Kolkata Janmashtami row: BJP leader drops Muslims, forms all-Hindu panel

A significant controversy has erupted in Kolkata's Mominpore as a BJP leader revamps the Janmashtami celebration committee to be exclusively Hindu, ending decades of inter-community participation and sparking debate on religious harmony and festival ownership.

A Janmashtami celebration in Kolkata's Mominpore, long held as an example of the city's syncretic culture with Muslim residents playing a prominent role in organising the Hindu festival, is set for a significant change this year.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader has taken charge of the event, declaring that its organising committee will have only Hindus.

This move has turned the nearly 60-year-old celebration at the Bhukailash Road-Hussain Shah Road crossing into an unexpected flashpoint over religion, politics and the meaning of shared festivals in a city where communities have traditionally participated in each other's cultural and religious occasions.

BJP Leader's Stance on Janmashtami Organisation

Rakesh Singh, the BJP's defeated candidate from the Port Assembly constituency in the recent West Bengal polls, stated that the festival would henceforth be organised exclusively by Hindus.

He argued that Janmashtami was a Hindu religious occasion and its rituals should be protected.

"We believe in harmony, but that does not mean we will allow anyone to demean our religion or our rituals. Janmashtami is a Hindu festival, and it should be performed by Hindus," Singh told PTI.

Singh, who is both president and chairman of the organising committee this year, claimed that Muslims had effectively controlled the celebration in previous years.

"In an 18-member committee, 16 were Muslims. This time I have revamped the committee and made it an all-Hindu committee. We don't want them to be part of our festivities," he said.

He also objected to the participation of Muslims in rituals where cows are worshipped alongside Lord Krishna, referring to the practice of cow slaughter among sections of the Muslim community.

"People from other religions should definitely visit pandals, but it is our duty to protect our religious activities," Singh said.

Political Dimensions and Historical Context

The BJP leader also took aim at former chief minister Mamata Banerjee's oft-repeated formulation that "religion belongs to individuals, but festivals belong to everyone", calling it "absurd".

Singh has also blamed former Trinamool Congress minister and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, who has been associated with the celebration, for what he described as an attempt to dilute the Hindu character of the festival by giving Muslims a prominent role in its management.

The dispute has acquired added resonance because of the location.

The celebration is held at the Bhukailash Road-Hussain Shah Road crossing in KMC Ward 79, in the Port Assembly constituency and close to Bhowanipore.

The area has for decades seen Hindu and Muslim communities living alongside each other, making the annual Janmashtami celebration a familiar example of neighbourhood participation cutting across religious lines. Its own history reflects that tradition.

Decades of Syncretic Tradition Challenged

According to locals, the puja was started nearly 60 years ago by Muslim social worker Md Kashim under the banner of Kidderpore Samaj Kalyan Samity.

After the festivities gradually lost their earlier prominence, a group of Muslim youths helped revive them following the change of government in 2011. Mohammed Alam, a TMC functionary and former office-bearer of the organising body, said community participation had never been viewed as a contradiction to the Hindu nature of the puja.

"We organised everything together, observed the rituals and distributed prasad. There was never any question of compromising the religious practices," Alam told PTI.

This year, however, the composition of the committee has changed sharply, with the Muslim members no longer included.

"For all these years, we celebrated it together. This time, none of the Muslim members has been retained in the committee," Alam said.

That has transformed what was once largely a neighbourhood religious celebration into a debate over who can claim ownership of a festival.

Broader Implications for West Bengal's Festival Culture

Mominpore's Janmashtami had come to occupy a somewhat unusual place in Kolkata's religious landscape.

Muslims were not simply attending the festivities as guests; they were involved in arranging the puja, managing the event and helping keep a decades-old celebration going. That history is now being weighed against Singh's insistence that participation in a Hindu religious ceremony cannot be equated with participation in a secular community event.

"Everyone is welcome to come and see the celebrations, but the religious rituals and their management should remain with Hindus," Singh said.

The controversy also comes amid a renewed political focus on the character and conduct of Hindu festivals in West Bengal.

Singh's decision to replace the mixed committee at Mominpore with an exclusively Hindu one therefore comes at a politically charged moment, when the question of whether festivals are primarily religious observances or shared public occasions has once again entered Bengal's political discourse.

What began as a local decision over the membership of a puja committee has thus opened up a larger contest over a familiar feature of Kolkata's festival culture – whether participation across communities strengthens a religious celebration or alters its very character.