 Welcome to the INN Cultural Forum. Today we have with us Professor Tapthi Gohatakuta. She is the former director of the Center for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata and she is now a professor of history over there. She is here to talk to us about why the Durga Puja is becoming increasingly politicized. Professor Gohatakuta, you have done a lot of work on this. It's mentioned in your book as well in the name of the goddess that the festival always had political overtones and political patronage. How is it different now? What has changed? Now my book is called In the Name of the Goddess because I felt that so much happens in her name which actually has nothing to do with the mere religiosity of the event or the fact that this is seen as an annual homecoming and worship. So what interested me about the festival and let me briefly begin with that before I go on to thinking about its political life and it's had a quite a powerful political life. My interest in it was that there was so much about this that in a way transcended the religious event. The Durga is the goddess. What is it that makes a religious event a larger social cultural and artistic phenomenon was my point of entry. So in this book itself I was not pursuing so much the political life of the festival. In a way that was you could say a background theme because the time in which I studied I wanted to think about the contemporaneity of the festival and how it was keeping up with changing tastes, artistic tastes, ethnic tastes. So you were making folk art villages and theme parks. Durga puja pandas were becoming like public art installations and corporate sponsors were coming in, awards were coming in. The puja was taking on a corporate commercial profile, so much advertising around it. In every sense it spoke to its times and it was as a corporate commercial non-religious cultural phenomenon that I as an art historian got interested in it and I was interested in what does it do to the category of art and craft, what kind of spectatorship does it draw on. It is an art event and yet it is unlike anything that happens in a gallery or a museum. So those were the interests with which I worked on the book. Since the book I have been looking much more on the Trinamo's deep investment in this, not this one puja but in pujas in general but particularly Mamuta's use of Durga puja almost as a way of defining a style of governance. So she runs the state like committees run the puja, you know, so that her entire style of politics is about setting up pandas, lights, distribution, largesse, a public shop but pujas would do it, you would distribute things. Chief Minister sends her greetings for Eid, Durga puja, Deepavali, Chhat puja, the lot. Rakhi. So all festivals but Durga puja most. So the big sharp transformation was how the state got more and more so it was wasn't the party, the party became the state. So since 2011 into now what we've seen is a steady way in which the Durga pujas in Bengal became almost a state-sponsored event. Was it sort of in reaction to the claims made about her that she is appeasing the Muslims and that did she bend over backwards or did she from the beginning? No. If anything I think one of her ways is and I think this is important to understand she's always said and there I have some sympathy for what she says that the BJP does not understand Bengal. BJP does not understand what the essence of the Durga puja is that you cannot reduce Durga puja to a certain Hindutva view of what the Goddess means for Bengal. So which is why one of her claims is that leave Bengal alone, leave the Durga puja alone. So her you could say almost interception and takeover of the Durga pujas was not in the name of a Hindu religious festival and I will say that with some emphasis it was in the name of Bengal's biggest cultural event. So Durga puja is to her a symbol of Bengoliness and now that's becoming more and more an issue that since the BJP enrolled she wants to refurbish Bengoliness as the platform and a Bengoliness that is religiously inclusive. So the Durga puja one could say has involved the Muslims in many, many ways. The Muslim artisan was part of the making of the Goddess, her ornaments are here. In the traditional household pujas Muslim Darzis were brought in to make the clothes of the Goddess. It was part of a cross caste, cross religious but the inner community of worship was definitely Hindu. The spectatorial community is a cross class caste and religion and she's always said it. Interestingly the Pada committee members have Muslim counsellors. The Mayor of Calcutta is a Muslim, Virhad Hakim. He's also the sponsor of the biggest Durga puja and Kali puja. Has it always been like that the Mayor sponsoring the Mayor promoting? No the state was never so interesting. In fact under the CPM when I talked to the Mayor of Calcutta and they were thinking about and that's my chapter on how do you discipline this event? How do you turn it into a more civic festival thinking about saving the river from idle pollution, saving the trees from being cut off, sound pollution, you know environmental pollution. How do you make blocking of roads bring regulations on it? So this idea of trying to create a more regulated phenomenon less unruly, more disciplined. Your rewards depended on your filling out all that you've cleared fire permission from the fire brigade, from the pollution control board. You did not take leave 10 feet of road space free. It was all important. So that was an interesting. So the state imposed restrictions. The state was seen to be the puja offence committee people often said the state is continuously intervening in a community event. So why should there be so many rules and restrictions? Let all civic rules go. Shubh Ratham Mukherjee said this is a time when other rules don't apply. Festival time is festival time. This was a Mayor of the city saying it. But another Mayor has also said that we look at the Durga puja as a form of disruption in the daily work of running the city. So I think there was the idea of a municipal governance of the event was important. You need police permission for every club puja. You need electricity permission to set up your temporary line. So there was an attempt to for the state to regulate it. But the state was not politically invested in it. And this is the distinction. Mamata began to inaugurate as many as 500 pujas over and she made a political statement out of it. So from 10 days before the puja she began to inaugurate puja with great custom. She began to give direct party donations to the clubs. She started her own state award for the Durga puja. And the latest takeover was she began a immersion day procession which is like the Republic Day parade. Nothing less than that. The Durga's parade and they give the last salute to the Chief Minister. And the fact that she uses the brigade parade ground where the truck saw 75 pujas which have got state awards are paraded and it's meant to be a grand immersion carnival for the foreigners. This is something she's begun in the last three four years. So the state in the name of a party's investment not just in the administrative management but in turning it into a state sponsored event is a phenomenon that has happened under the Trinomul. And that is a transformation which I don't write about. But it's also what I've called a mode of politics where festivals are at the center of it. The festivals are key political conduits for local mobilization. You know we see this happening in many parts of the country now that the attendance in festivals is increasing in a big way and we also find that the attendance is a bit more rowdy and they're allowed to do whatever they want. For example the Kavaryatra in the North. Now over there there's more overt politicization. What is the possibility for Hindutva to actually. So the way in which Momatha's personal and it's really she and she alone we know that it's a one woman populist party but she has a strong sense of the populism of her party. It is a populism which relies on festivity on a different form of mass communication and a different understanding of secularism which is not distancing yourself from the religious but being equally involved with every religious thing. But does their patronage mean that the attendance is increasing the popularity is increasing. Well this is it. You see the Durga puja are being publicized the media the corporate sponsors are all involved in making this what we may think of as a media type and the media is everywhere. See even traditional things like the Sindhu Kala or the Mahalai everything has TV cameras all around it. So the scale the political patronage the publicity the you know already the for six months before the puja your banners begin to appear advertising different club poojas. Now the big change was every club puja previously and that was exciting for it began to carry names of individual artists who designed it suddenly the artist was making a place. Now even if the artist appears it's the political counsellor whose name is most important and what's important everywhere is Didi's face. A Durga puja place is where there's a repetition of Didi's face particularly through the Bishobangala award she gives for the puja. The Bishobangala banners has Durga and Didi looking at each other. Didi now performs the ritual of painting on the eye of the goddess she's artist she brings the goddess to life. So in a way she the goddess cannot exist the goddess is found in her not just her strongest protagonist and protector and champion but almost like a alter ego. So that Durga and Didi the and they are pandas where Durga I mean where Didi appeared next to Durga with 10 hands but that was deeply criticized saying we don't want that for screwed political you know iconography but she's everywhere her face is everywhere in the puja panel. Now till now and this is the story we'll have to see how far the BJP can make an inroad into this because this time many of the clubs one of the ways in which the governor of the state is usually a political has been a political governor including the fact that Bengal now has a new governor. Bringing the governor in is one way of bringing the BJP. There's been talk about whether Amit Shah will come to inaugurate Bengal's pujas and my heart has been sinking a bit hearing that. How far so Didi will use Didi I mean Mamata by the name which is known will use the puja as perhaps the biggest stage for showcasing if one can say her comeback whether it'll happen we don't know but she's trying since May 19 she's been trying to recover grounds she's trying to build a new connect because one of the big criticism was the party ceased to have its gator based connect and that is where the BJP has been steadily building at the rural level less in the city it's gator based it's a different gator based. So there's a different way in which she's trying to read just like literally to say they went and captured panchayat office member after member defected between Omul had been claiming back some of these offices so the how far the BJP believe so the only way they will do it is through the local committees. In a sense did Mamata Banerjee's government open the doors for this rivalry. Absolutely I think you asked a very important question you see the festivalization of politics which is what has happened in Bengal that politics has been one of the prime popular representation of politics is through the clubs organization of year-round festivity and people say Bengal has no industry Bengal has no other livelihoods the festival economy is what is driving beautification statue building pavilion making is what is creating small livelihood through patronage and the replica production that I talked about where the poojas is now happening around the year so we have a big Ben we have a theme park we have world monuments there's round the year demand for statue making and pavilion making that is creating livelihood what happens to these pavilions these statues once oh for Durga pooja they go into recycling economy they travel these are permanent beautification scheme and people are questioning in a state where the economy is founding why so much money going in and I argue that it is providing livelihood and it is a new visual field of populist politics where what you're delivering is not just your karnas tree program where every girl child is getting you're also delivering pleasure the pleasure of recreation beautification and it's not for the elite it's for the masses she set up her own wax museum her own theme park now where the BJP will come in now the BJP's inroads in the villages is very very strong in the city which because Mamata still controls the information in publicity it's still her face everywhere yes the Amit Shah and the other posters come in so we'll have to wait and see it'll be the first post 2019 the first Durga pooja is what I'm no longer working on it but I'm waiting and watching to see how it'll unfold so far I think the club will hold its grounds that's where the fights will also happen but we know that some of the things some of the controversies that the BJP brought that around a cartoon that showed Durga and her children treating themselves to a beauty treatment Javed Habib's parlor they said that was desacralizing nothing desacralizes Durga Durga's use for alcohol advertisements for computers so Bengalis have a very different take so this idea of the humanization of Durga making her one of us so a plywood company can say let the joint family remain intact and they use Durga there implying that the strength of things comes so Durga is used by for a world cup as I show here the world cup stars can go up and nobody considers this is desacralizing Durga would money power make the distinction between well what the BJP this so the Javed Habib thing fell flat and I once said that Durga put up a banner saying not in my name okay can we chicken roll during Durga Pooja of course there's no culture of vegetarianism associated with Durga Pooja so there were things that a lot of the North India initial did not understand so that really all the anti-Trinomal vote and there was a lot of hate because of this personalized style of politics those who hated the Trinomal and that includes from the wealthy middle class to the poorest of the poor turn their votes so the voting pattern is not something it befuddles me what has happened but people have voted on mass for this for the BJP which is what has created not just an increase in vote share but in actual seats but how far the BJP will be able to mobilize the Pooja for instance they tried to bring about these threshold marches during Ram Navami during the thing and they've clamped on we never heard it so much as we heard it during the selection campaign that she's appeasing the Muslims so one story of the basement was that over several years because the second Eid which this year is happening in August in the last two years happened during September and October so they were often within two or three days of Durga Pooja and the immersion so she made it a point that on the day of Muharram which they bring out their own processions there will be no immersion that day if necessary you will push so this became a way of that why should immersion stop because of one religious communities secondly the BJP wanted to compete with Muharram with their own procession with arms after all it's a day of victory in battle the day of Durga Pooja so Ram features in the Durga Pooja story only obliquely in the sense that the new timing of the Durga Pooja is associated with Ram's battle with Ravan and he invokes Durga and Durga appears so they said there's no tradition of any arms march so she clamped down on all of it there was also a talk of bringing GST on some of the big puja committees and she said they're trying to destroy the central government is trying to destroy Bengal's puja so that has been one of the things they want to stop puja they want to throttle Bengal that has been her rhetoric that every time they're trying to grasp the puja bring new regulations it's a way of you know taking away from Bengal and Trinamul today is the biggest rip since it's a party which has no other following so Bengaliness means Trinamul is the flag holder of Bengaliness and Bengaliness here you must say is not the national register of citizens Bengal it is a Bengal that includes the Muslims and she actually that's the one thing she said that I you can call it appeasement but I'm 100% with the Muslims and I'm 100% against NRC and I said she at least has said it right because any day what has happened to to Kashmir can happen in Bengal because the law and order problem is such any day presidents rule can be declared they may not do it they may wait till the assembly elections of 2021 so how far I feel I mean my political is it 50 50 I will not know this so Sagarika Ghosh had once just interviewed me while she was actually doing the election trail that whose which is more important Jai Sri Ram or Jai Maa Kali and Amartya Sen has said that Jai Sri Ram is not something that Bengali Sen actually right Ram is there but Ram is not prominent so Jai Maa and Jai Maa Durga is not a slogan Jai Maa Kali is not a slogan right so you don't say it so there was a lot of talk to say that what is being politically imposed is a particular form of religiosity that is alien to Bengal's way and Bengali celebrate culture in a much more fluid open and if we can use the term secular way if we can use the secular is now a denigrative term now Mamata has held on to all of that now she came under flak you asked the question did she lead the way because for a lot of the critiques of her style of politics will say that look the day you have allowed festivals religious and otherwise to take over the politics of the state you also opened out a competitive ground for the political where the BJP has the same investments in the same cultural icon so take a figure like Vivekananda they're fighting over his festival take a figure like now Tagore they hate so Tagore belongs to Trinamul and Bengal because Tagore said a few things against nationalism look at the way she took on the Biddha Sagar symbol right the smashing of the bust was the worst thing the BJP could have done and I think the fact that they didn't lose that Trinamul was able to regain a lot they say is directly tied to this vandalization so she is into using cultural icons in a very big way and Vivekananda is not a Hindu icon if anything he's a reformist figure so there are icons over whom there are battles I mean over the series of them and she what I'm interested in is interested in icons across the spectrum from Ram Mohan and so she's put up this thing of all the Bengali icons which has Nazrul in it it has Khudira minute it has many people in it all right thank you very much okay thank you for staying with us