Kumortuli Sarbojanin, which started in 1933, deserves special mention for introducing stylistic changes in modelling in 1935. It is perhaps fitting that such changes were scripted in the backyard of Bengal’s best-known hub of image-makers.

After holding the puja for two years, the organisers came to Kurnortuli’s most famous son, Gopeshwar Pal, with requests to supervise the making of the goddess. Gopeshwar had then returned after completing a sculpture course in Italy. He decided to do away with the ekchala (single-frame) image and separate the quintet. Nor would he have the figures standing still. He wanted to capture the action involved in the Mahishasura myth. So he designed a battle-hungry Durga, her trident raised to pierce the demon, as it was chased by the lion. Faced with such an unheard-of scheme, Jagadish Pal, the sculptor, quit, feigning illness. So Gopeshwar modelled the image himself. Mahishasura now had rippling muscles to accentuate the glory of Durga’s victory over him. The pundits were furious at the break with tradition and the priests initially refused to worship the image. Yet this found favour with people and the style caught on.

Freedom cry

During this time, the freedom movement had reached its peak and Calcutta, in common with the rest of Bengal, was buzzing with terrorist plots and nationalist protests. The biggest contemporary religious event too was sucked into patriotic programmes and used as a front for the meeting and training of freedom-fighters.

The birashtami ritual, performed on Ashtami, was the perfect occasion for such activities. From the morning, young men would involve themselves in rigorous contests of stick play, dagger work, martial arts, wrestling and boxing, under the very eyes of the British, but under the guise of religious rites.

The Simla Byayam Samiti puja was started in 1926 and dedicated to the freedom movement by the founder of the Samiti, Atindranath Basu. The names involved with the puja— Saratchandra Basu, Bhupendranath Dutta (Swami Vivekananda ‘s brother), Upendranath Bandyopadhyay, Kiron Mukherjee—belong to front-ranking freedom-fighters. The Samiti held pageants showcasing key chapters of the freedom struggle like the Battle of Plassey and the uprising of 1857. Exhortations to rise and rebel written on red cotton fabric dotted the puja premises. The 1939 edition of the festival was inaugurated by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who was then also the president of the Indian National Congress. Nitai Pal’s image that year was special—Durga towering at 21 feet and the hitherto ekchala image separated into five frames.

Netaji was also involved with a number of pujas like Kumortuli Sarbojanin and Bagbazar Sarbojanin (being the secretary of both in 1938 and 1939). The Bagbazar puja was known for its elaborate birashtami celebration. During the Non-Cooperation movement against the British, arrests became widespread and the Simla Byayam Samiti puja was suspended from 1932 to 1935.

Pandals around Bengal were brimming with patriotic fervour, so much so that Durga herself took on a new avatar—Bharatmata (Mother India). Novelist Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, who gave the nation its battle cry Vande Matarain, had already depicted this incarnation of the goddess in the nineteenth century, giving the religion of patriotism a deity to invoke and worship, irrespective of the devotee’s caste or creed. The mood is best brought out in his novel Ananda Math, where the three faces of the Mother Goddess reflect the nation’s golden past, its dark and dominated present and a glorious future towards which his countrymen will have to work. A similar, semi-mystic vision is conveyed in one of the sections of his series Kamalakanta, called Amar Durgotsab (My Durga Festival).

The description struck a resonant chord in every community Here at last was a unifying icon. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose used the image in his parting message to his countrymen dated March 2, 1933, before leaving the country:

“One of the dreams that have inspired me... is that of a great and undivided Bengal devoted to the service of India and humanity—a Bengal that is . . . the home alike of the Moslem, the Hindu, the Christian and the Buddhist. It is this Bengal that I worship.” The title of the address was “Vision of ‘Bharatmata’ As She Is Destined To Be."

The vision also inspired organisers of pujas. The writer, Sunil Ganguly, recalls a puja in his childhood in Faridpur (now in Bangladesh). Netaji, who had been put under house arrest by the British, had escaped to Europe in 1941, and people believed him to be the messiah who would come back to free the country from the shackles of the Raj. Ganguly’s uncles, then in college, were among those who were keeping faith. The artisan that year was given special instructions about the idol and the image was crafted in secret. On Panchami (Day V), when the veil of secrecy was lifted, the crowd let out a gasp of disbelief. At Durga’s feet lay a sahib in military gear—khaki uniform, spiked boots, rifle slung over the shoulder. The Devi, flashing fury from her three eyes, had clutched a tuft of auburn hair. Her mount, the rampant lion, was tearing at his abdomen. Close by, in place of Kartik and Ganesh, stood Subhas Chandra Bose, in dhoti-Punjabi and khaddar cap, an unsheathed sword in his hand.

The word spread, and the atchala (eight-pillared hall without walls) was soon brimming with villagers from afar. In place of the customary “Durga ma ki jai” (Victory to Goddess Durga), a spontaneous chorus arose in Subhas Bose’s name. But this puja, remembers Ganguly, was short- lived. Three days later, on Ashtami, two big boats full of policemen docked at the village ghat. Though the inspector was a Bengali Hindu, he had come as a representative of the British government. The organisers faced threats and reprimands for this “anti-government prank”. The Second World War was then raging and the penalty for opposing the government in those times was imprisonment without trial. Ganguly fails to recall if any arrests were made but the puja was stopped, the image was seized and the village had to make do with worshipping just the symbolic ghot.

The Bharatmata association took Durga Puja right into prisons sheltering freedom-fighters of Bengal. The Rajshahi Jail (now in Bangladesh) hosted the Devi for some years at the initiative of the inmates. Bhupendranath Dutta writes of an autumn around 1915-16. It was argued that the government had no right to interfere with the religious freedom of prisoners jailed without trial. The chief secretary to the Bengal government, Sir Hugh Stephenson, granted permission to host the puja in association with the jail staffers and sanctioned an amount. A pandal was set up right outside the prison gate. Many dignitaries of the city, including the jail superintendent, paid a visit to the puja. By arrangement with the jailor, the state prisoners were allowed to go out and receive guests. On Ashtami, the patriots treated about 1,200 fellow inmates to luchi and sweets. Jogeshchandra Chattopadhyay recalls how at the same jail, in 1918, a white goat was sacrificed to the Devi. The significance of the sacrifice lay in the colour of the goat skin, as the British were largely referred to as “Whites”.

The newspaper forward mentions how Netaji managed to wrest permission from the government to hold Durga Puja after a hunger-strike at Mandalay Jail in Burma. At Hijli Jail, women patriots in the freedom movement like Santi Das, Banalata Dasgupta, Indusudha Ghosh and Bina Das also invoked the Mother. Rabindranath Tagore’s drama, Tapati, was staged to celebrate the occasion. A unique puja was organised in 1906 by Anushilan Samiti, an organisation committed to militant nationalism, at its office at 39, Cornwallis Street in north Calcutta. In place of clay images, there was a cache of arms—spears, swords, daggers, falchions and sticks. The priest was brought over from Maharashtra and eminent names on the British “wanted” list, such as Sri Aurobindo, Bagha Jatin and Jatindramnohan Thakur, attended the puja.

When the country achieved Independence in 1947, jubilation swept the puja pandals as well—patriotic songs were played on loudspeakers, portraits of freedom-fighters lined the pandal walls... The Devi could now openly be worshipped as Bharatmata, proud Tricolour in hand. Writer Kabita Sinha recalls how in one puja, organised by women, Aparna Debi, daughter of freedom-fighter Chittaranjan Das, sang Vande Mataram at the cultural programmes organised every evening. A guessing game was held with a participation fee pegged at 10 paise. The proceeds went to buy bedding materials and clothes for the revolutionary, Ullaskar Dutta, who had just returned as a penniless man from the Andaman Islands where he had been serving a life term.

Puja in times of peril

Durga Puja has always been associated with service to society. During the Great Famine of 1943 the festivities were completely wiped out by the dance of death and devastation that overtook Bengal. With the food-grain crisis at its peak, the hungry hordes crying on the streets and entire families succumbing to starvation, it was unseemly to indulge in entertainment. Organisers of most pujas shunned excesses and took to serving the unfed. No communal distinction was made as Hindus and Muslims queued up together for prasad at pandals, with bowl in hand and hunger in starved eyes. The Hindusthan Standard dated October 19, 1943, reported a touching tale from Adamdighi in Bagura district (now in Bangladesh). A Muslim boy’s body had been found floating in a pond. He was going to the puja in the neighbouring village with his elder brother, in search of prasaad but fell exhausted by the wayside. His brother pushed his body into a pond and carried on with his quest for a mouthful.

Fifty years later, when an earthquake rocked Maharashtra on the eve of the Pujas in 1993, the Mohammed All Park puja committee decided to raise an extra Rs 50,000 for the earthquake victims. Bagbazar Sarbojanin set up a collection box in front of the pandal for donations from visitors which they would deposit in the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. Ekdalia Evergreen Sarbojanin promised to cut down the budget for immersion and cultural programmes. The bhog on Ashtami at the Sealdah Athletic Club was also less elaborate. Yet the cry of the quake-hit did not mar the Rs.4-lakh silver jubilee celebrations at Mohammed Au Park, or dim the lights at Evergreen or stop the giant wheels at the puja fair in Bagbazar.’9 The will to carry on, come what may, has become associated with this festival that serves as a much-awaited release from a stressful routine of work.

If the earthquake in 1993 took place some 2,000 km away in Maharashtra, disaster, in the form of flood fury, had hit closer home in 1978. Twelve districts of Bengal had been inundated, washing away crops and cattle, and triggering an outbreak of cholera. There were some organisers who dispensed with expenditure on lights, microphone and even images, performing a minimalist ghot puja instead. But almost all the pujas in the city were held as scheduled and, even in the districts, where the flood waters had not receded, Durga was installed on raised platforms.

And if the organisers were contributing generously, individuals were also pitching in. The “Kolkatar Korcha” section of Anandabazar Patrika on October 17, 1978, reported one such instance. People had queued up at a collection centre set up by a non-governmental organisation, donating cash and receiving receipts. Among them was a 93-year-old man, a namabali (a plain cotton cloth carrying god’s name in print) wrapped around his infirm body. He was carrying a few dhotis and saris and had the look of a priest. When his turn came, the old man deposited the clothes and brought out some money from his waistband. “Take these. This is all that I have earned this Puja,” he murmured. Overwhelmed at the gesture, the youth at time counter left his chair and touched the old man’s feet.

In the shadow of Partition

If Independence unleashed a surge of patriotic euphoria at the pandals, the Partition of Bengal that came with it had different consequences.

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