Home | Eventi | Seminari e Convegni

Nandini Sen - Heriot-Watt University, UK

Durga Puja: Considered as a secular festival or socio-cultural and economic paradigm of Bengali People in West Bengal?

Abstract

Focusing on colonised Calcutta, West Bengal in the later decades of the twentieth century, this paper explores the evolution of a particular festival, the Durga Puja, to explore the ways in which religion, and socio-cultural and economic aspects of a festival negotiated its place in the ideology and ethics of modernity. The essay examines the evolution of the goddess Durga from premodern times and shows why and how the perception of both the deity (in gender terms) and the festival (in socio-cultural and economic terms) had to be recalibrated following the imperatives of new classes and new discursive parameters. While the essay asks the development of new categories introduced by modernity, such as urban spatiality and the rhetoric of individual and collective rights in Calcutta, it also aligns these developments to answer the general question of the actual relationship between religion/faith and the modern moments of socio-cultural and economic contexts. Finally, the evolution of the goddess Durga and with it the folkloric elements related to her also influence the perception of women's role in society and the behaviour aimed at combating poverty.