Durga in Bangladesh

The People’s Republic of Bangladesh has the second-largest group of Hindu Bengalis in the world amongst its citizenry. In 2015, their number was estimated to be around 17 million. The Hindu Bengali population of West Bengal, forming the supposed “core” of Bengali Hindudom, is about four times larger. And in Bengali Hindudom, across the two Bengals, “Durga Pujo” represents the biggest festival by far. Indeed, the land of Bengal holds a very special place in the sacred geography of the Shakto religion. When parts of the goddess Sati’s dead body fell on Earth, each of those sites became a Shakti-peeth - a space of divine significance. Of the 51 Shakti-peeths on Earth, Bengal is blessed with 16, of which five fall in the territory of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh - Bhabanipur, Iswaripur, Chandranath hill near Sitakunda, Joinpur and Shikarpur: the second highest assemblage after the 11 in West Bengal. The sacred geography extends to Dhaka where ‘Ma Durga’ as ‘Dhakeshwari’ is believed to have been offering protective cover over Dhaka city for centuries.

While religious discrimination, persecution and occasional violence in East Bengal has seen the Hindu Bengali population percentage dwindle from about 25% in 1951 to around 10% at present, the scale of ‘Durga Pujo’ celebrations remains huge. Officially, the number of ‘Durga Pujos’ in Bangladesh this year is a staggering 29,700, representing an increase of around 300 from last year. The Pujos vary from traditional family Pujos to the ultra-high budget glitzy affair in Banani, Dhaka. Kolkata-style corporatisation of Pujos has started but isn’t as widespread in Dhaka. While Dhaka is home to most of the high-budget Pujos, the city also holds prestigious ones like that of Dhakeswari National Temple, which the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited on Saptami as well other famous Pujos like that of Dhaka University’s Jagannath Hall, Ramna Kali Temple, Ramakrishna Mission, Anandamayi Ashram and Loknath Brahmachariya Ashram. Other districts also boast huge number of Pujos - with 1,200 in Gopalganj, 900 in Sylhet, 564 in Barisal, 560 in Bagerhat, 628 in Jessore, 604 in Magura, 489 in Khula city (804 in Khulna district), 563 in Satkhira and the port city of Chittagong having 281 (the district itself had more than 1,500). The Chittagong city Pujos are special as many of the ritual immersions actually take place in the Bay of Bengal unlike in rivers and ponds in most other places of Bengal.

Officially, the number of 'Durga Pujos' in Bangladesh this year is a staggering 29,700

The apparent contradiction of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh being a secular republic with Islam as state religion is something that a ruling party sensitive to marginalisation of religious minorities has always had to negotiate.  In this regard, the ruling Awami League (AL) is traditionally considered a few shades better, at least in rhetoric and posturing as well as minority representation, compared to other political groups including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose leader has often taken recourse to anti-Hindu fearmongering during political campaigning.  In the context of the rising threat of Islamic extremist militancy, the top leadership of the ruling party has often tried to project itself as the only credible defender of a pluralistic society against militant forces of religion-smeared homogeneisation. While this cannot be said of Awami League’s rank and file, it is true that during Awami League rule periods, Hindu East Bengalis have a bit more confidence when conducting a public religious celebration of a large scale where much of the majoritarian political rhetoric brands the country as a “land of Muslims”, with Hindus being left-over assets of the Indian Union. Hence, Awami League supremo Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and President Abdul Hamid’s emphatic statements on the occasion of ‘Durga Pujo’ are important. President Hamid said, “Durga Puja and other rituals are performed from the depth of traditional heritage and Bengali culture so that the festival is never confined into the circumference of religion”. Echoing this sentiment, PM Sheikh Hasina said that Durga Pujo is not only a festival of Hindus but of all communities, regardless of religion. She talked about the thousand-year-old bond of communal harmony of Bengalis and hoped it would be retained with the united effort of all to create a “Sonar Bangla” (Golden Bengal). Trying to signal to the minorities that religious equality is fundamental bedrock of the present state policy, she mentioned that everyone fought together in the War of 1971 and the country belongs to all. To any persecuted minority in the Indian  Subcontinent, such lofty rhetoric even if not backed up on the ground, is psychologically uplifting - for it is an acknowledgment from the top that their rights and claims to equal citizenship are earned through struggle and not given by the majority’s pity or favour. For any minority, this tonality matters and shows up in ineffable ways in the brightness of lights, in the confidence of public presence, unabashedly as a minority and as citizens at the same time. As if to underline this very element of confident inheritance of the 1971 War legacy, the tallest Durga idol this time was at Noakhali, a name etched deep in Bengali Hindu memory as the site of their widespread massacre in 1946, starting on the Kojagori Lakshmi Pujo day. That Noakhali boasts the tallest Durga idol in 2016, standing at 71 feet and representing the year of Bangladeshi independence, is charged with deep symbolism.

It is this public presence, not as the exotic but as the banal, which every minority group craves

However, such symbolism doesn’t take away the fact that every year, there also happens what can only be called a large-scale pre-Pujo annual Durga idol desecration festival involving idol destruction and vandalism late at night by “unknown miscreants” with threat-letters being left warning against “idol worship”, quoting Quranic verses. This year, such attacks and desecrations happened in more than 30 sites, including those in Gaibandha, Tangail, Habiganj, Mymensingh, Thakurgaon, Patuakhali, Gazipur, Fulbaria, Jamalpur and elsewhere. This year, Hindu and Muslim youth have come together to form idol protection vigilante units in nearly every Pujo in Jessore district. Rarely are such “unknown miscreants” ever brought to justice - thus promoting a culture of impunity. The “unknown miscreant” description also helps maintain the government and public narrative claiming that the culture of the land is essentially non-communal. The ‘Durga Pujo’ has also been the site of minority protest. After the large-scale attacks on Hindus by BNP-Jamaat allied forces in 2001, many ‘Durga Pujos’ took place with the idol replaced by a ghot (earthen pot). The police directive calling for stopping of all Pujo-related drum-beating and music during Namaz and Azan times (thus signifying hierarchy of religions), stipulating that there be no music during the immersion procession as well as banning of all fireworks, all adds to a sense of discrimination .This year there have been demands for three holidays for ‘Durga Pujo’ instead of the one day ‘Bijoya Doshomi’ at present.

The ‘Durga Pujo’ days are a high-priority law and order headache for the police and paramilitary forces, who do cast a very wide security net during the festival days, covering almost every Pujo site through patrolling, CCTVs, sniffer dogs and bomb disposal squads. Pujo pavilions are classified according to threat perception and security resources are distributed accordingly. Of the 226 ‘Durga Pujos’ in Dhaka city, 88 have been prioritised for security.

Like in West Bengal, Durga Pujos also see political and government patronage in terms of political functionaries visiting the Pujos, extending grants in cash or kind and other assistance to the Pujos and locally influential people - including some Bengali Muslims - becoming the presidents of various Pujo committees.

Pujo-special advertisements are ubiquitous in media and on the streets. Some TV channels provide a live telecast from key Pujo pavilions as well as special Pujo-specific programmes. Posh hotels and restaurants have lavish Pujo-special meal deals; fashion houses bring out Pujo-themed apparel collections. Street-food stalls shoot up in numbers. In some localities, traffic goes haywire. It is this public presence, not as the exotic but as the banal, which every minority group craves. The trans-communal element of ‘Durga Pujo’ celebrations is borne out by the mixed nature of crowds thronging the pavilions. However, that element is on a retreat with specific calls to not attend an “idolatrous” festival. Professor Swadhin Sen of Jahangirnagar University opines: “The global and regional rise of religious extremism, both within the ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ religious groups should be identified as cause and effect of the gradual contraction of space for social and religious dialogue among the communities”. And yet the ‘Mother Goddess’ offers a possibility for expanding that space when Dhaka-based graphic artist Mita Mehedi draws Ma Durga with her lion replaced by the Royal Bengal and defending Bengal’s Sundarbans against the controversial Indo-Bangladesh thermal power project at Rampal. That striking image, shared widely by Hindus and Muslims alike, imagines ‘Ma Durga’, more than anything else, as a protective Bengali mother.

Garga Chatterjee is a Kolkata-based commentator on South Asian politics and culture. He received his PhD from Harvard and is a member of faculty at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He blogs at hajarduari.wordpress.com