On April 28, Bankim Mishra travelled about 250 km from Chhatna in West Bengal’s Bankura district to Digha in Purba Medinipur, carrying 3,003 lotus flowers and water from what is considered the sacred Susunia spring. Mishra, a Trinamool Congress leader of Chhatna panchayat, is a devotee of Lord Jagannath, a form of the Hindu god Vishnu. He had felt an urge to witness the inauguration of the newly constructed temple in the State, a replica of the 12th-century Jagannath Temple in Puri, Odisha. “We are indebted to Didi (West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee) for constructing the Jagannath temple in Digha. People can now travel within their own State for worship instead of going to Puri (in Odisha),” he says.
It is the last week of April, and Digha, a coastal town, is decorated with flowers, flags, and lights for the inauguration of the temple. Built at a cost of ₹250 crore of taxpayers’ money, front-page advertisements were issued across national newspapers and details of the architecture discussed on local channels for hours. The Chief Minister composed a Bengali hymn in honour of Lord Jagannath. It was sung by West Bengal’s Minister for Information and Cultural Affairs Indranil Sen and played across Digha for days.
At the inauguration, the CM ceremonially opened the temple gates and presented herself before the deities. Two journalists climbed to the roof of a primary school near the temple and, with the lit up structure in the background, debated in Bengali on whether the event was a ‘Ram Temple moment’ for the Trinamool Congress. On January 22, 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Ram too is considered a Vishnu avatar.
On the live telecast, the debate raged: “The Jagannath temple is a masterstroke by the Chief Minister to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Hindutva push. The Trinamool Congress will say Jai Jagannath to the BJP’s Jai Shri Ram,” one of the reporters said.
Amid the debate, a ‘breaking news’ item popped up: BJP leader and former West Bengal party president Dilip Ghosh has defied party lines and arrived at the temple with his wife. From a religious event, the focus shifted to politics. Senior Ministers of the West Bengal government rushed to escort the BJP leader from the gates of the temple to give him a place close to the Chief Minister.
The temple as a political project
Before the temple inauguration, directions were sent to the party’s rank and file to live-stream the event. Yellow flags with Jai Jagannath and the symbol of the deity were put up across the coastline in Digha. Several leaders of the Trinamool Congress changed their social media profile to AI-generated Lord Jagannath themes.
The images of Jagannath, Balaram, and Subhadra — the three deities of the original temple in Odisha, all siblings — were depicted through colourful lights across the town. Surrounding the temple in more light installations were symbols associated with Jagannath (the lord of the universe): the conch, chakra, mace, and lotus.
Hundreds of light technicians, mostly from Chandannagar, a town in Hooghly famous for light installations during other festivals, had been working for weeks in Digha.
“Eight illuminated gates about 36 to 40 feet wide were set up, modelled on the theme of the Jagannath Temple. The design of the main entrance has also been used to make light installations,” Jayanta Das, a light artist from Chandannagar, says. Lights extend almost to a kilometre, just before the inauguration.
The CM arrived in Digha two days before the inauguration. On April 28, she visited the temple premises twice, first in the afternoon and later in the evening, taking stock of last-minute preparations.
“I think the sculptors have done a splendid job. Now, if (Digha) becomes a place of pilgrimage, more tourists will come…. This temple will be a new feather in Digha’s tourism cap and will be recognised at the international level,” the CM had said.
A cultural performance by Odissi dancers on the day of the inauguration. Apart from a cultural programme, hundreds of light technicians from a district in Hooghly were also employed for light decorations before the inauguration.
| Photo Credit:
DEBASISH BHADURI
On April 29, elaborate arrangements were made for a mahayajna (sacrifice around a holy fire) and the gates of the temple were opened for a select group of dignitaries for the first time. Offerings were made and Sanskrit mantras chanted amid the crowd of a couple of hundreds.
Banerjee donated a gold broom valued at ₹5 lakh to the temple. As per tradition, the path taken by Lord Jagannath during the Rath Yatra is ceremonially swept with a golden broom,” the Trinamool Congress social media handles had declared. During the mahayajna ceremony, two monks were by the side of the Chief Minister: Radharaman Das, vice-president of Kolkata centre’s ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), and Ramakrushna Das Mohapatra, a senior sevayat (traditional priest) of the Jagannath Temple in Puri.
On April 30, Akshaya Tritiya, which Hindus celebrate as a festival of prosperity, the doors of the temple were opened by the CM after a cultural programme that went on for hours. Artists and singers from Kolkata performed as thousands waited outside in the blistering afternoon heat. “I believe that this temple will spread spirituality as a pilgrimage along the coastline for thousands of years,” Banerjee said during the inauguration, finally opening the gates.
She directed her administration to ensure that the photographs and the prasad (offering made to the deity) were distributed across Bengal. Hundreds of hotels in Digha got them.
Different kinds of Hinduism
Biswanath Chakraborty, professor of Political Science at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, says, “The Muslim population is fully in support of Mamata Banerjee. She wants no polarisation of Hindu votes during the 2026 Assembly poll.”
He adds that all Hindus are not supporters of the BJP. “When the CM inaugurates a Jagannath temple in Digha or a skywalk at the Kalighat temple in Kolkata, she attempts to counter the polarisation of Hindu votes.”
Biswanath says after the attacks on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh in 2024 and the Murshidabad riots of April 2025, there was discontent among some Hindus within the Trinamool Congress. The ruling party has tried to diffuse this with the construction of the Jagannath temple.
Kunal Chattopadhyay, retired professor of History at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, says the whole idea of Ram in Bengali culture has never been rooted in deep religiosity and is an importation by Hindutva forces. Over the past few years, amid frantic Ram Navami celebrations, some of which were organised by the Trinamool Congress, Banerjee brought up a different kind of Hinduism as a counter-narrative, he says.
The idea of building a Jagannath temple in West Bengal was first floated in 2018. The work had to be stopped after the outbreak of the pandemic.
| Photo Credit:
DEBASISH BHADURI
“This is what the Jagannath temple is all about. She is trying to highlight that Bengal will have its own Jagannath temple. We are more Hindu than you,” Chattopadhyay says, adding that in certain parts of the State, particularly south Bengal, Jagannath is a revered deity.
Opposition and confrontation
Banerjee had announced the construction of the Jagannath temple in December 2018, but the work could not take off due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Work started in full swing in May 2022 on Akshaya Tritiya and was completed three years later on the same date. On the day Banerjee opened the doors of the Jagannath temple, the Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, started the renovation of temples affected by communal violence in Murshidabad.
Adhikari, who hails from the Purba Medinipur district, where the temple is located, has been opposed to the idea of construction of the Jagannath temple. He has said it is not a temple but a cultural centre. The BJP leader argues that the tender documents of the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (the agency that constructed the temple) reveal that a “Jagannath Dham Sanskriti Kendra”, not a temple, has been built at Digha.
Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi wrote to Banerjee requesting her to refrain from using the “Jagannath Dham” term for the temple. “The name ‘Jagannath Dham’ holds a unique and sacrosanct identity linked to Puri, and its usage in reference to any other temple or location hurts sentiments and emotions of millions of pilgrims, devotees, and the general public, besides diluting the distinct heritage of Shree Jagannath Dham, Puri,” Majhi wrote in the letter.
Banerjee was unfazed. “Why are they so angry just because we have built a Jagannath temple in Digha? Is it a crime to worship Lord Jagannath in West Bengal? Why does it hurt them so much? We all go to Puri,” she said while visiting strife-torn Murshidabad district on May 6.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) experts, however, feel that the controversy over Jagannath Dham may not be that simple. “This dispute is less about pure IPR and more about cultural and regional identity politics,” says Pinaki Ghosh, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, IPR Chair Professor, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata
There are two sets of idols at the Jagannath temple in Digha, one made of wood and the other of stone.
| Photo Credit:
DEBASISH BHADURI
“Under Indian trademark law, temples can assert rights if their names are registered or have acquired distinctiveness. SJTA (Shree Jagannath Temple Administration) has registered ‘Shree Jagannath’, which may support a legal claim against misuse. However, since Jagannath is a deity’s name and part of shared religious heritage, exclusive ownership is limited,” Pinaki says.
West Bengal and Odisha have had past tussles around cultural capital, like the dispute over a geographical identification (GI) tag for a traditional sweet made of cottage cheese. It was settled after the GI registry awarded the GI tag to ‘Banglar rosogolla’ in November 2017 and to ‘Odisha rasagola’ in July 2019.
Before Odisha’s Mohapatra came to Bengal’s Jagannath temple, he had raised objections to one set of idols made from neem wood that he said had been sourced from the Nabakalebara, a ritual in Puri where priests identify a tree and bless it for its wood to be made into the Puri idols. However, a probe by the Odisha government revealed on May 5 that the daru (blessed neem wood) had not been sourced from the Puri Jagannath Temple.
Devotees have the final say
Thousands of people continue to visit the temple in Digha every day. ISKCON monk Radharaman Das claims that about 20 lakh people have visited it since the inauguration. The monk, who last year was vocal about atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh, with his remarks finding support from the BJP, is now a key figure responsible for managing the temple in the coastal town.
The Jagannath temple in Digha has inspired similar temples in Kolkata and the rest of the State. Within weeks of the inauguration, Trinamool Congress leader and councillor of Ward 108 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Sushanta Ghosh unveiled a Jagannath temple in Kolkata’s Anandpur area. Sushanta, who had survived an attempt on his life last year after the gun pointed at him failed to fire, told mediapersons, “When the CM started the construction of the Jagannath temple in Digha, I also became interested in building a temple.”
Amal Chakraborty, a councillor from the KMC’s Ward 14 has announced that this year’s Durga Puja theme at Kabiraj Bagan Sarbojanin Durgotsav Committee, a well-known community puja in the Ultadanga area, will be inspired by the newly constructed Jagannath temple in Digha. Like the temple at Digha, Amal wants the CM to inaugurate the Durga Puja pandal this year.
(With inputs from Satyasundar Barik)
shivsahay.s@thehindu.co.in
Published – May 18, 2025 10:20 pm IST
