action.
Jinnah joined the Muslim League.
The two lawyers were Motilal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi.
The civil disobedience movement was launched by Gandhi in 1921. And this closed the doors for the Aga Khan.
Bankrupt and removed – he prostrated to the Jewish bankers – to sell his soul.
Provided they got him his own country.
This was a pitch the Medici understood.
They knew this playbook.