Festivals and Traditions as Historical Texts: The Zamindari Durga Pujas from the 18th – 19th Centuries of Calcutta

This paper interprets the zamindari Durga Pujas of 18th and 19th Centuries Calcutta as historical texts that reflect Bengal’s intertwined trajectories of religion, politics, and modernity. It traces the transformation of worship of Goddess Durga—from tribal and martial cults of the goddess to Brahmanical incorporation, royal patronage, and finally, the grand domestic pujas of Calcutta’s elite households or Zamindars. Focusing on families such as the Sabarna Raychoudhuris of Barisha, the Debs of Shobhabazar, the Daws of Jorasanko, and the Ghoses of Pathuriaghata, the study explores how these ritual spectacles functioned as instruments of social legitimacy, colonial negotiation, and expressions of evolving urban identity of colonial Calcutta. Drawing upon textual, architectural, and visual evidence, it situates the pujas within broader shifts in Bengal’s sociopolitical fabric—from post-Plassey collaboration and the rise of the “babu culture” to the emergence of nationalist symbolism and barowari or community pujas. The paper further examines how colonial modernity, Western artistic realism, and indigenous creativity reshaped the goddess’s iconography and ritual space, culminating in Durga’s transformation into a metaphor of the nation. By reading festivals and traditions as living archives, the paper demonstrates how Kolkata’s Durga Puja continues to embody an important part of Bengal’s historical consciousness—an enduring synthesis now globally recognized as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.