More than 3 million pilgrims come to the Ganga Sagar festival each year to bathe. In 50 years, the island might be gone. Sitting in the gardens of the Kapil Muni Temple on Sagar Island, Sanjay Das seems unperturbed by the fact that the temple over which he presides is not, in fact, the original. “Three or four have already been lost in the sea,” he says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the nearby beach where thousands of pilgrims have come to pray and submerge themselves in the waters. At the confluence of the holy River Ganges and the Bay of Bengal, Sagar Island attracts millions of Hindu devotees each January for the Ganga Sagar festival. Last year, in the space of two days, an estimated 3 million Hindu pilgrims came to bathe in the holy waters. However, Sagar Island — and with it, the future of the festival — is under threat. Rising sea levels and coastal erosion are encroaching upon the land all across the Sundarbans, a delta of tiny islands nestled between east India and Bangladesh. The Kapil Muni Temple, where pilgrims offer prayers after a dip in the sea, has been moved several times to avoid being submerged. |