The Double Tragedy in Kolkata: How Majoritarian Politics Kills Both People and Culture

Introduction: A Festival Shadowed by Death and Destruction

The autumn festival of Durga Puja in West Bengal, recently inscribed by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, stands as a monumental testament to the region’s syncretic, artistic, and secular civilization. More than a religious ritual, it is the world’s largest public art festival, a creative economy worth billions, and a vibrant space where the divine, the artistic, and the social converge. In 2026, this magnificent celebration was shattered by two concurrent events that reveal a profound and disturbing shift. On October 17, a horrific stampede in a north Kolkata Puja pandal claimed 19 lives, including 11 women and five children, the youngest aged seven. On the same day, images emerged of bulldozers demolishing leftist bookstalls adjoining Puja pandals in south Kolkata, with Hindutva activists elsewhere vandalizing stalls and tearing apart classics of Bengali literature. These events did not occur in a vacuum; they unfolded under the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, which had come to power just five months prior after defeating Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC).

The Facts: Stampede, Bulldozers, and a Shift in Ideology

The facts, as reported, paint a stark picture. The stampede in Kolkata was an unprecedented tragedy during Durga Puja, a direct result of catastrophic crowd management failure. Reports indicate that the Adhikari government had replaced experienced police personnel praised for past crowd control with an inexperienced team, a critical administrative lapse that turned festive joy into mourning.

Simultaneously, the state machinery was actively engaged in a cultural offensive. Chief Minister Adhikari had declared his government would not allow “communist culture to flourish.” This ideological directive manifested in the physical destruction of bookstalls that for decades had been a staple of the Puja landscape, selling Marxist literature and fostering intellectual engagement—a core element of Kolkata’s identity. Furthermore, the government issued a list of dos and don’ts to Puja organizers, demanding strict adherence to religious rituals and warning against creative liberties that could “defile the sanctity” of worship. Themes addressing social taboos like menstruation, once celebrated, were now anathema. The government also replaced TMC politicians heading Puja committees and provided grants and free electricity, weaving the festival into its own political patronage network.

The contrast with previous administrations is glaring. The Left Front government, though avowedly atheist, never interfered, terming Puja a “sharad utsav” and participating via bookstalls. Mamata Banerjee’s TMC actively patronized the festival’s expansion, celebrating its secular character where Muslim leaders like Farhid (Bobby) Hakim were famous patrons, and securing its UNESCO recognition. The BJP’s approach, rooted in the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has long criticized the Bengali tradition of offering meat to the goddess and seeks to impose a North Indian, vegetarian, and rigidly ritualistic “sanatan” framework. Adhikari’s subsequent declaration that only believers in “sanatan dharma” could touch idols during immersion cemented this divisive, exclusionary approach.

Opinion: This is Cultural Imperialism Wrapped in Sectarian Politics

The events in Bengal are not merely a local political skirmish; they are a microcosm of a larger, insidious project. This is the imposition of a homogenizing, majoritarian cultural template upon a distinct civilizational sphere—a form of internal cultural imperialism. The BJP-RSS combine, representing a specific North Indian Hindutva psyche, is fundamentally incapable of comprehending Bengal’s unique relationship with the divine, where Goddess Durga is a daughter visiting her parental home, celebrated with meat, art, and intellectual debate in an inclusive, secular public sphere.

The stampede is a direct outcome of this ideological obsession. An administration preoccupied with policing themes, destroying books, and enforcing ritual purity neglected its most basic duty: protecting citizens’ lives. The blood of those 19 Bengalis is on the hands of a government that valued control over creativity and dogma over duty. This is a tragic hallmark of regimes that prioritize ideology over humanity—a negligence we have seen cost lives in other contexts worldwide.

The bulldozing of bookstalls is a symbolic act of profound violence. It is an attack on the very intellect of Bengal. For the Hindutva project, which often aligns with Western orientalist stereotypes of a spiritual, non-rational East, a politically conscious and literary Bengali populace is a threat. Destroying leftist literature is just the thin end of the wedge; the vandalism of Bengali literary classics reveals a contempt for the region’s entire intellectual heritage unless it is subservient to the ruling ideology. This is identical to the methods of colonial powers and modern neo-imperialists who seek to erase native knowledge systems and histories to establish control.

The Global Context: Resisting the Monolithic Worldview

As a thinker committed to the rise of the Global South and civilizational states, I see Bengal’s struggle as part of a global resistance against monolithic worldviews. The West, through centuries of colonialism and its neoliberal sequel, has imposed a universalized template of governance, economics, and culture. The Hindutva project, in a bitter irony, is mimicking this colonial mentality within India. It seeks to erase regional diversities—the very strength of a civilizational state like India—and impose a uniform, centralized, “pure” identity. This is not decolonization; it is recolonization by a domestic elite using the tools of religious majoritarianism.

Bengal’s Durga Puja, with its UNESCO heritage status, is a global Soft Power asset. The BJP’s actions are diminishing that power, replacing a globally admired, inclusive artistic festival with a controlled, ritualistic event. This is a geopolitical folly of the highest order, sacrificing cultural influence for sectarian point-scoring.

Furthermore, the attack on the festival’s secular character—where Muslims like Bobby Hakim were patrons—exposes the hypocritical hollowness of those who defend Islamist ideologies uncritically while attacking organic Indian secularism. The true secularism practiced in Bengal’s Puja pandals, where participation was based on shared culture, not theological agreement, is what threatened the BJP’s communal calculus. They cannot tolerate a model where Hindu identity is not defined in opposition to a Muslim ‘other.‘

Conclusion: A Call to Defend Civilizational Pluralism

The tragedy in Kolkata is a wake-up call. The fight for Bengal’s Durga Puja is a fight for the soul of India as a civilizational state. It is a fight against the imperialism of a homogenizing ideology that is as destructive as any foreign yoke. The deaths of 19 innocents must not be in vain. They must galvanize all who believe in pluralism, artistic freedom, and intelligent governance to resist this forced transformation.

The world, especially the Global South which understands the pain of cultural erasure, must take note. The bulldozer is not just a tool of demolition; it is a symbol of a mindset that seeks to flatten diversity. The tear in a book of Bengali literature is a tear in the fabric of human civilization’s rich tapestry. We must stand with Bengal in defending its ‘sharad utsav’—its autumnal festival of life, art, and community—from those who would turn it into a rigid, lifeless, and exclusive ritual. The future of India, and indeed of all civilizational states that cherish their diverse heritage, depends on winning this cultural and political battle. The alternative is a monochrome world where festivals are managed into tragedy and books are crushed into dust, a world unworthy of our shared human potential.