By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: People come together on festive occasions getting an opportunity of brushing shoulders with individuals who matter. And this makes Kali Puja in Bengal on Diwali night a significant event in the calendar of these persons who have wielded political power before the country won freedom and thereafter.
Though not considered a martial race by the Mughals and British, some big landlords and freedom fighters from Bengal were a source of perennial trouble to the rulers. Worship of Kali associated with power, death and destruction was a practice popular among the big landlords as well as freedom fighters of this state.
Jasoreshwari, the goddess Kali worshipped by Pratapaditya whose writ ran over Jessore, now in Bangladesh is a case in point. Considered almost invincible by her blessings Pratapaditya defied emperor Akbar and took on his armies till he was betrayed and imprisoned.
Drawing their inspiration from Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Ananda Math and Debi Choudharani where the country is paid homage as mother, freedom fighters too offered their worship to both goddesses Durga and Kali in community pujas. The men along with a few women who took up arms to shatter the shackles of foreign subjugation drew inspiration from the worship of the goddess. ,
And if popular folk lore is anything to go by, these were goddesses who only took the obedience of the mighty. In one of her works of fiction Andhar Manik, Mahasweta Devi contended this when the novel came upon the Durga puja of Bhaskar Pandit, the Maharashtrian Bargee leader whose horsemen marauded Bengal.
The freedom fighters in their thoughts and action bore no resemblance to the marauding hordes on horseback. Unlike the invaders they were not after booty but freedom.
Weapon in hand, be it revolvers in the Verandah Battle at Writers Buildings or Mausers at Buri Balam in Odisha, these revolutionaries were determined to die in freedom struggle. Many of these freedom fighters fought the British with arms and guns taking the name of goddess Kali.
If Subhash Chandra Bose was associated with the community Durga puja of Simla Bayam Samity’, his association with a community Kali puja in Pathuriaghata can be traced. Bose, though then a prominent Congress leader was much looked upto by armed revolutionaries. Who had no faith then in Gandhian policy of non-violence.
Yet to be called Netaji by none other than Mahatma Gandhi, he was preparing himself unknowingly for His Great Escape. But the process of drawing inspiration. from the goddess of destruction and time was already on.
The other leaders associated with Kali puja were Bepin Chandra Pal who was part of a triumvirate of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai, better known as Lal-Bal-Pal. The name of Anukul Chandra Mukherjee, another nationalist leader deserves special mention as a worshipper of goddess Kali.
Independence brought in a truncated nation whose residents were seeking respite from the daily woes of their lives. The Kali Puja in Bengal certainly provided such a platform.
But the organisers were no longer fired by lofty ideas of nationalism. A crop of “heroes and saviours” had emerged from the bloodbath of The Great Calcutta Killing.
And long before the slogan that power emerged from the barrel of a gun marked the house walls of Calcutta in 1970s, these men had been practicing it. Flaunting their power and widening their sphere of influence were arguably the sole motive of the pujas of these local dons.
And they were centred in and around central and north Kolkata. The community Kali pujas of Gopal Mukherjee in Malanga Lane and Bhanu Bose, another strongman from Creek Row rapidly come to mind.
Both of them had played a significant role in protecting their community in 1946 during Direct Action Day called by Muslim League. Each of their pujas had its characteristics.
While at the Malanga Lane puja the deity was worshipped together with lethal weapons upholding the practise of astra puja, the Creek Row puja had a much more cheerful note to it. It ended with a memorable soiree in which noted artistes of the day like Hemanta Mukherjee together with leading actors like Uttam Kumar participated.
The duo did not wear their political ideology on their sleeve. But it was no secret that they were part of a squad whose participation in the poll process on the election day was in no way Gandhian.
More and more similar community Kali pujas started in Kolkata in the ’60s and ’70s. Their organisers were young Congress leaders who utilised the occasion to flaunt their organisational power and proximity to the powers that be.
Unwilling to rub these “rising leaders” the wrong way, members of state leadership of the party dropped in at these pujas. The fervour of nationalism and freedom struggle have been replaced with an eagerness to carry favours.
Somen Mitra, a long time Congress legislator from Sealdah was the driving force behind such a puja on Amherst Street. Visiting his puja pandal was an essential obligation of leaders who included ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury and Pranab Mukherjee.
Political ideology was at a discount and self preservation of local residents was at a premium living in and around Naba Yubak Sangha. It was organised by Krishna Chandra Ghosh aka Fata Keshto.
Starting as a local tough, he came to the limelight when he and his henchmen took on the Naxalites head on. Known for his rough and ready methods of collecting subscriptions, his “collectors” once vandalized a showroom of a leading shoe company located in the neighbourhood.
That he escaped unscathed speaks volumes of his political connections. The incident encouraged and sometimes followed by others of his ilk arguably to reach his “stature.”
His puja was the talk of the town and drew huge crowds who came to have a glimpse of film stars like Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan who flew down from the then Bombay to grace the puja. The organiser was not supposed to be addressed by his nick name Fata Keshto in and around the pandal.
Neither the Left Front nor the Trinamool Congress regimes witnessed any major new pujas of the goddess whose night of worship is also described as festival of lights. There were no new huge Kali pujas like those of the yesteryears.
During Trinamool regime, the Kali puja at the residence of Mamata Banerjee was arguably the cynosure of all eyes. An invite to it was a recognition of an individual’s political and social status.
Things came to such a pass that those seeking to carry favours with the then chief minister sometimes sought to gate crash. Not too far from it, a variety of Kali pujas with weird themes are organised at Chetla, where former mayor Firad Hakim lives.
The present saffron dispensation saw a minister seeking a Kali puja be organised at every police station. It has no takers in the saffron camp so far.
Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari and state BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya inaugurated several community Kali pujas in Kolkata and the districts. They used these occasions to voice policies of the government and the party.
West Bengal politics was dominated by Left and Trinamool for around five decades. Yet the dark Goddess, a sword in hand and a necklace of human heads round her neck is worshipped with pomp and pageantry by politicians and their front men cutting across the ideological divide. After May 2026 assembly polls, the power equation changed and the saffron are in control of Kali pujas all around the state while the pander hoppers belong to people of all ideological hues. The influence of Goddess Kali continues to remain the same on the Bengali people. (IPA Service)
