Beyond Durga Puja: How Bengal Is Embracing India’s Diverse Festivals and Redefining Cultural Identity:Parag Biswas

There was a time when Bengali characters speaking Hindi with a distinct regional accent, often in exaggerated comic fashion, were almost a staple of Hindi film screenplays.

From the memorable comic sequence in the 1967 blockbuster Chandan Ka Palna, featuring screen icons Dharmendra and Mehmood, to the hugely popular 2007 comedy Dhamaal, stereotypical depictions of Bengalis as comic characters have featured prominently in Bollywood’s comedic repertoire for decades.

The trend was not confined to comedy alone. Several celebrated Bengali actors who carved a niche for themselves in Bollywood, including Utpal Dutt and Rakhee Gulzar, were known for their distinctive Hindi dialogue delivery, coloured by the unique and endearing cadences of their native Bengali tongue.

But times have changed dramatically. Over the past five decades, the substantial influx of Hindi-speaking people into Bengal, coupled with the growing exposure to Hindi and other regional languages through television, the internet, and OTT platforms, has transformed the state's linguistic and cultural landscape.

Today, the average Bengali is far more conversant with Hindi, often speaking it with considerable fluency. Beyond language, this growing cultural interaction has also encouraged the assimilation of diverse customs, traditions, and cultural influences from different ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities into the already vibrant cultural fabric of Bengal.

Take the case of Chhath Puja. The festival has grown immensely popular in Bengal over the past few decades primarily due to large-scale migration for employment, of generations of workers, traders, and families from the Gangetic plains of Bihar, Jharkhand, and eastern Uttar Pradesh into urban, industrial and business centers like Kolkata, Asansol, Durgapur, Siliguri and the Hooghly-Howrah belt.

The presence of the sacred Hooghly river and numerous ponds made it easier for the migrants to preserve their core cultural and religious traditions, which they had brought with them, as they could perform riverside rituals—such as Arghya to the setting and rising sun—just as they did back home.

Over time, the local Bengali residents joined in the festive atmosphere, turning the festival into a prominent multi-community event in Bengal, and what had started as a regional folk tradition, expanded into a public spectacle as local neighborhoods, community clubs, and state authorities as well as local bodies began setting up artificial water bodies, special lighting and security, and made dedicated ghat arrangements.

Soon, the most major festival of the Hindi heartland became one of the most popular festivals of Bengal and almost every Bengali celebrates the festival today as if it is their own folk tradition.

Another festival – Karwa Chauth – which is primarily celebrated across northern and western India, is also steadily gaining currency in Bengal.

The festival in which married Hindu women, and sometimes even unmarried women, observe a strict fast from sunrise to moonrise, praying for the longevity, safety, and well-being of their husbands or fiancé, has been growing in popularity among the Bengalis in Bengal, particularly in Kolkata and other urban areas of the state.

The popularity of the festival in the state is largely attributable to Bollywood media and to the Hindi-speaking communities, such as Marwaris, Punjabis and Gujaratis, whose presence in the state is rooted in historical, economic, and colonial developments that turned Bengal into a major commercial and urban hub during the British colonial era.

Though traditional Bengali culture does not center on wife-to-husband fasting, younger generations and urban households are increasingly adopting Karwa Chauth as a modern celebration of couple bonding mainly inspired by their Marwari, Punjabi or Gujarati friends and neighbours and by the Hindi cinema, OTT series and television serials, which have transformed Karwa Chauth into a widely recognized symbol of post-marriage romance and devotion.

Looking at the craze for the festival among the urban Bengalis, local markets, jewelry stores, beauty parlours, and event planners are hosting specialized mehendi sessions, “Sargi” meets, and candlelight dinner packages these days as part of the traditionally popular pre-Karwa Chauth social gathering like in the western and northern states of India.

As in the case of Chhath and Karwa Chauth, the visibility of Navratri, which is again a festival primarily of west and north India, has also shot up enormously over the past twenty years mainly due to demographic shifts, cultural exchange, and pan-Indian branding.

Though Durga Puja is the most popular festival of Bengal, its western and northern counterpart – the Navratri – is giving a stiff competition to the state’s largest annual socio-cultural and religious festival, which is celebrated during the same lunar period in the Hindu month of Ashwin (Shukla Paksha) as Navratri.

As part of the Navratri celebrations, Ramlila performances, chanting of religious verses, fasting, and the final burning of Ravana’s effigy on Dussehra, which is reminiscent of the Navratri celebrations in the Northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi, are observed and organized with much pomp and gaiety in Bengal today.

Dandiya and Garba nights similar to Garba and Dandiya Raas circle dances in Gujarat and Maharashtra have grown into major commercial and social events across Bengal, not only in the urban hubs like Siliguri, Asansol, Durgapur and Kolkata, where non-Bengalis form a sizeable section of the population, but also in the Bengali-dominated rural and semi-urban areas of the state.

Another festival, which is fast developing into a major commercial and social event across Bengal, is Dhateras.

Owing to aggressive retail marketing, corporate jewelry campaigns, growing cosmopolitan influences, and the adoption of pan-Indian traditions fueled by social media, the festival, which was historically a festival, observed primarily by North and West Indian trading communities residing in Bengal, has over the last two decades, gained rapid popularity among the native Bengalis in the state.

The ever-increasing list of prominent non-Bengali, or pan-Indian festivals, which the Bengali culture has embraced and integrated into its local celebrations through cultural exchange and adaptation over the years is pretty long, but the more recent and most surprising addition to the list is Ganesh Chaturthi.

Though the state does not have a huge population of Marathis, who primarily celebrate the festival during September every year, the festival has become very popular in Bengal over the last two decades mainly due to cultural and media influence.

The popularity of the festival is largely due to the widespread exposure to pan-Indian cultural content as well as to Hindi television, cinema and OTT platforms, which have turned the local Maharashtrian street celebrations during the festival into a high-octane visual spectacle of dance, drama, and mass devotion.

Ganesh Puja, which traditionally used to be a small, localized affair for traders and business owners in Bengal on the Bengali New Year or Akshay Tritiya, is today a major festival of the state during which large public pandals and community celebrations are organized in the urban and semi-urban areas of the state.

The most recent non-Bengali festival, which the people of Bengal have adopted, is Ram Navami, which is traditionally celebrated in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and in Bhadrachalam (Telangana), Vontimitta (Andhra Pradesh), and Rameswaram (Tamil Nadu).

Due to a mix of cultural and media influence and political dynamics, Ram Navami procession in Bengal has evolved from a historically minor festival into a major public spectacle since 2018 and is today the biggest road show event of Bengal.

This growing trend of adopting festivals from other cultures is not only limited to Hinduism.

Christian festivals like Christmas and Valentine’s Day are also immensely popular in Bengal, especially in Kolkata and Siliguri, though they are blended with distinct local cultural traditions.

The association of Kolkata with Christmas dates back to the British era when festive traditions moved from parish halls to public streets, anchored by historic Anglo-Indian enclaves like Bow Barracks and institutions centering around Sir Stuart Hogg Market, which is now known as the New Market.

Bengalis across all communities, who affectionately call the festival, “Boro Din,” meaning “The Big Day,” has embraced Christmas as an inclusive celebration that transcends all religious boundaries.

Even the iconic Hindu institution, Belur Math, which is the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, also marks the occasion with special readings and celebrations, reflecting a broader philosophical embrace of universal harmony.

Unlike Christmas, Valentine’s Day is comparatively a more recent addition to the list of Christian festivals celebrated in Bengal.

The festival may have gained popularity in the state in the past three decades due to a mix of historical social norms, seasonal romance, and modern commercial shifts, but it has given its local cultural counterpart, Saraswati Puja (Vasant Panchami) a run for its money.

The openness of Bengalis to adopting and embracing both material and non-material elements from other cultures is not only limited to festivals.

Bengali cuisine, which has evolved over centuries by absorbing and adapting culinary traditions from the Mughal, Portuguese, British, Chinese, and Tibetan cultures, has more recently adopted dishes like Dhokla from Gujarat, Thukpa from Tibet, Sel Roti from Nepal, Litti Chokha from Bihar, Chilla from North India and Idli, Dosa and Sambar from South India.

Dresses such as Ghargra Choli of Rajasthan and Mekhela Sador of Assam are also increasingly becoming popular among the woman folk in the state, while Gamucha of Assam and Khada of Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh, are rapidly replacing the traditional Bengali Uttariya as a ceremonial scarf used for felicitation, greetings, and honouring guests during both private and public programmes.

Many localized, regional, or indigenous deities whose mythologies are tied fundamentally to the local geography, history, and folklore of different parts of Rajasthan such as Khatu Shyam of Khatu in Sikar district and Rani Sati of Jhunjhunu in Jhunjhunu district have also become very popular in Bengal and many temples of these deities have also been built in the state over the past thirty years.

The extraordinary openness of Bengalis to adopting, adapting, and synthesizing external influences is, however, nothing new. It stems from a historical baseline of secular, syncretic, and inclusive social values, which is most aptly summarized by the popular Bengali proverb, “Baro Mase Tero Parbon,” which when translated to English means “Thirteen festivals in twelve 12 months.”

The region has historically been a global melting pot defined by its unique propensity to consistently absorb outside ideas and reshape them into a unique identity.

Rather than resisting incoming cultures, medieval Bengal had always been engaged in a profound synthesis of indigenous traditions and cosmopolitan influences. And now, instead of viewing external traditions as a threat, the modern Bengali society reinterprets them through a communal, celebratory lens, prioritizing celebration over strict dogma.

While commenting on Bengal’s pioneering role as the intellectual, cultural, and political vanguard of the Indian independence movement during the British Raj, Gopal Krishna Gokhale had said, “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.”

In an era marked by growing animosity and divisive tendencies across our nation, Ghokhale’s remark raises the hope that the rest of the country will very soon emulate the example that Bengal has set by anchoring its identity in a shared humanism that transcends political and social frictions.

E.O.M