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In My View

Durga Puja then and now: A shocking transformation

Published : Friday, 14 October, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 762
Syed Badiuzzaman
There was a time when Durga Puja, the greatest religious festival of the people belonging to the Hindu faith used to come to what was then East Pakistan with great joy. The festival was celebrated each year in a grand manner renewing friendship and fraternity among all people regardless of their religion.

General Ayub Khan was then the president of Pakistan. During that time a small minority of Hindus used to live in West Pakistan while East Pakistan was home to a sizeable Hindu population. The members of the Hindu community used to celebrate their greatest religious festival without any worry and there was no report of any trouble from anywhere of East Pakistan.

I was then a high school student in an up-and-coming neighborhood of Chapai Nawabganj in what is now Bangladesh. In those years between 1962 and 1967, we used to wait impatiently for the arrival of the puja because no other religious festival would bring so much jubilation and merriment in the area among people of all faiths. The Muslims, Buddhists and Christians used to mingle with the Hindus and become a one big community to celebrate Durga Puja.  

And it had been a long tradition of our neighborhood like many other places across East Pakistan. Right before the arrival of the puja, our entire area used to wear a festive look and remain joyful for about a week. The pandals (makeshift worship arrangements with tents) for Durga Puja were set up in several places in the neighborhood and no pandal was too far for us even though some were a little bit far away. As soon as the last bell of our school rang, we rushed to the puja pandals surrounded by a fair-like atmosphere for having a good time with friends and others of the locality.

Coming to the pandals straight from our school became our daily routine right from the sixth day (Maha Shashti)of the festival to the 10th or the final day. During my high school days, I had a large group of friends belonging to all faiths - Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and of course Islam. We used to enjoy chatting together at local tea stalls especially during the evening time. But with the start of the Durga Puja festival each year in our neighborhood, the venue for our chatting shifted from the tea stalls in the local bazaar to different puja sites.

In the surrounding area of all makeshift worship arrangements or puja pandals, small business owners opened temporary tea stalls and other shops including those of sweets and snacks. So, we had readily available tea and snacks and sweets at various puja sites as well. At our new locations, our conversations used to continue from late afternoon to late into the night. Nothing was off limits for our discussion ranging from the latest release of Pakistani movies to the national politics. But we never discussed religion. We also used to move from one puja site to another in the area.

On the eighth (Maha Ashtami) and ninth day (Maha Navami) of the Durga Puja, the festival would reach its climax drawing the maximum number of people to all puja pandals. But the Vijaya Dashami or the 10th and the final day of the puja would begin on a sad and somber note. Devotees used to come to the pandals with a visible sign of sorrow on their faces to worship their goddess for the one last time and then they used to quietly leave the places. With immersion of the idols in Mahananda River at night, the festival used to come to a close casting a pall of gloom over our entire neighborhood.

At the end of the Durga Puja festival, we used to return to our original place in the local bazaar for our as usual daily chatting with friends. For the first few days after the end of the festival, we all used to feela kind of sadness and then we would gradually overcome that feeling. During those days, while the Durga Puja was the greatest annual religious festival of the Hindus of our country, it blended with the Bengali culture and very much became a part of it. Almost every Bengali regardless of his or her faith used to enjoy this annual festival. And I never heard of any untoward incident -- let alone violence -- during Durga Puja in those days.
But today the situation is very different in Bangladesh. Even though this year's Durga Puja was celebrated by and large peacefully across the country with a record number of over 32,000 pandals nationwide, the tension was there. It was clearly felt not only by Bangladeshis living in the country but also those living abroad as well. Many people of the Hindu community in Bangladesh haven't yet fully recovered from the shock and sadness triggered by widespread violence during last year's Durga Puja causing deaths, destruction and property loss.

During my high school days, I barely noticed any police presence at Durga Puja pandals. There was no arrangement for security either at those makeshift worship places during the festival. The idols used to remain almost completely unguarded during the early hours of the morning. Yet, no one ever touched them. But nowadays Durga Puja is being celebrated under beefed up security measures with heavy police presence both in uniforms and also plainclothes. Closed-circuit television known as CCTV was also installed at many pandals in Bangladesh this year for video surveillance.

Considering last year's violence during the Durga Puja which was the worst of its kind in the nation's history since independence, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had to assure a nervous community of her unwavering support for them. She also had to order the law enforcement agencies to prevent violence at any cost during the festival this year. So, police were deployed at puja pandals across Bangladesh to guard against any kind of untoward incident. But celebration of Durga Puja under tight security using CCTV cameras and deploying police force is not good news. It marks a departure from the spontaneous and traditional celebration of the age-old festival.

Why do Bangladeshi Hindus now need so much security with CCTV cameras and police presence to celebrate their greatest annual religious festival in their own country? Why shouldn't they be able to celebrate the Durga Puja just the way the Muslims celebrate their two annual Eid festivals each year in Bangladesh? Even though Islam is the state religion of Bangladesh, isn't this country a secular nation as per the constitution? Doesn't a secular country allow its citizens regardless of their faith and identity to practice their religion freely without any discrimination or obstructions from any quarter?

Article 12 of Bangladesh Constitution is very explicit on religious freedom and rights of the minority community about practicing their religion without any interference in the country. This constitutional provision prohibits religious discriminations, eliminates inter-religious conflicts and discourages the use of religion in politics. After last year's violence, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressed the members of the Hindu community of Bangladesh with these words: "You are citizens of this country. You enjoy equal rights. You will observe your religion and celebrate your festivals with equal rights. That's what we want. Don't think yourself as a minority."

Bangladesh was founded on the principle secularism which seeks to ensure as well as protect freedom of religion and practice for all citizens -- Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians. In every secular democracy of the world, all citizens are equal before the law. Bangladesh is a secular democracy. So, the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians of Bangladesh have their full freedom to practice their religion and celebrate their festivals peacefully in a traditional manner just as the Muslims have their freedom to do the same. This is the spirit of secularism and it is guaranteed by the Constitution of Bangladesh.
Those who seek violence to disrupt the religious festival of any community and destroy communal harmony in Bangladesh are neither good Muslims nor good citizens of the country. Islam never allows any Muslim to prevent people of other faiths from practicing their religion. As Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said, every Hindu has equal rights in Bangladesh as every Muslim and thus all are allowed to practice their religion freely in this country.
The writer is a Toronto-based
journalist who also writes for the Toronto Sun as a guest columnist







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