Bageshwar Dham’s Dhirendra Krishna Shastri has appealed to Hindus in West Bengal not to sell or cook non-vegetarian food beside Durga Puja idols, adding a fresh voice to a debate already stirred by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) last month.
Speaking during a Hanuman katha programme in Howrah, Shastri said he was pained by what he described as “dirty food” being prepared behind or under pandals once the idols are installed for Navratri and Durga Puja. He urged people not to sell non-vegetarian items near the images of the goddess, even in places where formal idol worship was not being held. Those who claim to be religious while allowing such cooking at the back of a pandal, he said, were hypocrites rather than devotees.
The remarks land on an already unsettled debate. In late August, VHP leaders meeting puja organisers in the state asked committees to keep meat and fish away from the immediate vicinity of the idol, arguing that leftovers and cooking should not compromise the “sanctity and cleanliness” of the venue. The group said it was not demanding a statewide ban on non-vegetarian food during the festival and acknowledged that Durga Puja in Bengal has never been a strictly vegetarian observance. It suggested that if meat or fish were sold, stalls should be placed in designated spots away from the mandap.
“Hindus of Kolkata will wake up, they who don’t follow the rituals are not religious. I ask people to show if they support the idea - should people consume veg food during Durga Puja time here”, he asked the crowd to switch on their mobile flash lights to show support. The ground lit up as he pressed Hindus in Bengal not to sell non-veg near the goddess this season.
That advisory was quickly contested. Critics called it an attempt to impose a North Indian, Vaishnavite idea of Navratri austerity on a Shakta festival whose household and community kitchens have long included fish and, on some days, mutton. VHP office-bearers later said media reports had overstated the meeting and that the organisation had not issued a “fatwa” on what Bengalis may eat.
The cultural context is well known in the state. For many Bengali families, Durga Puja is framed as the goddess’s homecoming rather than a ten-day fast. Community bhog on Saptami and Ashtami is typically vegetarian - khichuri, labra, beguni, chutney - while fish remains central to household meals, and some temples and homes still offer patha (goat) as ritual prasad, often cooked without onion and garlic. Street stalls around large sarbojanin pandals routinely sell mixed fare to the crowds that treat the festival as both worship and public carnival.
Shastri’s intervention does not create that tension; it widens it. A preacher from Madhya Pradesh telling Bengal how to arrange food around its largest public ritual was always likely to be read as more than a hygiene request. Supporters will hear a call to keep the space around the idol clean. Opponents will hear another attempt to police a living regional custom in the name of a uniform “Sanatan” template.
Puja committees, not preachers, still decide what is cooked and sold on their grounds. With the festival weeks away, the practical question is whether organisers treat the appeal as a religious or cleanliness guideline - separate cooking areas, better waste control or as a cultural instruction they reject. Either way, the argument is no longer only about leftovers behind a pandal. It is about who gets to define what counts as respect for the goddess in Bengal.
