Fears of Covid-19 transmission forced the downsizing of one of India’s biggest festivals on Monday, and authorities in Delhi and Kolkata slashed Durga Puja celebrations that draw hundreds of thousands of people, a step that highlighted public health concerns before the month. festive season.
In the capital, the five-day festival will primarily be a private event with no themed pandals, towering idols, night excursions and foodie adventures, and the organizers, including those at the center of the festivities, CR Park, will decide to call off the celebrations. public. visitors and moving rituals online.
Greater Kailash (GK) MLA and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader Saurabh Bharadwaj said the decision was made at a meeting Monday morning.
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“About 12 Durga Puja committees from Chittaranjan Park, GK2, GK1, Alaknanda and Kalkaji attended the meeting. It was unanimously decided that the Durga Puja celebrations will be suspended this year due to the pandemic. The majority of the CR Park population and the members of the puja committees are seniors and it is important that they stay indoors and avoid contact with strangers in the pandalos, ”Bharadwaj said.
In West Bengal, the Calcutta High Court banned visitors from pandals and ordered police to barricade outside structures that have already attracted thousands of devotees who circumvented distancing and masking guidelines, three days before let the puja celebrations begin.
People would not be allowed within a distance of five meters for small pandals and 10 meters for large pandals, the high court ordered, while expressing concern about crowd control measures and widely publicized reports of Large crowds that crowd the main markets in town and pandals in breach. of the Covid-19 protocols.
“In the public interest, all pandals in which Durga Puja is being held this year are made no-entry zones for members of the public,” stated the bench of the judging division Sanjib Banerjee and Arijit Banerjee. They added that the measure may not be able to control the spread of the pandemic if people take to the streets in large numbers.
The court order, which came in response to public interest litigation (PIL) and was implemented since Monday night, is a major setback for the organizers of the 37,000 bids and artisans who spend months building towering structures and modeling Durga idols. and their four children.
A popular pandal in Kolkata easily attracts more than one hundred thousand visitors each night.
“All bidding committees will incur losses amounting to hundreds of million rupees as all the preparations have been made,” said Soumen Dutta, a bidding organizer from North Kolkata. “We are facing huge financial losses.”
The decision to cut back on Durga Puja celebrations comes at a time when India has passed 7.5 million infections and lost 114,000 people to the disease.
Experts warn that the public nature of the five-day festival: hundreds of thousands of people are often out all night, taking public transportation to get from one pandal to another, jostling with hundreds of people in a damp, cramped space to take a look at the idol. – can feed the virus that spreads through the air and body contact.
Dr GC Khilnani, former head of the department of pulmonology at the Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), said the number of cases is likely to increase as more physical interaction occurs during the holiday season. “The increase in the number of cases will be seen 10 to 14 days after the festival. By then, it will also be Diwali time. Not only a greater number of cases, it is likely that the increase in contamination levels will cause a more serious illness and many need ICU care, “he said.
Concerns about the upcoming festival season, which include Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali, have risen after experts blamed Onam celebrations in August for the recent spike in cases in Kerala. Similar concerns forced other festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Eid and Jagannath Rath Yatra to be downsized.
The organizers and the Delhi authorities decided to suspend most of the rituals associated with the festival. Bhog (the ceremonial offering of food to the goddess, distributed among the devotees) will be delivered at home and pushpanjali (first ceremonial offering of flowers to the goddess), aarti (night religious rituals) and donations have been transferred online. The Puja committees will even publish the text of all the holy chants for the devotees.
The CR Park Kali Mandir Society, which attracts 200,000 people each year, has partnered with a Direct-To-Home service and a local cable operator to broadcast the rituals.
“For religious reasons only, 10-15 members of the committee will attend a small kalash / ghat Puja. This will ensure the continuity of bidding for these samitis. I have also asked the district administration and the local police to assist the puja committees in arresting any outsiders who enter these areas, ”added Bharadwaj.
In Kolkata, where Durga Puja is also a 50 billion rupee industry that receives support from the state government and private actors, the HC order provoked mixed reactions.
“While in smaller pandals, 15 members will be allowed, in the case of larger pandals, a maximum of 25 members will be allowed. The names of the participants will need to be decided in advance and cannot be changed on a daily basis, ”said advocate Sabyasachi Chatterjee, who represented petitioner Ajay Kumar De.
Police will submit an affidavit by November 5 detailing how the court order was implemented.
During the hearing, the court raised questions about crowd control measures and questioned how 30,000 police officers would deal with 400,000 people, the typical crowd at major attractions. The state government said it will add more staff, but the judges expressed doubts about organizing a festival when schools and universities were closed.
Durga Puja is an important event in Bengal’s social and religious calendar and people from all over the state come to Kolkata to see pandals.
But the state reported a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases after bidding purchases began and crowds rose in the markets. On Sunday, the state reported 3,983 new cases of Covid-19, including 813 infections in Kolkata alone, the highest in the state. The positivity rate, the ratio of the number of cases to the number of tests, soared from 6.6% on September 5 to 9.1% on Sunday.
Some politicians criticized the order.
“It is a very daunting order and it has been a setback for the bidding committee and the citizens. Since the order is addressed to the state government, the administration will issue instructions within a day or two after approving the order. But there is nothing we can do to dampen the holiday spirit of hundreds of thousands of people. At the same time, we have to make sure that people are safe so that the virus does not spread, ”said Saugata Roy, a senior deputy in the Trinamool Congress.
The Union Minister, Babul Supriyo, welcomed the order. “None of the bids sponsored by TMC ministers and senior government officials maintained social distancing among visitors, we have seen. Bengal is now among the best states when it comes to spreading the virus, ”Supriyo said.
“Durga Puja is a festival but we have to understand that this year the situations are different as there is a pandemic. Community spread has begun. I don’t know how the state government will implement the order, ”said Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, head of the West Bengal Congress.
The Durgotsab Forum, a body that brings together 350 festival organizers, said it will convene a meeting of its members on Tuesday to discuss the issue and the way forward.
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