The biggest festive carnival of West Bengal where artistic creativity meets religious fervour will be different this year. Durga Puja festivities have gone beyond innovative ideas and intrinsic craftsmanship within temporary structures during the week-long festival to worship the goddess of power, strength, protection and motherhood.
Big advertising bucks are safeguarded for this time of the year, where people across all walks of life and religious communities celebrate the community festival at their local pandals. NRIs flock back to Kolkata to visit their relatives and partake in the magic that the city exuberates.
Durga Puja was more about community pujas until the erstwhile Trinamool Congress (TMC) government began to have a say in big puja committees. Former Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim’s Chetla Agrani Club, Sports Minister Aroop Biswas’s Suruchi Sangha, and Fire Minister Sujit Bose’s Sreebhumi Puja were some notable names.
Today, the tables have turned, with the BJP taking over big puja committees and making both subtle and open comments on how Durga Puja should be celebrated.
Dhirendra Krishna Shastri (also known as Bageshwar Baba), a Madhya Pradesh-based godman, has stirred controversy by saying that no non-vegetarian food should be consumed or sold near Durga Puja pandals during Navratri.
He described the food as dirty and those who consumed it as ‘pakhandi’ or hypocrites, urging Hindus to boycott non-vegetarian food. The Congress filed a complaint and burnt his photographs, after which CM Suvendu Adhikari sought the arrest of the perpetrators.
Adhikari said people are free to choose whether or not to follow what the saint says, condemning the burning of photographs in front of Bhabanipur Police Station.
The CM has also imposed a number of restrictions for Durga Puja, including those on the inauguration of puja pandals before the start of the lunar fortnight of Devi Paksha, on the sale of alcohol on the auspicious day of Ashtami, on carnivals after Dashami, on DJs at pandals and idol immersions, and on government grants to big-budget puja committees.
There was cheer too, as licenses procured entail free electricity and tax-free commercial hoardings, while smaller puja committees can appeal for a Rs 1 lakh government grant.
There is also a ban on using cranes to lift idols during immersion and a four-day inauguration of festivities at the Eden Gardens, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi being invited to attend. Different puja pandal themes are permitted without hurting any religious and cultural heritage. Idol immersion will be completed before the Lakshmi Puja.
With the change in government after 15 years comes a change in the way Durga Puja is celebrated. The food for thought here is this: do these announcements negatively impact the way one celebrates the community festival or is a change in the government’s stance merely one workaround to stay within the limits of the law?
A month away from the festival, there is mixed emotion and excitement, as hope arises that the spirit of the festival will still bring together people from across all communities as was the case previously, to now embark on a new journey in celebrating West Bengal’s biggest festival.
