Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
“A Durga Puja to Remember – Thank You, Bangladesh!” wrote Sohag Kumar Mondal, a Bangladeshi citizen, on Facebook. “This is the Bangladesh we want to see where every citizen can celebrate their faith with dignity, freedom, and security.”
When India Today Digital got in touch with Mondal, the 29-year-old engineering graduate from Natore said “things were different this year”.
“I visited around 20 pandals in my hometown. All of them were crowded, and people were enjoying themselves. The sense of fear that usually used to accompany Durga Puja was greatly reduced this time around,” Mondal told India Today Digital.
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“I agree that this year’s Durga Puja was better than in previous years, and there are several reasons for this,” said Monindra Kumar Nath, the General Secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.
From an increase in the number of holidays for Durga Puja to higher financial allocation and tighter security and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman visiting pandals across Bangladesh, Nath counted the reasons out to India Today Digital.
Just days after devotees bid farewell to the Goddess and her children, Bangladeshis are describing this year’s Durga Puja as the best in recent memory.
The last two Durga Pujas, in 2024 and 2025, were under Muhammad Yunus’s interim administration, and Bangladesh Police reported at least 84 Puja-related violent incidents, including idol vandalism and attempts to disrupt festivities. Even in the previous years, when the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League was in power, incidents of vandalism and attacks were reported regularly.
This was the first Durga Puja since the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) came to power under the leadership of Tarique Rahman. There was much at stake and much for the government to prove.
The government went for a three-tier security set-up with heavy deployment of personnel. According to Bangladeshi media reports, there were around 500 more Durga Puja pandals this year in the country.
Shafquat Rabbee, a Bangladeshi-American political analyst, told India Today Digital that the scale of the operation made cooperation between the government, opposition and wider society essential.
“The fact that hardly anything went wrong this year with safety and security is testament to the fact that it was a societal effort to ensure sound Pujo operations which included both the government and the opposition,” Rabbee said.
There were several political points to be proven too.
Bangladeshi Hindus are largely supposed to be Awami League voters. With party chief Sheikh Hasina being forced into exile after the July-August 2024 protests, and the Awami League barred from polls, there are votes that can be attracted. Several minority organisations had backed the BNP in the January election, and this was a good time for Tarique Rahman to show his backing for the Hindus.
Interestingly, this comes just weeks ahead of Hasina’s planned return to Bangladesh. Hasina said she would be returning from India in December.
Hindus, who have seen the best Durga Puja in recent years, want assurance of such harmony for 365 days of the year, and without such security arrangements.
FALLING NUMBER OF HINDUS IN BANGLADESH AND ATTACKS ON DURGA PUJA
Durga Puja is the biggest festival of Bengali Hindus. It is West Bengal’s state festival, and even across the border, it remains one of the grandest festivals.
While Muslims account for around 91% of Bangladesh’s population, the country is still home to a significant Hindu community, whose share in the country’s population is falling though.
According to the 2022 census, Hindus make up 7.95% of Bangladesh’s population, making the community the country’s largest religious minority. The share of Hindus in Bangladesh’s population fell from around 22% in 1951, to 13.5% in 1974, three years after the country’s liberation from Pakistan. It’s below 8% today.
The safety of Hindus and their religious celebrations, including Durga Puja, has remained a concern in Bangladesh.
Even during Hasina’s rule, several incidents of Durga Puja-related attacks were reported. After Hasina’s ouster in August 2024, attacks on Hindu homes, businesses and religious sites intensified.
Even this year, before Durga Puja, incidents of idol vandalism, attacks on pandals and temples were reported. The Bangladesh Pujo Udjapan Parishad, which coordinates Hindu festival celebrations across the country, recorded 34 such incidents, according to the Dhaka-based The Daily Star.
“There are a few organisations and individuals who want to destabilise the situation just before Durga Puja every other year, with the aim of creating an atmosphere of fear among the country’s Hindus,” Kaniz Fatima, editor of Dhaka-based digital news outlet, Centrist Nation, told India Today Digital.
She, however, highlighted that nothing untoward took place during Durga Puja. “People are telling us they have experienced the best Durga Puja in recent times,” Fatima said.
What changed was tighter security and the timing.
HOW BANGLADESH SECURED DURGA PUJA WITH A 3-TIER RING
“There was a three-tiered security system in place this Durga Pujo,” Fatima said, referring to the deployment of police, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and SWAT personnel. Bomb-disposal squads were there too.
Jamal Ruhany, a reporter with Bangladeshi media outlet Times Today, said even pandals in villages had four to five police or Ansar personnel stationed nearby, while CCTV cameras were installed at most Puja venues.
Other than the heavy deployment, what also changed this year was the timing of the deployment.
“Compared to previous years, the deployment of police and security forces took place well in advance of the Pujo. This ensured that instances of mandaps and pandals getting vandalised or attacked before the festivities began were by and large avoided,” a Dhaka-based journalist, who didn’t want to be named, told India Today Digital.
THE POLITICS OF DURGA PUJA AND HINDU VOTERS IN BANGLADESH
PM Tarique Rahman visited pandals in Rangpur, Rajshahi and Chattogram on October 20, according to Bangladeshi media reports. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed and Labour Minister Ariful Haque Chowdhury were among several ministers who also visited Pujo venues.
The ruling BNP instructed party workers to remain vigilant and help prevent disruptions.
The opposition Jamaat-e-Islami also pledged its support, with party chief Shafiqur Rahman meeting Hindu community leaders in Dhaka and calling for cooperation across political lines to ensure their security.
Political analyst Rabbee said competitive electoral politics also played a role in peaceful Durga Puja celebrations.
“When Hasina’s party became ineligible to take part in elections, both the BNP and Jamaat tried to woo Hindu voters, promising them security,” Rabbee said.
Rabbee said post-election voter analysis indicated that Hindu voters favoured the BNP over Jamaat. This, he argued, gives the ruling party an incentive to win lasting support within the community, particularly among younger Hindus.
Kaniz Fatima alleged that the attacks on minorities during the Awami League’s rule were often politically orchestrated to consolidate Hindu votes.
“They would vandalise idols and then promise to protect the minorities. In doing so, they would try to secure the votes of minorities, scaring them of a worse fate if they aren’t in power,” Fatima said.
Rabbee believes both the BNP and the Jamaat have political reasons to prevent a return to communal violence. “There’s nothing to gain for the Bangladesh government and the current opposition when news media reports attacks on Hindus,” he explained.
“Now that the BNP government under Tarique Rahman has found a successful model to demonstrate how to facilitate Hindu festivities with near-zero incidents, it makes all the political sense for both the BNP and Jaamaat to not only continue this trend but also to compete around who can do more in the future,” said Rabbee.
‘DO MORE TO MAKE MINORITIES IN BANGLADESH FEEL SAFE’
“We at Centrist Nation sent 10 teams to cover Pujo pandals across Dhaka. They could not find any instances where any Pujo was disrupted,” Kaniz Fatima told India Today Digital.
A Hindu priest from Bangladesh’s Lakshmipur district said in a video clip that it was the participation of people from all communities that helped make this year’s Durga Puja a grand success. “The festivities were peaceful, and we saw devotees celebrating with tremendous enthusiasm and joy,” he said.
Clips of huge crowds of Hindus in Bangladesh celebrating during Dashami immersion procession have gone viral.
The celebrations this year were also bigger in scale. The Daily Star reported that at least 33,851 Durga Pujos were organised across Bangladesh this year, compared with 33,355 in 2025, an increase of 496.
But the Hindus of Bangladesh say the sense of security that they felt shouldn’t be limited to these four-five days.
“Yes, heavy security ensured that there were no serious incidents, but we want Durga Puja to take place without the need for such armed guards . . . The government must ensure that Hindus and other minorities are safe not just during the five days of Durga Puja, but on all 365 days of the year,” said Nath of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.
He said merely ensuring a safe Durga Puja was not enough, and those who attacked minorities need to be brought to book.
He argued that those who lynched Dipu Das over blasphemy allegations haven’t been punished yet. Monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, who was arrested on false charges, still remained behind bars.
“With those who harass and target minorities still at large, minorities in the country continue to live in fear,” said Nath.
For now, this year’s Durga Pujo has offered Bangladesh’s Hindus a reason for hope. The real test for Tarique Rahman’s government and Bangladesh’s society as a whole will be whether it can ensure their safety and religious freedom throughout the year, without extraordinary security deployments or political intervention.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
