Areligious occasion has been vandalised. This is quite the most charitable construct that can be placed upon the hooliganism that has marked this year’s Chhat puja in Kolkata. Perish the thought of environmental degradation, Kolkata has incurred the dubious distinction of being one of the country’s worst polluted cities. Last weekend witnessed a collectively impervious attitude towards the breathlessness in Delhi and the National Capital Region. In Kolkata, it is the administration’s response that was breathless, and almost incredibly so.
It is no disrespect to religious sentiment to suggest that seemingly professional vandals took over the conduct of the rituals in flagrant violation of the rules at Rabindra Sarovar, as laid down in 2017 by the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The Tribunal had banned “any puja, community picnic and social event” on the 192-acre Rabindra Sarovar complex. The directive was still more stringent this year, specifically against the littering of the Lakes and the environs ~ indeed the lungs of South Kolkata post the gradual degradation of the Maidan.
The ban, according to the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, was imposed to protect the biodiversity and environmental assets of the Sarovar. The origins of the perpetrators of the vandalism need not detain us here. Suffice it to register that lawlessness, almost calculated, knows no provincial frontier. Equally, religion can offer no defence for a violent counter-mobilisation. So it was in the city on Saturday and Sunday, when hundreds of stormtroopers broke the locks of several gates and entered the Sarovar area that had been declared “out of bounds” by the NGT several days prior to the occasion.
As faith was sacrificed at the altar of hooliganism, the forcible entry was doubtless facilitated by the retreat of the police and KMC volunteers. Even the police outpost within the complex was reportedly locked. Worse, the neighbouring police stations never answered the telephone, an attitude that has made a travesty of the much-touted Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). It is hard not to wonder whether the callous indifference of the lawenforcement authorities was designed to facilitate the break-in. It devolved on both entities to ensure that the devotees abided by the NGT’s order. The claim advanced by the police that there was no request from “Sarovar custodians” to deploy force for Chhat puja is neither here nor there.
KMDA, which happens to be the custodian, had shut down the park between midnight on Friday and Sunday noon to ensure the protection of the park and the Lake. In the event, the place has become murkier still. The law and the NGT’s regulations have been binned in the waters of the Sarovar. Even the wooden fencing around the Lake has reportedly been broken by vandals. In the net, the grossly illegal entry of thousands underwhelmed the religious rituals associated with Chhat.