The plate, it turns out, is the last battlefield of politics. The controversy over the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s directives for Durga Puja has exposed a political question that extends beyond food: can the BJP promote a common Sanatan identity in Bengal without attempting to standardise a festival whose religious, artistic and social traditions are distinctly regional?
The VHP’s August 26 meeting with Durga Puja organisers from a state government platform in Kolkata announced recommendations covering the composition of puja organising committees, food, religious rituals and the appearance of idols. It asked that pujas be conducted by “Sanatani Hindus”, that non-vegetarian food be restricted in and around pandals, and that organisers avoid representations considered inconsistent with traditional Hindu imagery. The organisation also proposed recognising pujas and priests for adherence to religious customs.
The VHP’s Bengal leaders have sought to present these as safeguards rather than prohibitions. Nirgunananda Brahmachari, a member of its central advisory council, said the organisation was not opposed to theme-based pujas but wanted Durga’s “motherly nature” preserved. He explained that the food recommendation was intended to prevent non-vegetarian food from being scattered around puja venues, rather than to impose a general prohibition on eating meat or fish.He had added that the organisation could "intervene" if committees failed to comply.
A diktat, softened by a disclaimer, is still a diktat.
Into this walked Bageshwar Dham's Dhirendra Krishna Garg (Dhirendra Kishore Shastri), whose katha at Liluah in Howrah on September 5–6 turned advisory into sermon. "Who wants fish and meat shops to be closed in Bengal during Durga Puja? Those who are in support of this, turn on your phone lights," he declared, adding: "I am offended by the fact that during Navratri and Durga Puja they make 'dirty' food (non-veg) behind the pandals." He called those who eat meat during the festival pakhandis — hypocrites — and appealed that "even if you don't keep the idols of the Goddess, do not sell non-veg near the idols."
The backlash was swift and remarkably ecumenical. The Bengal Congress lodged complaints at Bhawanipur and Muchipara police stations on September 8, demanding FIRs, with the complaint stating that Shastri had "uttered vile sentences and preached what to eat and what not to eat" during "a prestigious festival."
Congress leaders said complaints were filed across all districts; protesters burnt the Baba's photographs, one agitator was arrested, and the party vowed statewide protests.
Then came the political twist that deserves attention. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari — whose BJP won Bengal only in May, making this the party's first Puja in office — rose in the Assembly on September 10 to defend the preacher. "A saint had come to Liluah, he spoke like a saint about nationalism, Akhand Bharat and on culture. Those who want to accept will accept, and those who do not want will not. He did not impose it on anyone," Adhikari said, directing the Commissioner of Police to arrest those who burnt Shastri's photographs.
Notably, Adhikari had hosted Shastri for dinner along with his cabinet colleagues.
Yet his own party chief publicly disagreed with him. State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya, in clear damage-control mode, declared: "How can Bengalis not have fish and meat? Even Swami Vivekananda said Ma Kali will have mutton and fish [as an offering]. It is dangerous if someone tries to rise above Vivekananda. This is his (Shastri's) personal opinion."
He had earlier called Shastri a "revered person" while stressing the BJP does not endorse the remarks — "We Bengalis eat puri on Ashtami and mutton on Navami." Several ministers joined the rejection.
Here lies the instructive contradiction. The Chief Minister, beholden to the Hindutva ecosystem that powers his party's national project, defended a sermon that denigrated Bengali culinary tradition as "dirty" and its practitioners as hypocrites — and ordered arrests of those who objected. The state leadership, which must fight Bengal's elections on Bengal's soil, understood instantly what the CM perhaps chose not to: you cannot govern a state by insulting its plate. Even self-described "Bengali Hindu nationalists" told the party to "stop shooting itself in the foot."
Durga Puja here is UNESCO-listed intangible global heritage precisely because it is plural — Muslims craft the idols or head committees that organise big public pujas, Christians join the revelry, and the bhog ranges from niramish khichuri to hilsa and mutton offered to the Goddess herself. Sanatan Dharma, as Bengal practices it, has never been a monoculture; it is a mosaic. The VHP's template — one correct ritual, one acceptable diet, one authority to enforce both — runs aground on a civilisation that has spent centuries refusing uniformity and staying symbiotic.
The BJP's central dilemma is now visible in sharp relief. BJP’s national leadership tolerates and even amplifies figures who preach cultural standardisation; its Bengal unit knows that every such sermon confirms Mamata Banerjee's old campaign warning that the "outsider" would police Bengali kitchens.
The party that once walked door-to-door holding catla fish to prove its cultural credentials before polls cannot now afford godmen lecturing Bengalis on pakhandi eating habits. After this row on the occasion of Kaushiki Amavasya on Friday (Sep 11), Adhikari was seen accepting prasad of Basanti pulao, hilsa fry, catla fish head and mutton curry at the Kalighat temple.
Shashtri, who was largely unknown in Bengal, has apologised for denigrating Bengali Hindus from Glasgow. He claimed to be a Bengali and disciple of Swami Vivekananda, Ramkrishna Paramahansa and Bama Khyapa. Still, he may dither to say yes to another of his Katha sessions in Bengal in future.
As puja organisers remain non-conformist to these diktats, the BJP in Bengal must take a cultural leaf from Rabindranath Tagore’s words in “ChelebhulanoChhora” (rhymes to calm children), which defined the Durga devotion of Bengalis as their ‘Ambika puja’ as well as ‘Kanya puja’ (worship of the daughter). This sentiment of the daughter’s annual homecoming and treating her after she attains victory over Mahishasur (evil) is central to the culinary tradition of Bengal’s Durga Puja.
The message from the pandals is elegant in its simplicity: you may rule our state, but you shall not rename our festival, change our traditions, ration our menu, or grade our devotion. The Goddess, as Vivekananda reminded us, accepts mutton and fish. Any politics that forgets this will find itself, like Shastri's advisory, politely and firmly set aside — fish curry in hand, dhunuchi in the other.
For the BJP, the controversy is therefore not simply about managing criticism of a preacher or the VHP’s diktats. It is about defining the limits of its cultural politics. The Durga Puja dispute has exposed the gap between a national ideological ambition and Bengal’s plural cultural inheritance.
Whether the BJP can bridge that gap in the run-up to local polls in the state later this year will depend on whether it treats Bengal’s traditions as an obstacle to be disciplined, or accepts it as an integral part of the Hindu identity it claims to represent.