In December 2021, UNESCO included Kolkata’s Durga Puja in its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

This was made possible due to the efforts of historian Tapati Guha-Thakurta. She recalls the journey and research that went into it.

Foe Tapati, whose research began as early as 2002–03, the question to be answered was: ‘How does pujo redefine our understanding of who an artist is, and what constitutes art?’

“For the last two decades, I have become a researcher of Kolkata’s Durga Puja. I have always been a participant and spectator, but my new vocation as a researcher began around 2002,” she recalls.

With a fellow researcher Anjun Ghosh and a team from the Centre for Studies and Social Sciences, Kolkata, Tapati dedicated hours to researching the nature of the contemporary festival.

Unfortunately in 2015, Anjun died suddenly due to cancer, leaving Tapati bereft. But she was determined to finish what the duo started.

“In 2014, when the West Bengal government took over the festival as a prime platform for their politics and governance, it offered me a convenient closing point to my research,” she says.

She also wrote a book ‘In the Name of the Goddess: The Durga Pujas of Contemporary Kolkata’ that traces the evolution of the puja over the years. Tapati was invited by the Ministry of Culture to put together an extensive dossier to submit to UNESCO, based on her decades-long research.

“We began in September 2018 and were given four to five months to put the dossier together. It had very specific questions which were given to us as a form,” she says.

Explaining the length and breadth of the significance of the Durga Puja was a challenge, she says. Each question was concise and allowed only 150–300 words as answers.

“The festival happens practically everywhere, but it is in Kolkata that it has taken a certain form…a kind of splendour…which is unique. UNESCO’s list emphasises a lot on community and location,” she shares.

The final dossier was submitted in March 2019, and after a few queries, the nomination was made in 2021 for UNESCO’s Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage.