MUMBAI, INDIA, September 30, 2014 (dna India by Garga Chatterjee): In a few days, I’ll go from my city home in Kolkata to my clan-abode in Patuligram village of West Bengal’s Hooghly district. Ma Durga, the mother Goddess, will come alive in Patuligram as Moter Ma — the name by which She is known there. Every year on Bijoya Dashami, Ma Durga is immersed. Her mortal children cheer expectantly ‘Ashchhe bochhor abar hobe’ (“It will happen again next year.”) — a call of hope and annual return.
In the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, another set of annual events centred on statues of Ma Durga start somewhat earlier than the puja itself. This is the widespread desecration and destruction of Ma Durga’s statues, always done by an “unidentifiable group of miscreants.” The target faith community is always identifiable and predictable. Already, the pre-Puja statue-breaking campaign has picked up. 5 in Kishoreganj district, 6 in Rishipara of Gopalpur, 3 in Joari Bajar of Natore, 4 in Garua of Faridpur, 3 in Protapnagar of Sherpur and so on. Care is taken to attack late in the statue-making process and do a thorough job so that the statue cannot be repaired or replaced.
Every year, the President, Prime Minister and opposition leader will congratulate their Hindu brothers and sisters on the occasion of Durga Puja. They would utter tired phrases about Bangladesh’s tradition of communal harmony and religious tolerance. A few bad unidentifiable apples — the powers-to-be insist. The rest is fine, including those who usurped more than half of all land and property belonging to religious minorities and made them second-class citizen by introducing a State religion in the constitution.