What the UNESCO heritage tag could mean for the Durga Puja ecosystem

The conch shell has been sounded. West Bengal’s biggest festival, Durga Puja, has come a month early, courtesy the UNESCO ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ tag and the state’s ‘thank you’ show on Thursday that took the shape of a street carnival.

In December 2021, ‘Durga Puja in Kolkata’ was inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To mark the recognition and launch the month-long celebrations, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a procession on Thursday from Jorasanko Thakurbari (ancestral home of the Tagore family) to Red Road – a 5.3-km stretch in central Kolkata.
 

The parade with props, singing and dancing was a riot of colours. And possibly prompted Eric Falt, director and UNESCO representative to Bhutan, India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, to remark “What a sight!”.

The puja business

West Bengal is home to around 43,000 Durga Pujas, and the business around it is a big driver for the economy. A research commissioned by the British Council at the behest of the West Bengal tourism department had pegged the total economic worth of the creative industries around it at Rs 32,377 crore (the figures were estimated around the 2019 Durga Puja).

Will the heritage tag give it a fillip?

Tapati Guha Thakurta, former director and honorary professor, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta, believes that the UNESCO award can be a great boost to tourism. “It’s an international branding of a festival. So this is the best opportunity to bring international tourists.”

The crafts around the festival – from the idol-making at Kumartuli to the handicrafts that revolve around it – will get a huge boost, says the art historian.

Guha Thakurta put more than a decade of research in Durga Puja culminating in a book, In the Name of the Goddess: The Durga Pujas of Contemporary Kolkata, in 2015. In 2018, the Sangeet Natak Akademi under the Union Ministry of Culture approached her to compile a dossier for the UNESCO application. The rest is history.

It’s team work at every level that made it possible, Guha Thakurta maintains. And with the award comes a responsibility of maintaining quality and cultural standards, she points out. Hope is building around the heritage tag and its impact on the numerous lives and livelihoods that it touches – directly and indirectly.

“The UNESCO heritage tag will bring a lot of global attention and help in not just getting more visitors, but providing livelihoods to artisans and craftsmen who are the real heroes of this festival,” says Debanjan Chakrabarti, director, East & North East, British Council India.

The British Council quantitative research report on the creative economy was part of the evidence and data provided to UNESCO at a later stage of the application process. 

A major chunk of the Rs 32,377 crore puja economy, was accounted for by retail at Rs 27,364 crore. But about 10 industries were mapped, including idol making, lighting and illumination, sponsorships, advertisements, etc. It’s expected that these segments too will get a boost this season for more reasons than one. 

After a two-year lull 

Apart from the UNESCO heritage tag, this puja will also have the semblance of normalcy after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Saswata Basu, general secretary, Forum for Durgotsab, says that corporate sponsorships will surpass pre-Covid level. “The footfall is expected to be much higher,” he says. The forum is an umbrella organisation that represents around 650 pujas.

Sponsorships are a major source of funds for Durga Pujas. From banks to companies that deal in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer durables, all have a budget for advertising during this time.

The prominent pujas have sponsors for gates, pillars, banners and stalls. Footfalls were an uncertainty with court-directed curbs on entry into pandals the last two years. And that’s a put-off for advertisers. But this year, the revellers are expected to go all out.

As Ballygunge Cultural Association president Amitava Sinha says: “As with travel, eating out etc, there will be binge pandal hopping because of the two-year hiatus in between.”

For advertisers, it means surety of eyeballs.

DURGA PUJA ECONOMY

(figures estimated around Durga Puja 2019)

Economic worth of creative industries around Durga Puja in West Bengal: Rs 32,377 crore*

Segment-wise

Retail: Rs 27,364 crore

F&B: Rs 2,854 crore

Installation, arts and decoration: Rs 860 crore

Advertisements: Rs 504 crore

Sponsorships: Rs 318 crore

Idol making: Rs 260-280 crore

Literature and publishing: Rs 260-270 crore

Lighting and illumination: 205 crore

Source: British Council report

*Excluding sponsorships