Fish, Mutton & Durga Puja: Why Bageshwar Baba’s Remark Has Bengal Talking

Can a plate of fish curry or mutton curry become a religious controversy?

In Bengal, where fish and meat can be part of a family celebration, a wedding feast, a Sunday lunch and, in some traditions, even an offering to a deity, the question is not as absurd as it sounds.

A few words from Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, popularly known as Bageshwar Baba, have turned a debate over vegetarian and non-vegetarian food during Durga Puja into something much bigger; a conversation about religion, Bengali identity, tradition, political influence and, ultimately, who gets to decide what a festival should look like.

And one word, in particular, has made the controversy impossible to dismiss as merely a debate about dietary preference: “pakhandi.”

During his recent visit to West Bengal, Shastri appealed to Hindus in the state not to cook or eat fish and meat during Durga Puja and urged people not to sell non-vegetarian food near Durga idols and pandals. But he went further than simply advocating vegetarianism. According to reels of his speech circulating on the internet, he described those consuming non-vegetarian food during the religious period as “pakhandi” which translates into religious hypocrites or frauds and also referred to non-vegetarian food as “ganda khana”, or “dirty food”.

That distinction matters.

If someone says, “I believe devotees should remain vegetarian during Durga Puja,” that is a religious belief. Another person can agree or disagree.

But when people following a different practice are called “pakhandi”, the argument moves beyond personal faith. It becomes a judgement on someone else’s devotion.

And Bengal reacted.

Within hours, social media platforms were flooded with memes, jokes, angry posts and counterarguments. Some users compared Shastri to Birinchi Baba, the self-proclaimed godman from Satyajit Ray’s Mahapurush. The comparison became so prominent that The Telegraph reported on the “Birinchi Baba back” reaction, showing how Ray’s fictional godman had suddenly found a place in the present-day conversation.

Others took a completely different position, arguing that Shastri’s primary objection was to the sale of non-vegetarian food around Puja venues rather than a blanket ban on meat in Bengali homes.

So what exactly is being debated here?

And perhaps more importantly: is this really a fight about food?

Dhirendra Krishna Shastri is the chief priest of Bageshwar Dham in Madhya Pradesh and has emerged as one of India’s most recognisable young Hindu religious figures. Known popularly as Bageshwar Baba, he conducts religious discourses and large public programmes and has developed a significant following across India.

His recent Bengal visit included a three-day Hanumant Katha in Liluah, Howrah. During that visit, his comments about Durga Puja and non-vegetarian food became the centre of attention.

That context matters because Shastri is not simply a person expressing a preference for vegetarian food at home. He is a nationally known religious preacher whose words carry influence among a large audience.

At the same time, his remarks were an appeal, not a government order. There is no state law that has suddenly banned fish or meat during Durga Puja because of what he said.

But that does not make the “pakhandi” comment harmless.

The controversy splits into two interpretations.

One side sees it as a limited religious appeal: keep meat and fish away from the immediate vicinity of religious spaces and maintain what they consider the sanctity of the Puja environment.

The other hears something much broader: an outsider telling Bengali Hindus what they should eat during their own festival and, worse, questioning their religious sincerity if they refuse.

And the choice of Bengal is significant.

Because Durga Puja here has never been only a religious ceremony.

It is culture.

It is homecoming.

It is food.

It is art, music, fashion, adda, family gatherings and public life.

It is also a tradition that has developed its own Bengali vocabulary and rituals over centuries. Kolkata’s Durga Puja was recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, reflecting its significance as a major cultural expression as well as a religious festival.

So when someone appears to prescribe what should be on the Bengali Puja menu, the reaction is unlikely to remain confined to religion.

There is another reason the argument becomes complicated: there is no single Bengali Durga Puja food tradition.

Many community Pujas serve vegetarian bhog, particularly khichuri, vegetables, sweets and other traditional offerings. Many families observe vegetarian days or follow strict dietary restrictions during the festival. For countless devotees, vegetarian bhog is an essential part of the sanctity of Durga Puja.

But vegetarianism is not some universally accepted definition of what makes a Bengali Puja legitimate.

Walk into the old bonedi baris of Bengal and the picture becomes considerably more varied.

These ancestral family Pujas, some of which have continued for generations, developed their own rituals, menus and customs. In some bonedi households, vegetarian food is strictly observed on particular days, while fish or meat returns to the table on others. At some historic family Pujas, fish has traditionally been offered or prepared as part of the family’s ritual practices; at others, the entire festival follows vegetarian rules.

The point is not that every bonedi bari serves non-vegetarian food.

The point is that even among Bengal’s oldest Durga Puja traditions, there has never been one universal menu.

The Darjipara Mitra family in Kolkata, for instance, has a documented Puja tradition in which vegetarian food dominates on Ashtami while fish becomes part of the family’s food practices from Navami onwards. Other old family Pujas have their own distinct combinations of vegetarian bhog, fish, sweets and festive meals.

These customs did not appear randomly.

Bengal’s food culture has been shaped by its geography and demography. This is a riverine delta where fish has historically been abundant and deeply embedded in everyday life. Rice and fish became staples not because someone decided they represented a particular religious identity, but because geography, agriculture, waterways, local availability and centuries of social life shaped what people ate.

The state’s diverse communities and long history of interaction also contributed to a food culture that is far more layered than a simple vegetarian-versus-non-vegetarian divide.

So when fish or meat appears on a Bengali festive table, it cannot automatically be read as a statement against religion.

Sometimes, it is simply part of the culture that grew around the people, landscape and history of Bengal.

And then there are Bengal’s Shakta traditions.

In certain forms of Shakta worship, animal sacrifice has historically formed part of ritual practice. The meat from such sacrifices may be treated as prasad.

This is not an invented social-media argument.

Dilip Ghosh, responding to the current controversy, pointed specifically to Bengal’s historical tradition of animal sacrifice during Durga Puja and the consumption of the meat as prasad.

So the statement that “Bengalis eat non-veg during Puja” cannot be applied to every Bengali.

But neither can the statement that “Durga Puja in Bengal is inherently vegetarian.”

Both would erase part of the picture.

And yes, fish and meat is actually offered to deities in Bengal.

This is perhaps the detail that makes the present controversy particularly fascinating.

At Kolkata’s Dakshineswar temple, associated so closely with Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, fish has historically formed part of the bhog tradition offered to Goddess Bhavatarini. The temple’s association with Bengal’s Shakta tradition is another reminder that devotional practices around goddess worship in Bengal have never followed a single dietary template.

The diversity becomes even clearer when Bengal’s Shakta traditions are taken into account. At Tarapith in Birbhum, one of Bengal’s major Shakti shrines, temple traditions include both vegetarian offerings and an amish bhog associated with Tantric practice. Fish and meat are offered to Goddess Tara, while the temple’s traditional bhog has also included shol fish and, on specific occasions, the meat of a sacrificed goat.

At Kalighat in Kolkata, another major Shakta centre, the picture is similarly layered. Reports on the temple’s bhog tradition have documented fish, prawns and mutton among the offerings, while animal sacrifice also continues as a traditional ritual at the shrine. Importantly, this does not mean that Shakta worship itself demands non-vegetarian food, or that every Bengali devotee follows these practices. Vegetarian offerings exist alongside them. What these temples demonstrate is something more important to the present debate: Bengal’s goddess worship has historically accommodated more than one dietary tradition. In this context, declaring one form of food as inherently more religious and dismissing those who follow another tradition as “pakhandi”does not simply become a question of personal preference, it is considered to be an attack on religious and cultural idenitity. This is where it enters a much older and more complicated conversation about what devotion, ritual and Bengali tradition can look like.

Again, none of this proves that every Bengali Hindu believes in animal sacrifice.

It does not mean every Durga Puja involves fish or meat.

And it certainly does not mean vegetarian worship is somehow illegitimate.

Bengal has a strong Vaishnavite tradition, where vegetarianism has long been an important part of religious practice. In many Vaishnavite households and communities, especially those influenced by Gaudiya Vaishnavism, offerings to deities are strictly vegetarian, and this approach can also shape how families observe festivals, including Durga Puja. Some households therefore keep their Puja rituals and bhog entirely vegetarian, seeing satvik food as an expression of devotion. This tradition is just as much a part of Bengal’s religious landscape as the Shakta practices associated with fish, meat and other offerings. The coexistence of these traditions is precisely why there has never been one universally prescribed Bengali way of observing Durga Puja.

These arguments point towards something simpler.

Bengali Hindu religious practices have never been one-size-fits-all.

There are vegetarian traditions.

There are Shakta traditions.

There are Vaishnava traditions.

There are family traditions.

There are temple-specific traditions.

And they have existed alongside one another for generations.

That is why saying simply “Durga Puja is vegetarian” would be just as reductive as saying “Durga Puja is non-vegetarian”.

The familiar public image of Puja bhog is predominantly vegetarian. But bhog served at a community Puja is not necessarily the same thing as a fish fry or mutton stall operating outside a pandal. The two questions — what is offered to the deity and what people choose to eat around the festival — should not automatically be treated as identical.

There is also a deeper Shakta history behind Bengal’s relationship with food and worship.

And this is where Bengal’s spiritual and intellectual history becomes relevant.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, one of the most influential spiritual figures to emerge from nineteenth-century Bengal, cannot reasonably be reduced to a debate about whether someone should eat fish or vegetables. His religious life was rooted in intense devotion and in experiencing different paths of Hindu worship.

Swami Vivekananda’s views on food were equally difficult to squeeze into today’s social-media arguments.

His writings show that he recognised vegetarian food as spiritually purer for someone pursuing a strictly spiritual life, but he also argued that people engaged in strenuous worldly activity might require meat. His discussion of food in The East and the West was considerably more contextual than today’s simplistic “veg versus non-veg” arguments.

So using Vivekananda as a simple “vegetarian” or “non-vegetarian” mascot misses the point.

Interestingly, Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya invoked Vivekananda while responding to Shastri. He argued that no religious figure or political party could dictate what Bengalis should eat or wear and pointed to Bengali traditions involving fish and goat meat during the Puja period.

That response was significant because the political reaction did not come only from opposition parties.

BJP leaders themselves began distancing the party from the dietary diktat.

Samik Bhattacharya said Shastri had the right to advocate vegetarianism but could not impose his views on Bengali society. He stressed that Bengalis would continue following their own food traditions.

Dilip Ghosh also pushed back against the idea that Bengali food habits could be dictated, pointing to Bengal’s historical traditions of sacrifice and non-vegetarian offerings.

Agnimitra Paul similarly argued that Bengali families have their own relationship with food during Puja, pointing to the anticipation around dishes such as ilish, chingri and mutton.

Congress leaders took the matter further and filed police complaints against Shastri, accusing him of hurting Bengali sentiments and insulting the state’s cultural traditions.

The Trinamool Congress and Left leaders also criticised the remarks, framing them as an attempt to interfere in Bengal’s cultural practices.

And then there is the political backdrop.

The controversy was already connected to a wider debate after the VHP raised the issue of restricting non-vegetarian food around Durga Puja pandals. Shastri’s remarks gave that debate another, much more recognisable face.

His political associations in Bengal made the reaction sharper still. His visit received attention from senior political figures, including a dinner hosted by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. The association subsequently became another point of criticism, with opponents questioning the political proximity to a religious figure whose remarks had offended many Bengalis.

But the public reaction cannot be reduced to party politics either.

For many Bengalis, something more personal appears to be at stake.

Because there is a peculiar kind of irritation that comes when someone tells you how to perform something you have grown up watching your family perform.

Tell a Bengali that vegetarian food is spiritually preferable- there can be a discussion.

Tell a Bengali that a particular religious space should not have meat stalls next to it – there can be a debate.

But tell a Bengali that those who eat fish or meat during Durga Puja are “pakhandi”, and the argument is suddenly about much more than food.

It sounds like an outsider has not merely expressed a belief, but has attempted to degrade the authenticity of someone else’s devotion.

That is why the reaction of “Why are you teaching Bengalis how to do Durga Puja?” has gained such force.

Bengalis certainly do not agree among themselves about every aspect of Durga Puja. They never have.

One family may follow a strictly vegetarian ritual.

Another may have an ancestral Shakta practice.

One neighbourhood may serve only vegetarian bhog.

Another may have food stalls selling fish fry, rolls or biryani outside the Puja premises.

One devotee may fast.

Another may go pandal-hopping and eat everything from phuchka to mutton.

That diversity does not necessarily mean that one person respects Durga Puja and another does not.

It is precisely the coexistence of these practices that has shaped Bengal’s cultural understanding of the festival.

And perhaps this is where the Birinchi Baba comparison becomes particularly revealing.

Satyajit Ray’s Mahapurush satirised the figure of the self-important godman who claims extraordinary spiritual authority and makes grand pronouncements about life, faith and knowledge. In the days after Shastri’s remarks, social-media users revived the character, joking that “Birinchi Baba” had returned.

It was not simply a meme about vegetarian food.

It was a very Bengali form of cultural satire: the godman who comes with answers for everyone else.

At the same time, not everyone who supported Shastri’s position agreed that Bengalis should stop eating non-vegetarian food altogether.

Some social-media users argued that his point was specifically about selling or consuming meat close to religious venues and that maintaining a vegetarian environment around a Puja pandal was a reasonable request.

That position deserves to be heard too.

A religious community is entitled to debate how its sacred spaces should be maintained. If a Puja committee wants its immediate surroundings to remain vegetarian, that is a discussion worth having.

But that is a very different proposition from telling millions of people that eating fish or meat during the festival makes them “pakhandi”.

And perhaps that is the line at the heart of this entire controversy.

Choice versus prescription.

A person can choose vegetarianism because of their faith.

A family can choose vegetarian bhog.

A devotee can fast.

A Puja committee can decide what food is appropriate within its premises.

But when one practice is presented as the only authentic form of devotion  and people who follow another are branded religious hypocrites,  the conversation changes.

For many Bengalis, religion has never been simply about what sits on the plate.

Durga Puja is deeply emotional because the goddess is not imagined only as some distant, untouchable divine figure in Bengal. In Bengali homes and imagination, Durga is Uma, the daughter coming home to her parents for a few days before returning to her husband’s home.

That is why the festival carries an intimacy that is difficult to translate into a rulebook.

The dhaak, the sindoor, the alpona, the new clothes, the bhog, the family meals, the pandal-hopping, the reunion, they all become part of a larger emotional story: Ma’s homecoming.

For many Bengalis, devotion to Durga is therefore not measured by whether a plate contains fish or vegetables alone.

It is measured by what the festival means in the heart.

The food traditions themselves emerged from Bengal’s land, rivers, agriculture, communities and history. The rituals evolved through households and temples. The public celebration changed with the rise of the sarbojanin Puja. Bonedi baris preserved their ancestral customs. Shakta and Vaishnava traditions developed alongside each other.

That is why there may be no single “legitimate” Bengali Puja menu.

The vegetarian bhog is legitimate.

The family that follows a fish tradition is legitimate within its own inherited practice.

The devotee who fasts is legitimate.

The family that follows an ancestral Shakta ritual is legitimate.

What cannot simply be assumed is that one of these practices gives its followers the authority to declare everyone else spiritually fraudulent.

Perhaps this is why the controversy has struck such a raw nerve.

The fear is not that someone prefers vegetarian food.

Nobody needs permission to be vegetarian.

The anxiety is about the possibility of turning one person’s interpretation of Hindu practice into a test of religious authenticity.

And perhaps that is why the phrase “Bengalis don’t need to be taught how to do Durga Puja” has resonated so strongly.

It is not a claim that every Bengali performs the festival in the same way.

It is almost the opposite.

It is a reminder that Bengal’s relationship with Durga has always contained diversities, and that those diversities have survived because people were allowed to carry their own traditions.

The question, then, is not whether Bengalis should eat fish.

They can.

Nor is it whether Bengalis should eat vegetarian food.

They can.

The question is whether either choice should become a measure of devotion.

Because Durga Puja in Bengal was never built around one plate.

It was built around a goddess who comes home.

Uma.

A daughter.

A mother.

A beloved figure who, for generations, Bengalis have welcomed not as a distant deity to be approached only through rigid rules, but as someone who belongs here.

So perhaps the real question is not “Veg or non-veg?”

Perhaps it is:

Who gets to decide what counts as authentic Durga Puja in Bengal?

And if Bengal’s centuries-old religious traditions have room for the vegetarian bhog, the fish offering, the bonedi bari feast, the Shakta ritual, the family meal and the fasting devotee, perhaps preserving the tradition means allowing that plurality to survive.

Because sometimes, respecting a culture does not mean deciding which part of it is the “correct” one.

It means understanding why all those parts came to exist in the first place.