Sombre mood after a Kolkata rape and murder dampens Durga Puja celebrations

Kolkata, India: Tapas Pal has been making clay idols of various gods and goddesses for the past two decades at Kumartuli, a traditional potters’ hub in Kolkata in eastern India’s state of West Bengal.
The 42-year-old, who makes six-metre (20ft) high idols from unfired clay, told Al Jazeera that he would not normally have any spare time in the two months leading up to Durga Puja, the biggest festival of the state, as he would be on deadline to deliver the idols to the festival organisers.
But the situation this year is completely different, he says, with fewer orders and scaled-down budgets, as the residents of the city are in no mood for festivities after the brutal rape and murder of a 31-year-old woman doctor at the government-run RG Kar Hospital on August 9.
“The festival offers [a] chunk of our annual business, and we expect high returns. But there is hardly any business this time due to the severe protests in the state,” and his business is down two-thirds, he said.
Durga Puja is a 10-day worship of the Hindu goddess Durga to celebrate her victory over a shape-shifting demon and embodies joy. Durga is one of the most powerful goddesses in Hinduism. She represents woman power and her legend is centered around her ability to vanquish evil. In 2021, Durga Puja in Kolkata was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list.
In the lead-up to the festival, artisans spend months making idols of Durga – shown as a beautiful woman riding a lion or a tiger, with many arms each of which is carrying a weapon used to destroy evil. The idols, often depicting some of this battle, are intricately hand-painted, beautifully dressed in clothes, bejewelled and displayed at the pandals.
The state comes to a standstill in the days leading up to the festivities, which are scheduled to start on October 9 this year. Schools and offices shut down and people pandal hop – a tradition in which people visit multiple venues where the idols are housed to offer prayers and eat prasad – as neighbourhoods compete for the biggest, fanciest idols and decorations.
Last year, state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee pegged the festival economy to be about 840 billion rupees ($10bn).
But it’s not clear if the numbers this year would come even close to that as people are still in shock after a trainee doctor’s dead body bearing multiple injuries was found at the government hospital. Hospital authorities initially told her parents that she had died by suicide. But an autopsy revealed she had been raped and murdered.
The police have since arrested Sanjoy Roy, a civic volunteer at the hospital who had unrestricted access to the ward where the doctor worked, and four others including the former principal of the college, Dr Sandeep Ghosh, and a police officer.
The brutality of the crime and allegations of apathy by the state administration have shocked citizens who have taken to the streets in protest especially as the city prided itself in being safe for women.
Activists say the doctor’s rape and murder showed how women in India continue to face sexual violence despite tougher laws introduced after the 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi, the national capital.
Crimes against women in India rose 4 percent in 2022 from the previous year, data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), released late last year, showed.
So far, Banerjee’s request urging people to return to the festivities has failed to yield any results.
On the contrary, the locals have emotionally united with the victim’s family after the father broke down in a TV interview, saying that no one would want to celebrate the festival this year, and that whoever does, will not celebrate with happiness.
The sombre mood has affected several hundred artisans and entrepreneurs who depend on the festival for their livelihood.
Artisans say the incident could not have come at a worse time as several organisers place orders for idols in the second or third week of August every year and have either scaled those back or paused altogether.
“The incident is unfortunate and condemnable. We demand strict punishment for the perpetrators of the crime and justice for the victim’s family. But the timing badly coincided with our peak season that has completely ruined our business, this year,” Subhendu Pal, 52, an idol maker at Kumartuli, told Al Jazeera.
Subhendu Porel, 35, who makes decorative polystyrene items for pandals, said that business had more than halved.
“There is hardly any enthusiasm among the people for the festival. We usually go to other states during this season to make the decorative items as there is a huge demand for us. But this time, people from other states have not come to take us for their work fearing [the] deteriorating law and order situation here. It seems that the festival is just a formality this year and nothing else,” Porel said.
Prabhakar Porel, 32, an artisan who designs the bamboo structures used to hold up the pandals, said: “We make tents that go up to the height of 60ft [18 metres], but the organisers are scaling down orders to 30ft [nine metres] and even less as budget constraints are an issue this time. Sponsors are not willing to spend whole-heartedly sensing the dull mood in the state,” he said.
In West Bengal, about 43,000 Durga Pujas are held by community clubs every year, 3,000 of which are held in Kolkata alone. The state government offers 70,000 rupees ($840) to the clubs to organise the festival every year, which was increased to 85,000 rupees ($1,013) this year.
But several clubs, rattled by the incident, have declined the grant, in turn limiting their spending capacities.
Apart from state grants, a large part of the costs of the festival are borne by sponsors like local and national businesses in exchange for promotion of their brands. Based on the size of those promised funds, organisers like the clubs commission idols, decorations, food stalls, among other things. Whiff of a weak turnout at the festivities may make some of them withhold or cut back on their promises.
Avishek Bhattacharyya, an executive committee member of Forum for Durgotsab, an umbrella body of more than 600 festival organisers in the state, told Al Jazeera that a boycott would be disastrous for the festival.
“The discussions with sponsors … are done several months in advance. There is no question to roll back as the organisers decide their budget depending on the promised sponsorship. But if the [sponsors] back out now, that would be a major problem for the organisers to clear the fee of the idol makers, decorators and others involved in it. Several people will lose their livelihood,” Bhattacharyya warned.
Professor Mahalaya Chatterjee, from the economics department at Calcutta University, conceded that the festivities might take a big hit against the backdrop of the protests. “Undoubtedly, the bulk shopping will scale down to bare minimum and that would be a major economic blow to those connected with the business. [If] the festivities suffer, that would affect the food stalls and other itineraries during the festival”, she said.
The impact of the protests is also palpable in Kolkata’s shopping zones, which are devoid of customers.
“A month before the festival, people start buying clothes and other items to avoid [the] last-minute rush. The shops are full with customers and there’s no place to keep a toehold. The sales generate massive income for the traders. But the RG Kar incident has devastated us economically,” said Maqsood Khan, the secretary of the Shreeram Arcade shop owners association, which has about 250 shops in the market.
“There are virtually no buyers in the streets and shopkeepers have to wait till evening hours to get their first sale of the day,” Khan lamented.
The shopping arcade has extended closing time by an hour to 10pm, still, there are no customers. “The situation is worse than post-COVID where sales had started once pandemic-induced restrictions were reduced,” he said, adding that their losses could be as much as 100 million rupees ($1.2m).
Every year, Durga Puja also attracts tourists both from other parts of India and abroad. That too has taken a hit this year.
Koushik Banerjee, the founder of Supreme Tours and Travels in Kolkata, told Al Jazeera that there is a drastic drop in tourists coming to the state. “There is already [a] 50 percent drop in inbound tourists which has badly affected our business,” he said.
That is already taking a toll on the hospitality industry where sales are down 15 percent so far. “Our member restaurants did a business of about 18 billion rupees [$215m] across West Bengal last year during one month of the festival. Even in hotels, the business was around 15 billion rupees [$179m]. But there is uncertainty this year,” said Sudesh Poddar, the president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India.
Idol maker Pal feels that the damage has been done, and the festival is unlikely to generate any enthusiasm. “The young generation takes [an] active part in the festivities, but they all are busy in protests and in no mood to upload rejoicing images on social media. Earlier, they used to come to Kumartuli to click our pictures during the idol-making every year, but nobody is coming this time and that shows the sad mood in the city. The festival will pass silently.”