Mamata Banerjee plays Puja card to deflect attention from corruption charges against Trinamool leaders

It only tightens the shackles of religion by which she has bound her own politics.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leads a rally thanking the UNESCO for its inclusion of the Durga Puja festival in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in Kolkata on September 1. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s announcement of a Rs.258-crore grant to clubs organising Durga Puja festivities has once again exposed the Trinamool Congress’s propensity to play the religion card and flirt with a softer form of “majoritarianism” in an attempt to counter the BJP’s hardline Hindutva stand. The decision has raised eyebrows especially as it comes at a time when the State exchequer is depleted, infrastructure cries out for repair, and development seems to be in the doldrums. The decision raised the hackles of opposition parties and disappointed a sizeable section of Muslims who have reposed their faith in the Trinamool in successive elections.

On August 22, even as the Trinamool was reeling on the ropes following the arrest of two of its most influential leaders, former Minister Partha Chatterjee and party heavyweight Anubrata Mandal, by Central investigating agencies, Mamata Banerjee announced that each of the 43,000 registered clubs in the State would get Rs.60,000 to organise Durga Puja. She said: “This time Puja is special…. For the world’s greatest Ma Durga, I am increasing the concession to electricity tariff from 50 per cent to 60 per cent. You do not have to pay money for the fire brigade, and there is no advertisement tax. Our exchequer is empty. I hope Ma Durga will fill it. But in spite of all my problems, I am increasing the grant [to each club] from 50,000 [previous year’s grant] to 60,000. I have asked the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation and the police to create boards to glorify Durga Puja.” She emphasised Bengal’s cash-strapped situation: “Centre is not giving me money. There is no money for 100 days’ work.” But, she insisted, “the puja has to be done well”. She ended her announcement with Sanskrit prayers.

Criticism from politicians, academics

The BJP’s national vice president and Lok Sabha member Dilip Ghosh alleged that it was a move to divert attention from corruption charges against Trinamool leaders. “Everybody will be happy after the Pujas and will forget about the scams…. Let those who are looting continue to loot…. Organise festivals and keep the Bengali population happy,” he said.

Mamata Banerjee presents a dokra image of Durga to the UNESCO’s Tim Curtis (centre) and Eric Salt (extreme right) on September 1. BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and State Urban Development Minister Firad Hakim are also present. | Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri

West Bengal Pradesh Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is also leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, said Mamata Banerjee was playing “cloned Hindutva” to counter the BJP’s “rustic Hindutva”. “Durga Puja was celebrated with great fanfare long before Mamata Banerjee was born. Durga Puja is not just a religious event for Bengalis around the world, it is a cultural expression. Mamata Banerjee wants to use this for election purposes. As a result, it is going out of the hands of the people themselves…. The main objective of both the Trinamool and the BJP is political dividend using religion. Bengal was never known for communal or caste politics, but today we are witnessing communal politics here, and in the days to come we will also see caste politics,” he told Frontline.

Senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sujan Chakraborty pointed out that the Puja grant, in addition to concessions in electricity charges and waiver of fire brigade charges, would cost the exchequer around Rs.500 crore. “At a time when DA [dearness allowance] is not being given, appointments are being deferred, and you are not able to pay for development programmes, education or the Swastha Sathi [State government’s health insurance scheme], you are doing this at the cost of the interest of the State,” he said.

Idols of the goddess Durga and her four “children” take shape at a workshop in Nadia district in preparation for the upcoming festival. Photograph taken on August 6. | Photo Credit: PTI

The political analyst and academic Surajit C. Mukhopadhyay felt the government had no business dabbling in religion. “Why not spend the money on education or making the midday meal more attractive or enhance the health infrastructure? But this has served to divert the attention of people from the ongoing travails of the party—corruption charges and arrest of top leaders,” he told Frontline.

Proliferation of clubs

Every year, as the State gets apparently poorer, the Durga Puja grant seems to grow while the festivities get more lavish and prolonged. The practice of government funding for puja committees started in 2018. That year the government spent Rs 28.crore, giving Rs.10,000 each to 28,000 clubs. Following the Trinamool’s lacklustre performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election (the BJP won 18 of the 42 seats), the Puja grant more than doubled as the government dished out Rs.70 crore, giving each club Rs.25,000. Three years later, the grant has gone up to Rs.60,000, and the number of clubs has increased by around 15,000.

A community Durga Puja pandal themed on the schemes of Mamata Banerjee’s government, in Kolkata in October 2021. | Photo Credit: PTI

Countering BJP challenge

Mamata Banerjee left little doubt that the move was aimed at refuting the BJP’s standard criticism of the Trinamool appeasing the minority community at the cost of Hindu sentiment. “Kolkata does not hold Durga Puja [they say]; people are not allowed to do Saraswati Puja [they say]. But nowhere in the whole world is Durga Puja celebrated the way it is in Kolkata,” she said. This year’s festivities, she announced, will begin on  September 1, one whole month before the actual commencement of Durga Puja, to celebrate the inclusion of the festival in UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity last year. “We will do a rally to welcome Mother and inspire your clubs to perform. In the rally we will thank UNESCO, whose representatives will be there. Similar rallies will be taken out in every district in the State. I have given the district magistrates and the SPs instructions to organise them,” Mamata Banerjee said. She also announced a holiday for State government employees from September 30 to October 10.

Muslim dilemma

Whether or not her move took the sting out of the BJP’s repeated allegations of minority appeasement, it certainly caused discomfort among Muslims. Mohammad Quamaruzzaman, influential Muslim leader and chairman of the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation (ABMYF), called it “real” appeasement of the majority. “The unfortunate thing is that political parties which project themselves as secular are today appeasing the majority. All of them are now ignoring the minority as they believe that in order to take on the radical Hindutva of the BJP they will have to indulge in Hindu appeasement. They will deprive the clerics, take over Wakf property to carry out government work, but will use government money to keep Hindus happy. They want to show that they are not lagging behind the BJP in any way,” he told Frontline.

Mamata Banerjee inaugurating a puja in Kolkata in October 2021. | Photo Credit: PTI

Nawsad Siddiqui, MLA and younger brother of influential cleric Abbas Siddiqui, founder the Indian Secular Front, feels that such moves lead to misunderstandings. “Instead of giving money for any religious event, if the government had spent it on development, then people from all religions would have benefited,” he told Frontline. Like other opposition leaders, Nawsad also feels that grants to clubs are meant to divert attention from allegations of corruption. “The entire Trinamool is covered in ugly sores from corruption. This is nothing more than an attempt to hide them,” he said.

The eminent psephologist and political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty feels that  Muslims in Bengal are caught in a “vicious cycle”. “At present, whether they like it or not they will have to put up with Mamata Banerjee, as the other alternative is the BJP coming to power in Bengal; so even if they do not agree with many of the things her government is doing, they cannot go against the Trinamool,” he said.

Religion Card

In 2018, Quamaruzzaman’s organisation led a protest against the government’s announcement of a grant for Puja committees. “If the anti-BJP parties were stronger in their opposition to such politics, then minority organisers like us would have had the courage to hit the streets in protest.” he said.

Playing the religion card is not new to Mamata Banerjee. Right from the time she first became Chief Minister in 2011, religion, which had never been a major political issue in West Bengal, took centre stage. In her initial years, she was often seen sharing the dais with Muslim religious leaders and allowing them to dictate terms to her and intervene in political matters, all with an eye on the Muslim vote. In 2012, she announced a monthly honorarium to imams and a stipend to muezzins. The Calcutta High Court struck down the decision as “unconstitutional”; subsequently, the payments were made through the Wakf Board. In 2016 and 2017, the Chief Minister ordered postponement of the immersion of the Durga idol as the dates coincided with Muharram. The move drew severe criticism from the Calcutta High Court.

With the Trinamool thus exposing itself to allegations of “minority appeasement,” the BJP found its vote share increasing, with little effort of its own, from 6 per cent to 18 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and then to 40.25 per cent in the 2019 election. Mamata Banerjee tried to meet the challenge by pampering her Hindu support base. She countered the Sangh Parivar’s rallies on Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti with similar rallies of her own. All this only served to plant religion firmly in the centre of Bengal politics and encouraged greater polarisation along religious lines. In September 2020, with the Assembly election looming ahead and the BJP breathing down her neck, Mamata Banerjee announced that her government would pay Hindu priests an honorarium of Rs.1,000 a month and build houses under the Bangla Avaash Yojana for those without their own house.

She returned to power with a massive majority in 2021. Yet, the narrative in Bengal politics may well have changed irreversibly. Strong as her position may appear, it is clear that Mamata Banerjee cannot escape the shackles of religion by which she has bound her own politics.

The Crux

• Mamata Banerjee announces Rs.258 crore grant for Durga Puja organisers in West Bengal.
• Rs.60,000 each for 43,000 registered clubs.
• This year the Durga Puja festivities start on September 1, the Chief Minister announces.
• She kicks off the festivities with a rally to celebrate the UNESCO’s inclusion of the Durga Puja in its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
• It’s all a ploy to divert attention from corruption, says the opposition.
• The Trinamool Congress’s Muslim voter base feels let down by this display of what it sees as pandering to majoritarian sentiment.