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Digha, India – On a blistery and sultry June afternoon, Mamata Banerjee, the main curate of India’s West Bengal state, swept a sun-scorched roadworthy to marque mode for a towering chariot successful Digha, a tourer municipality connected the country’s Bay of Bengal coast.
The moment, captured by dozens of cameras and broadcast wide connected television, connected June 27, marked the motorboat of the eastbound state’s first-ever government-sponsored Rath Yatra (“chariot festival”) to observe the operation of a sprawling temple analyzable built to location the Hindu god, Lord Jagannath.
First announced successful December 2018, and completed successful May this year, the Digha temple has been pitched by Banerjee and her governing Trinamool Congress (TMC) enactment arsenic West Bengal’s alternate to the much fashionable Jagannath Temple successful neighbouring Odisha state’s Puri town, astir 350km (217 miles) away.
Built successful the 12th century, the temple successful Puri is 1 of Hinduism’s 4 large pilgrimage sites, and location to an yearly 800-year-old chariot festival, a weeklong lawsuit attended by tens of thousands of devotees. To kick-start the festival, descendants of the erstwhile Puri kingdom’s rulers symbolically expanse the chariot path, similar their ancestors successful powerfulness erstwhile did.
At Digha, that task was performed by Banerjee, neither the descendant of an emperor, nor a priest, raising questions astir whether the operation of the temple was astir religion oregon politics, a twelvemonth earlier 1 of India’s astir politically important states votes for its adjacent government.
Two devotees praying successful beforehand of the chariot connected the last time of Rath Yatra successful Digha, West Bengal, connected May 5, 2025 [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]Move aimed to antagonistic BJP?
West Bengal, location to much than 91 cardinal people, is India’s 4th most-populous state. Nearly 30 percent of its colonisation is Muslim.
For decades, the authorities was besides location to the world’s longest-serving elected communist government, until a feisty Banerjee – starring the centrist TMC enactment she founded successful 1998 – unseated the Left Front conjugation successful 2011.
Since then, it is the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that has emerged arsenic the TMC’s main rival successful West Bengal. From winning conscionable 2 parliamentary seats successful 2014, the twelvemonth Modi stormed to power, the BJP past twelvemonth won 12 of the state’s 42 seats. The TMC won 29.
In the 2021 authorities assembly election, Banerjee’s TMC and its allies won a landslide 216 of 292 seats, portion the BJP-led conjugation won 77. It was besides the archetypal predetermination successful which the Left oregon the Indian National Congress, the main absorption successful parliament, could not triumph a azygous spot successful a authorities some had antecedently governed.
As the governmental scenery changed successful West Bengal, truthful did its players.
For astir a decennary now, the BJP and its ideological parent, the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), person utilized Hindu festivals specified arsenic Ram Navami to grow their footprint successful the state, often organising ample processions that person connected juncture passed, provocatively, done areas with ample Muslim populations, with participants carried sticks, swords and tridents.
The BJP has besides repeatedly accused the TMC of “minority appeasement”, successful essence alleging that the enactment favours Muslim interests implicit the concerns of Hindu voters.
The TMC appears to beryllium responding to that displacement successful authorities successful kind. In caller rallies, its leaders person been seen chanting “Jai Jagannath” (Hail Jagannath) to antagonistic the BJP’s “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram), a slogan that, for millions of Hindus successful India, is much a war-cry against Muslims and different minorities than a governmental chant.
“Now nary 1 volition accidental Jai Shri Ram. Everyone volition accidental Jai Jagannath,” TMC person Arup Biswas said successful Digha successful April.
To governmental idiosyncratic Ranabir Samaddar, the TMC’s temple authorities is grounds of a brewing conflict implicit the individuality of Hinduism itself.
“If you hold Hindu nine is not monolithic, past it’s earthy that Hindus who cull the majoritarian mentation volition asseverate a antithetic understanding,” said Samaddar, who is simply a distinguished seat successful migration and forced migration studies astatine the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.
He argued that moves similar Mamata’s correspond a deeper societal and taste contest. “This is not a elemental secularism-versus-communalism binary,” helium said. “It is simply a protestation against the thought that determination is lone 1 benignant of Hinduism.”
For years, the BJP’s governmental opponents person struggled to trade a effect to its imaginativeness of creating a Hindu-first authorities without being enactment connected the antiaircraft by Modi’s party, which portrays them arsenic intrinsically anti-Hindu.
The Digha temple, Samaddar suggested, attempts to interruption that BJP stranglehold.
“As the ascendant communicative becomes much rigid, insisting connected a singular, state-aligned Hindu identity, the counter-response is besides happening wrong the model of Hindu identity,” helium said. “It’s a dialogue, a signifier of societal statement astir plurality.
“This is besides an assertion of rights. A assertion to say, ‘We excessively are Hindus, but we won’t fto you specify what Hinduism is.’ These are attempts to interruption the monopoly of definite institutions and groups who person agelong claimed to talk for each Hindus. That’s what makes this infinitesimal significant.”
The caller Jagannath Temple successful Digha, West Bengal, India, connected May 5, 2025 [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]Bengal’s shifting spiritual terrain
Originally introduced by the authorities arsenic a “cultural centre”, the Digha shrine soon evolved into a 65-metre-tall (213 feet) temple, dispersed implicit 8 hectares (20 acres) and costing the authorities exchequer much than $30m.
“This temple volition adhd a caller feather to the state’s cap. Digha volition turn into an planetary tourer attraction. This volition service arsenic a spot of harmony. The oversea adds a peculiar charm to Digha. If it becomes a spot of pilgrimage, much tourists volition come,” Trinamool main Banerjee had said during the structure’s inauguration connected April 30. She volition question a 4th consecutive word arsenic main curate adjacent year.
But the task has faced pushback.
When the Digha temple opened earlier this year, the BJP’s parliamentarian from Puri, Sambit Patra, declared: “There is lone 1 Jagannath Dham successful the world, and it is successful Puri.” A dham is simply a shrine successful Sanskrit.
On June 27, the BJP’s astir salient Bengal leader, Suvendu Adhikari, called the temple a “tourist attraction, not a spiritual site”.
“Puri Dham volition stay Puri Dham. Mamata Banerjee is simply a fake Hindu. Temples can’t beryllium built utilizing authorities funds. It is simply a taste centre, not a temple. Don’t mislead the radical of Bengal,” helium said.
He argued that Hindu temples successful autarkic India person been made utilizing donations – including the Ram temple successful the bluish Indian metropolis of Ayodhya, built connected the ruins of the 16th-century Babri Mosque that Hindu zealots had torn down successful 1992. “Hindus marque temples connected their own. No authorities money was utilized to physique the Ram temple. Hindus crossed the satellite funded it.”
Priests astatine the Puri temple were furious too. The temple’s main servitor, Bhabani Das Mohapatra, called the Digha analyzable a “crime by Mamata Banerjee”, and accused the West Bengal authorities authorities of “arrogantly violating scriptural norms”. Ramakrishna Das Mahapatra, a elder servitor from Puri who attended the Digha consecration, was suspended by the Puri temple authority.
A young miss with her household visiting Digha to be the archetypal ever Rath Yatra astatine the caller shrine, connected May 5, 2025. Her household belongs to the organisation tasked with readying the festival [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]‘Nobody invited us’
The disapproval of the Digha temple is not constricted to governmental opponents and representatives of the Digha temple.
As hundreds of radical watched the June 27 consecration from down information barricades, a 64-year-old section and retired authorities employee, Manik Sarkar, said helium was frustrated.
“All the outgo is coming from taxpayers similar us,” helium told Al Jazeera. “But cipher invited us. The authorities infirmary adjacent doesn’t adjacent person due equipment, and they’re spending millions lighting up the temple.”
Another resident, Ashima Devi, said she was anxious astir the regular energy bills. “Lakhs of rupees, each night,” she said. “Unemployment is already truthful precocious here. Thousands of authorities schoolhouse teachers who mislaid their jobs due to the fact that of corruption – they had cleared the exams fairly. Why isn’t this authorities fixing that? What volition hap to them?”
She was referring to a $70m nationalist schoolhouse hiring scam precocious unearthed by India’s apical fiscal crimes office, the Enforcement Directorate, for which the TMC’s erstwhile acquisition curate is present jailed.
One antheral successful the crowd, who called himself a TMC supporter, interjected. “Tourism volition grow,” helium said.
But Sarkar pushed back: “All the hotels [in Digha] are owned by outsiders. What payment are you talking about?”
One of the 3 chariots being pulled by participants and organisers, portion members of the nationalist ticker from down barricades, connected May 5, 2025 [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]‘A authorities that centres temples’
Historian Tapati Guha Thakurta said that the state’s engagement successful temple gathering ought to beryllium seen arsenic a portion of a larger arc successful India’s modern journey.
“There’s been a large descent – from the modern, secular exemplary to a authorities that centres temples,” she said.
After India’s independence, the authorities actively supported projects similar the reconstruction of the Somnath temple successful Gujarat, backed by leaders similar Vallabhbhai Patel — the antheral credited with bringing unneurotic 500 princely states into the Indian national utilizing a premix of allurement and coercion.
But autarkic India’s archetypal premier minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, opposed authorities enactment for the Somnath rebuilding, she noted.
“He stayed away. That infinitesimal showed however contested religion was, adjacent wrong the Nehruvian imaginativeness of the state,” Guha Thakurta said to Al Jazeera. “That infinitesimal was emblematic. It showed that adjacent astatine the dawn of Indian secularism, religion was ne'er afloat retired of the frame.”
Nawsad Siddique, the sole authorities legislator from the Indian Secular Front, a conjugation of the absorption Left groups and Congress party, called the Digha temple a “blurring of governance and faith”. Speaking to reporters connected July 10, successful Kolkata, helium said, “We don’t person jobs. Our younker are migrating. Our schools are crumbling. And we’re gathering mega temples?”
Guha Thakurta recalled the deliberate separation of authorities and religion nether 34 years of Left government.
“Our procreation grew up nether a firewall betwixt religion and the state,” said Guha Thakurta, whose probe into Durga Puja – the solemnisation of Goddess Durga that is the pre-eminent yearly festival for Bengalis – helped unafraid a UNESCO intangible taste practice tag for the festival.
At the time, Marxist taste elites dismissed adjacent Durga Puja arsenic “opo-sanskriti” oregon a degenerate ritual, to beryllium simply tolerated.
That changed post-2011, erstwhile Banerjee archetypal came to power.
“From $100 successful grants, it’s present $1,200,” she said, referring to authorities funds for Durga Puja committees. “Durga Puja is present a authorities event. And this exemplary is spreading.”
“We’re sitting connected a volcano astir to erupt. That’s each I’ll say.”
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