At Beliaghata pandal, a celebration of woman power

Right from aesthetics of the pandal to its security, almost everything is taken care of by a group of over 150 rural women, who have showcased their empowerment at a Durga puja celebration in Kolkata. Around 150 women from Sundarbans, Lodhasoli and some parts of north Bengal, working for various self help groups have formed the Sharad Swanirbhar Committee, which has organised the puja at Beliaghata.


The image of Goddess Durga resembles a village belle and the pandal a complete village, with a health centre, a community radio centre, a rain water harvesting unit and solar lamps, where visitors are being shown how handicrafts are made. Almost everything has been done by the women, from decorations to even providing security to teeming pandal hoppers.


“We are trying to show that the energies of unemployed women can be harnessed for social and economic development,” said Hritabroto Chowdhury, founding member of an NGO — Social Engineering and Advanced Technical Education (SENATE) — and one of the brains behind the puja. During the puja, the group showcased eye-catching bags and folders made of paper pulp among other items.

“The bags and folders, woven from strips of hand-made paper and newspapers have been branded as ‘Greeninitiative’ and have already found orders from corporates and stirred interest abroad,” Chowdhury said. Lakshmi Mondal, a young housewife from Lakshbagan in Setjalia island in the Sundarbans has mastered the craft of making paper pulp pots, paper bags and folders. She recollects the aftermath of the devastating Aila cyclone that hit Sundarbans on May 21 last year.

“It is difficult to eke out a living in the Sundarbans now. First the water swept away out homes and then made our agricultural land barren. We then made a living somehow by catching and selling fish, but that too did not continue for long.

“There are so many things to do to make a living in the city ... Now I feel confident I can help my family,” she said.

Falguni Kori (20) from Namkhana is determined to make it bigger. “Our paper bags found great interest at a mela here on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. We have plans to showcase our bags in Delhi,” said Kori.

Large earthenware painted with scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharata are another attraction at the pandal. The painters are ‘chitrakars’ and belong to Sabang and Pingla.

“The women, except the chitrakars, have been trained by qualified people, some even from the National Institute of Fashion Technology in making paper pulp and jute products, besides junk jewellery under various schemes of the ministry of self help of West Bengal and rural innovative fund of NABARD,” Chowdhury said.

The products made by the self help groups are on sale and the women readily provide live demonstration of their craft at the specially built activity centres near the main pandal. They have also put up food stalls selling popular traditional items. Stalls have also been put up by SHG department of the state, which has a total 12 lakh self help groups.

Post-puja the SHGs providing security at the pandal hope to be employed in the malls in the city, Sonali Das of a self help group ‘Sampurna Goshthi’ said.