The Maha Kumbh Mela

Mark Tully joins the pilgrims at the world's largest religious festival. Hindu traditions meet modern India at the confluence of the sacred rivers Ganges and Yamuna where millions of believers come to bathe.

At the Kumbh Mela he finds that, as the country develops into a consumer society and world power, rituals and religious practices are flourishing. He asks whether these will survive the march of modernity and the consumerism which comes with today's economic growth. Could spiritual India provide lessons for an increasingly secular world?

This is the third time Mark Tully has attended the Maha Kumbh Mela, which happens every twelve years. In this programme he continues to document how the old and the new intertwine in India, past, present and future.

Produced by Adam Fowler

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in March 2013.