Secularism Trampled at Mamata Banerjee’s State-Funded Jagannath Dham Spectacle

On April 29, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee stood before a Mahayagna, offering oblations in a ritual consecrating the newly built Jagannath Temple in Digha, a popular seaside resort in Purba Medinipur. She was not a passive observer, but acted as the chief yajman, the ritual patron, overseeing rites that culminated in the pran pratishtha of the deity.

The Trinamool Congress government’s overdrive to promote the Jagannath Temple as a symbol of cultural triumph after a wait of a millennium is eerily similar to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rhetoric on Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir as the end of a 500-year wait.

The Jagannath Dham, modelled on Puri’s famed shrine, spans 22 acres and has been funded entirely by the West Bengal government. The official document described it as Jagannath Dham Sanskriti Kendra, but the website reveals no such pretence with a religious backstory. It is a temple. A fully functional Hindu temple, built by a secular government in a pluralistic democracy.

The formal invitation to the consecration ceremony was issued by H.K. Dwivedi, vice-chairperson of the state-owned West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), the agency responsible for constructing the temple. Conspicuously absent from the event was Firhad Hakim, the urban development and municipal affairs minister and also HIDCO’s chairman. Equally telling was the absence of prominent Muslim ministers, MPs and MLAs from the inauguration, a silence that underscored the event’s selective symbolism.

Unlike the Jagannath Temple in Puri, which explicitly bars non-Hindus from entering its premises, the Digha temple includes a segregated chamber where non-Hindus are permitted darshan, a gesture framed as inclusive but fundamentally problematic. Among the features of the new temple is also a Patit Pavan shrine, known as a saviour of the so-called “fallen” or considered impure or ineligible for direct worship under orthodox Hindu norms.

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That a state-funded temple would institutionalise such exclusionary categories raises urgent constitutional questions. When a secular government replicates casteist and religious hierarchies by recognising people as “fallen” according to religious doctrine, it is validating a view that is at odds with the core principles of the Indian Constitution, particularly those of equality, dignity and secularism. Banerjee's gesture of so-called “inclusivity” is, in reality, a guise for reinforcing religious hierarchy, echoing the Sangh parivar's philosophy.

The state government’s direct financing of the Jagannath temple constitutes a flagrant violation of Article 27 of the Indian Constitution, which explicitly prohibits the use of taxpayer funds to "promote or maintain any particular religion". Yet Banerjee, the head of a government in India’s constitutionally secular republic, has sanctioned the diversion of public money into explicitly religious activities. These include funding Vedic fire rituals (yajnas), idol consecration ceremonies (pran pratishtha), and other Hindu rites, all under the guise of “cultural preservation”.

This is not cultural preservation, but a thinly veiled campaign of state-sanctioned religious majoritarianism.

The parallels between Narendra Modi’s Ayodhya and Mamata Banerjee’s Digha are uncanny. Both ceremonies are framed around electoral calendars, both claim to bring economic development through pilgrimage tourism, and both anoint their leaders as divine intermediaries. Modi, the self-proclaimed 'sevak' of Ram, fused his image with Hindu revivalism through sanctum rituals. Similarly, Banerjee, the 'yajman' of Jagannath, presided over fire offerings and aarti, casting herself as the deity's chosen devotee.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes part in the consecration ceremony of the Ayodhya Ram Temple. Photo: Screenshot from DD News broadcast.

A self-professed devotee of Lord Jagannath, Banerjee also directed the state’s information and cultural department to ensure that every household in West Bengal receives a photograph of the deity along with prasad. It is not a mere coincidence that this move bears a striking resemblance to the 2024 Akshat-Chawal campaign by the RSS to reach out to 25 crore Hindu families ahead of the Ram Temple inauguration.

The broader constitutional concern, however, lies in the blurring of lines between temple and governance. Can a secular state justify using its officials to distribute religious offerings? And who are these offerings really meant for in a state where more than 30% of the population belongs to minority communities? There has been no clarity on whether Muslim, Christian or other non-Hindu families are to receive these prasads. If not, this is nothing less than state-sponsored majoritarian outreach.

The Digha temple’s inauguration was, in every way, a curated event. Public access was restricted. Even many Trinamool leaders were left out. Select MPs, MLAs, industrialists, film actors and singers were invited. And amid whispers, members of the Banerjee family had special access to the rituals, a privilege unavailable to the general public in a project funded by their taxes.

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Banerjee’s recent political pivot – her party’s active participation in Ram Navami, patronage of a state-organised Kumbh, initiation of Ganga Aarti, and the construction of Jagannath Dham – all point to a deliberate strategy to reclaim Hindu votes. This “saffron lite” strategy in recent years suggests a calculated attempt to counter Hindutva politics with its diluted version.

In recent days, TMC leaders have increasingly signed off their social media posts with “Joy Jagannath”. Just as the BJP has long mobilised “Jai Shri Ram” as a rallying cry, the TMC now appears to be internalising “Joy Jagannath” as its religious-political slogan. It is a calculated move to invoke a deity revered by Bengali Hindus to reclaim a constituency that has long been told that Banerjee's governance is marked by so-called Muslim appeasement.

What then is the Jagannath Dham? A temple for the people or a sanctified vanity project timed for elections?

Whether that will translate into electoral dividends remains to be seen. But by merging governance with religious spectacle, Banerjee has blurred the line between piousness and power, mirroring a national trend where faith becomes political currency.

Aparna Bhattacharya is Kolkata-based writer and analyst.

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