Meat of the matter: BJP's imprint on Durga Puja in West Bengal

With the state govt issuing new guidelines for Bengal's biggest festival, conversations around traditions are intensifying

From debates on whether Durga Puja can be called ‘Sharadotsab (autumn festival) to whether a pandal traditionally has a ‘theme’, to ‘Bageshwar Baba’ taking exception to the consumption of non-vegetarian food during the nine-day festivities — there is no dearth of talking points ahead of the first Durga Puja under the Suvendu Adhikari-led Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal. 

 

Durga Puja is Bengal’s biggest festival, a major economic driver and an intensely emotive subject for Bengalis. So is food — especially non-vegetarian food. 

 

Earlier this month, Dhirendra Shastri of Bageshwar Dham, popularly known as Bageshwar Baba, may have gotten a taste of just how contentious that combination can be. At a three-day Hanumant Katha programme in Howrah’s Liluah, he criticised the consumption of non-vegetarian food during Durga Puja. “There is one thing I don’t like about West Bengal. Non-vegetarian food is consumed behind Durga Puja pandals. Dirty food is cooked,” Shastri said on September 5. He went on to call those who ate non-vegetarian food during the Puja pakhandis (those who put up a show of being religious).

 

The comments drew sharp criticism on social media and outside. On the streets, Congress workers protested, and one party leader was arrested after Adhikari called for action against those who burnt Shastri’s photographs.

 

Shastri’s comments also put the BJP government in a spot, as they came just a day after the chief minister (CM) had hosted him for dinner at Soujanya, the state guest house, with Cabinet ministers in attendance. Several BJP leaders, from state party president Samik Bhattacharya to ministers Dilip Ghosh and Agnimitra Paul, were quick to distance themselves from the remarks, choosing instead to stand up for Bengal’s food traditions.

 

But the pot had already been stirred by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), which in late August had suggested that organisers should ensure a strict prohibition of non-vegetarian food inside the pandal premises, among other advisories on rituals, idols and themes. 

 

On September 10, however, Adhikari himself visited the Kalighat Temple, and in a much-publicised gesture, he partook of the traditional bhog of fish and basanti pulao on the occasion of Kaushiki Amavasya.

 

Shastri’s comments, however alien they may be to Bengal’s traditions, remain just that — his comments.

 

“Culture is region-specific; India’s diversity cannot be homogenised,” political analyst Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury said. 

 

“It is very unlikely that people in West Bengal will accept political parties or state-backed religious gurus telling them what to eat, how to pray or how to practise their faith, especially when Durga Puja and Kali Puja are Shakta traditions, and animal sacrifice is part of the ritual practice in many temples and communities,” he added.

 

The new government, meanwhile, is putting its own imprint on the Puja.

 

A new rule book

 

The Red Road carnival, long the showcase of former CM Mamata Banerjee’s Puja celebrations, is being replaced by a fireworks and drone show at Eden Gardens on Mahalaya, to mark the beginning of the festival. This was announced by CM Adhikari after a preparatory meeting for Puja last week.

 

Among other guidelines, liquor will not be sold on Ashtami, while DJ music will be banned during Puja and immersion processions. Immersions must also be completed within three days of Dashami, the final day of the festivities.

 

For financial assistance, Adhikari announced a grant of ₹1 lakh, a shade lower than last year’s ₹1.1 lakh; however, he appealed to big-ticket Pujas to not apply for aid.

 

Anjan Ukil, secretary, Forum for Durgotsab, said: “We have 650 members across Kolkata and Howrah, and we have appealed to them not to take the grant unless necessary.”

 

The CM has also asked the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation and West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company to provide Puja committees with free electricity, replacing the 80 per cent waiver offered earlier.

 

In the Assembly, Adhikari took on the Left over its description of ‘sanatana dharma’ as a cultural phenomenon and its insistence on using Sharadotsab instead of Durga Puja. He added that Puja committees should not allow communists to set up book stalls unless they write ‘Durga Puja’ on banners. The distinction between the two has acquired a political life of its own.

 

But, there is another overarching guideline that has triggered an intense discourse: That idols and themes should conform to Sanatani traditions.  

Of themes and traditions

 

Prominent artists associated with Durga Puja see theme-based celebrations as part of the festival’s natural evolution, rather than a departure from tradition.

 

“We did not set out to create theme-based Pujas. It has simply evolved with the times, and people have come to accept it. Bengalis are known to be culturally inclined,” said Bhabatosh Sutar, one of the prominent artists associated with the festival.

 

“As far as the idol is concerned, this is not a temple setting. Durga Puja belongs to the public space — it is held in fields and open spaces, bringing the deity closer to people,” he added. 

 

For Sutar, that evolution is inseparable from artistic freedom: “My creativity is my very being; I cannot allow anything to cast a shadow over it”. 

 

Susanta Paul echoed the sentiment, saying an artist’s first instinct is to break the mould. “For 28 years, I have tried to find something new, but always with the aim of bringing people closer spiritually,” he said. 

 

“If anyone looks for a traditional idol in my work, they will not find it. I give it a modern form, taking it closer to people. The real question is whether it still evokes reverence,” Paul added. He is known for his striking installations at Tala Prattoy in North Kolkata, including his 2023 work featuring a larger-than-life metal structure cradling the Durga idol, where he himself co-existed with the deity during the Puja days.

 

According to industry sources, artists began participating in Pujas around 1998-99. While the focus had initially been on the pandals that housed the idols, the shift towards conceptual installations gained momentum with the Asian Paints Sharad Samman, launched in 1985 to recognise the best-decorated pandals.

 

Since then, pandals have become spaces for experimentation, engaging with a wide range of social and contemporary issues and challenging age-old customs and rituals — from menstrual hygiene and child trafficking to the trauma of Bengal’s Partition.

 

There is also a commercial incentive behind the experimentation. Forum for Durgotsab’s Ukil pointed out that the race for awards has encouraged Pujas to embrace themes. “Themes attract footfall, and footfall brings brands and sponsorships. There are about 2,400 Pujas in Kolkata, of which around 100 are theme-based, and these attract people.”

 

Yet, according to Ukil, the experimentation needs some limits. 

 

The business of spectacle

 

A British Council study commissioned for the West Bengal Department of Tourism estimated the annual economic value of Durga Puja’s creative economy — spanning retail, food and beverages, idol-making, art and design, branding and sponsorships — at ₹32,377 crore, accounting for 2.58 per cent of the state’s gross domestic product (GDP), based on 2019 data.

 

The figure is said to have grown since then. In 2021, ‘Durga Puja in Kolkata’ was inscribed on Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, raising the festival’s global profile and expanding its creative and sponsorship ecosystem.

 

Planning for the next Puja begins almost as soon as one ends, with themes and preparations largely locked in a year in advance. The bigger question is what next year will look like — and how far the new “guidelines” will shape the imagination behind the pandals.

 

Pujanomics

 

• 45,000: No. of Durga Pujas in Bengal
• 2,400 in Kolkata alone, with around 100 theme-based ones
• ₹5 lakh to ₹2 crore: Budget range for organising Puja
• ₹32,377 crore*: Economic worth of creative industries associated with Puja
• Retail dominates at ₹27,364 crore*

 

*Estimated figures, from Durga Puja 2019