The trinity that failed women at Maha Kumbh. Holy, unholy, and the algorithm

Indian men need to reckon with their fundamental inability to understand consent. Until then, no holy dip in the waters of the Ganga can wash away their sins.

Two women pilgrims take a holy dip at the Sangam at Mahakumbh | Representational image | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

A savage irony is unfolding in Uttar Pradesh right now. India’s holiest gathering is a hunting ground for faceless remote predators. At the “once in 144 years” Maha Kumbh Mela underway in Prayagraj, where millions congregate to wash away their sins in the Ganga, an unholy alliance of voyeurs, traders, and technology has formed. They’re transforming purification into portable entertainment. What’s on sale? The privacy and bodily integrity of women devotees. And the price? Anywhere between Rs 800 and Rs 2,000, depending on the quality of violation.

Indian women have been failed, yet again, by a new trinity: The holy, the unholy, and the algorithm.  

Last week, 13 FIRs were lodged against 140 social media accounts for posting objectionable videos of women, including those of female devotees taking a dip at the Kumbh. The bathing videos came to light during a separate investigation by the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police into videos sourced from a Rajkot hospital’s gynaecology department. The investigation revealed that the three accused—Prajwal Taili, Praj Patil, and Chandraprakash Phoolchand—ran at least 22 Telegram channels where they sold clips of women, recorded and traded without their consent. 

The three men, a YouTuber from Prayagraj and two NEET aspirants from Maharashtra, ran their enterprise under an innocuous name “Megha Demos Group”. The channels, with labels like “CCTV Injection Group”, “Labor Room Injection Group”, and “Ganga River Open Bathing Group”, turned these transgressions into a menu of options. “Disturbingly, some content featured covert recordings from hospital labour rooms, medical examinations, and public areas like bus stands, marriage halls, and parlours,” cyber crime officers told The Times of India. This lucrative venture raked in Rs 8 lakh a year. 

To the credit of UP Police, their social media monitoring team has moved swiftly, and identified 15 more accounts across Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram participating in this ecosystem of exploitation. The state government has now banned cameras at bathing ghats, deploying CRPF and state police personnel to enforce this prohibition. In 2019 too, the Allahabad High Court had banned the publishing of photos and videos of women at the Kumbh Mela: “The court said no pictures of women bathing or taking a holy dip should be shared. It also warned that action would be taken if the order was broken. This rule applies to both print and visual media.” 

Betrayal across three spheres

This violation and commodification of women’s bodies at the Maha Kumbh represents a betrayal across three interconnected spheres. It’s not as if Indian women are unfamiliar with such trespasses—that’s our daily reality. But the Kumbh videos expose a particularly perverse intersection of faith, trade, and technology. 

First, there is the sacred: In a space of spiritual liberation, the crowd provides both cover and target for predators. Elaborate systems at Indian temples and other places of worship prevent photography to protect idols and deities. Those regulations don’t extend to the bodies of women who show up at these sites. 

Then comes the betrayal by the profane, a carefully constructed marketplace where every assault is catalogued, priced, and traded. What’s most chilling about the Kumbh videos is the clinical efficiency of their distribution. The “Megha Demos Group” operated with the precision of a tech startup, complete with a freemium business model. 

Finally, there is the betrayal by technology, where algorithms ensure that these offences achieve digital immortality, forever circulating in the dark corners of the internet. The perpetrators weren’t operating from some shadowy underground cave; they used mainstream platforms like Telegram, Instagram, and Facebook. 

But perhaps the deepest cut comes from how unremarkable this all seems—just another day in a society where consent remains an alien concept and women’s bodies are meant for public consumption and dissemination. Forget voyeurism—this is the industrialisation of image-based sexual abuse that has turned sacred spaces into content farms, and hospital labour rooms into film sets. This is the emergence of a new economic model where violation is normalised and monetised.

An ecosystem 

The accused who traded in these videos, however, present only one part of the equation. The men who run these channels deserve every second of what’s coming to them. But let’s focus on the culpability of the men who made their business model viable; the ones who actively sought out and paid for this sexual abuse. 

In an era where consensual sexual content is freely available, these men chose to pay for videos of women at their most vulnerable. The non-consensual nature of these videos isn’t a bug, it’s the feature. What drives these buyers isn’t desire. It’s the intoxication of watching women who never consented to be watched, who never imagined their moments of privacy would be relayed for mass entertainment. 

One can only imagine what consent means for these men in their daily lives—an unwanted intrusion in a fantasy of total dominance. 

In Uttar Pradesh, this commodification of abuse has a precedent. An Al Jazeera investigation from 2016 revealed that videos of rape were being sold for as little as Rs 20, the price of a packet of pan masala. The faces of the victims, some of whom appear to be minors, are visible in several of the videos. In others, the women are begging their assaulters to spare them, or at least not record them. These distressing clips, euphemistically labelled “local films” or “WhatsApp sex videos” are available at local mobile shops. According to the report, “one man who readily admitted that he frequently purchases pornography—particularly videos of rape—told Al Jazeera that he buys them from other nearby villages… He watches the videos, he said, because they give him ‘peace of mind’”.

Indian men aren’t alone in this depravity: A recent German investigation exposed thousands of men participating in Telegram groups dedicated to sharing strategies for sexual assault. Close to 70,000 members exchanged explicit instructions on drugging and attacking women they ostensibly care for—their wives, partners, sisters, mothers. The suffering of these women is the spectacle. 

The Kumbh videos are a perfect—and dangerous—dovetailing of ancient patriarchal traditions and ultra-modern technology. They’ve created an ecosystem that continues to find newer ways to further women’s exploitation, which is a universal language understood across all barriers. Indian men need to reckon with their fundamental inability to understand consent—or even, recognise women as human beings, whichever comes first. Until then, no holy dip in the waters of the Ganga can cleanse them of this stain.

Karanjeet Kaur is a journalist, former editor of Arré, and a partner at TWO Design. She tweets @Kaju_Katri. Views are personal.

(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)