Over two lakh Hindu priests in
West Bengal have become jobless as various social functions,
rituals and religious festivities have either been cancelled
or postponed to prevent public gatherings in the wake of the
coronavirus outbreak, a pandits” organisation spokesperson
said on Monday. They are in distress with no earnings as rituals
usually organised at home have been cancelled while weddings
and other social programmes postponed, he said, adding that
several devotees are not visiting temples during the ongoing
lockdown. “If there are no pujas and other religious functions
in the next few months to prevent gatherings, how the priests
will survive,” the spokesman of the Paschim Bango Sanatan
Brahman Trust, an organisation of Hindu priests in the state,
said.
The coronavirus-triggered lockdown has left over two
lakh priests across districts jobless, the spokesman said.
The organisation has planned to write a letter to
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to seek help from the
government, he said. Many priests don”t have any other steady income and
their families solely depend on their earnings from rituals
like pujas, and weddings, he said.
Anindyo Mitra, father of a software engineer
Prithviraj Mitra, said his son”s wedding reception was
scheduled to be held in mid May, which has been cancelled for
the time being. “Our family priest requested us to go ahead with the
scheduled ceremony on a smaller scale. But we have cancelled
it for the time being. We are hopeful about organising the
reception by November this year.
“Our family priest has lost many other contracts in
this season,” Mitra said.
Sharing his experience during the lockdown, Prashanta
Chakraborty, a priest in Agarpara area of North 24 Parganas,
said three household ”Annapurna” pujas in Sodepur and
Belgharia localities, had been cancelled at the last moment in
March end, and that was the beginning.
Many shopkeepers, traders and businessmen, who usually
observe the “haal khata” ceremony — opening of new books of
accounts on the occasion of ”Bangla Nabobarsho”, new Bengali
year,– are also cancelling their programmes to avoid
gatherings, he said.
This year, ”Bangla Nabobarsho”, is scheduled on
Tuesday. “I used to earn around Rs 4,000 in total on ”Poila
Boisakh” (the first day of the first month of a Bengali year).
I would have earned around Rs 2,000-2,200 from ”Annapurna”
pujas… Hopefully, things will not be that bad during Durga
Puja and Kali Puja to be held later this year.
“If the situation during that time remains as it is
today, we will die,” Chakraborty, who has a 10-year-old
daughter and wife, said. Upen Mukherjee, an elderly priest in Tollygunje area
of the city, said he joined the profession seven years ago
after his retirement. The last function that he had managed was a ”griho
probesh” (puja to mark entering a new house) on February 24,
Mukherjee said.