A Durga Puja that began in 1925 became hidden spark for Hindutva in Jabalpur.

How a Durga Puja in Jabalpur that began in 1925 became hidden spark for Hindutva.

Sidharth Pandey  &  Vinita Chaturvedi | TOI | Jabalpur/Bhopal | Sept 29, 2025::  India was under the British while a stirring was taking place in Nagpur as KB Hedgewar quietly laid the foundation of what would become the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

That same year, 300 km away in Jabalpur, another quiet act was underway: the Bengali community, inspired by its links to Nagpur, initiated its own Durga Puja. The two events in 1925 — though different in nature — would fork into a shared trajectory of spreading the concept of Hindutva and nationalist sentiment.

In Jabalpur, then in the Central Provinces, the Bengali elite in Galgala area, also known as Bengali Tola — once known for its leaning toward Congress or Left politics — had begun developing roots in Hindu Mahasabha politics in the preindependence era. Those in the know say their artistic and religious expressions, beginning with the local puja, began leading to subtle ideological propagation.

The story, though, began earlier. In 1852, Rai Bahadur Bireshwar Dutt, a barrister who became a civil judge in Jabalpur, hosted what came to be called Biru Babu ki Kali — a form of Durga worshipped over nine days in his bungalow in Galgala.

In 1875, the puja moved to the home of Ambika Charan Banerjee, well known citizen of Jabalpur who played a major role in setting up Jabalpur municipality, which became a civic anchor, pressing for municipal self-rule and public cultural institutions.

The puja was attended by British officers and their wives while the locals stayed away.

Then came Rai Bahadur Prabhat Chandra Bose, another prominent resident of Jabalpur, who in 1925 founded the Siddhi Bala Bose Library Association and City Bengali Club in memory of his late wife, and hosted the community’s first Durga Puja there. This puja was “sarbojonik”, open to all in the city.

The Banerjee family continued to actively associate itself with the puja.

Bose was not just a civic luminary. He became a member of the Central Provinces’ Vidhan Parishad and briefly an education minister, while actively holding leadership in Hindu Mahasabha.

His grandson Shyama Prasad Datta recalls: “Whenever my nana visited Allahabad, he would be asked by his friends in Congress to quit Hindu Mahasabha. But he declined every time and remained a staunch member till his last day.”

In 1940, when MS Golwalkar became the RSS sarsanghchalak, he saw in Jabalpur’s Bengali network fertile ground for expansion. He handpicked Ambika Charan Banerjee’s grandson Subhash Chandra Banerjee as ‘prant pracharak’ for the city, and his brother Bibhash as ‘prant pracharak’ for Kolkata. Their mission: Merge the memory-structures of Bengali cultural capital with the organisational discipline of Hindutva.

Subhash Chandra Banerjee’s son Deepankar Banerjee recounts: “All the RSS chiefs and senior functionaries who visited Jabalpur would stay at our home. Golwalkar guruji came home for my elder brother’s thread ceremony at our house in Galgala.”

“In the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, when circuit houses were booked exclusively for Congress leaders, RSS friends stayed with us; our home was called Circuit House 3,” Deepankar’s wife Mitali said.

Their home became a living ideological salon — hosting the likes of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Sudarshan, and more. The family also donated half an acre of land for the first RSS school in Galgala.

People in Jabalpur say that by hosting Durga Puja and other Bengali cultural events under RSS’ organisational supervision, the community preserved inheritance while shaping allegiance. What looked like devotion often doubled as “soft mobilisation.”

However, many among Jabalpur’s Bengali community feel that the Puja that Prabhat Chandra Bose started in Jabalpur in 1925 was not merely a religious or political expression. “It became the hub for culture and literature for the community, giving it a wider political worldview and also leading to development of MP. It can’t just be bracketed in Hindutva agenda,” current secretary of Siddhi Bala Bose Library Association, Prakash Saha, said.
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Courtesy: Times of India.
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