Q1.
An estimated 660 million people participated in the Kumbh Mela of 2025. What proportion of the population of India is this?
Answer
India's population in 2025 is about 1.45 billion, that is 145 crore. So:
Proportion = 660 million ÷ 1,450 million
= 66 crore ÷ 145 crore
= 0.455 …
= about 45%, or roughly 9 out of every 20 Indians — a little less than half.
= 66 crore ÷ 145 crore
= 0.455 …
= about 45%, or roughly 9 out of every 20 Indians — a little less than half.
Written as a simple fraction, 66/145 is close to 9/20, or nearly 1/2.
Read the number carefully: 660 million counts visits over the whole 45-day mela, not 660 million different people. Many pilgrims bathed on several auspicious days, and each bath was counted. So the number of individuals who came was smaller — but it is still, by a wide margin, the largest gathering of human beings anywhere on Earth.
Why it is worth knowing: a gathering of that size needs a temporary city — roads, pontoon bridges, tents, water pipes, hospitals, electricity and sanitation for tens of millions — built and dismantled within weeks. That is why UNESCO listed the Kumbh Mela as an ‘intangible heritage of the world', and why the mela is an economic event as much as a spiritual one.
Try this: take the population of your own state and work out how many times over it would fit into 66 crore. For a state of 7 crore people, the answer is about 9 times.