Each year lakhs of pilgrims gather on the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna
rivers outside Allahabad to participate in a series of sacred bathing rituals. This
festival – the Magh Mela – has a prominent place in the Hindu religious calendar and
routinely attracts millions. On the occasion of the Kumbh Mela (held every 12 years)
and the Ardh (or half) Kumbh Mela (held midway in the 12 yearly cycle), these
gatherings are even larger (for descriptions see Dubey, 2001, and Tully, Lannoy, and
Mahendra, 2002). The scale to these events and their atmosphere is incomprehensible
to those with no experience of India. Furthermore, those familiar with social
psychological theory are particularly likely to be taken aback by the atmosphere to
these large-scale collective gatherings: whereas much social psychological theory
approaches collective phenomena with a sense of foreboding, the experience of the
Allahabad Melas seems very different.
This foreboding is most obvious in the literature on crowd behaviour. Here
theory after theory depicts crowds as distorting an individual’s capacity for rational
judgement and as weakening the hold of norms and values that promote socially
acceptable behaviour (Diener, 1980; Dipboye, 1977; Zimbardo, 1969). The idea that
the presence of others results in problematic behaviour is also apparent in many other
topic areas addressed by social psychological theory. For example, the classic analysis
of helping rests on the assumption that the presence of others leads to a sense of
anonymity and a diffusion of responsibility that dulls our sense of obligation to others
(Latane and Nida, 1981). Familiar with such literatures, social psychologists could
only marvel at the pleasure, organisation and harmony apparent at the Allahabad
Melas.
As so much social psychological theorising is rooted in the particularities of
North American society, researchers in developing countries are rightly cautious
about assuming the utility and applicability of much mainstream social psychological
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Convention