Art and Culture · 17 Oct 2026

Durga Puja UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage

Consider the following events in the history of Bengal's Durga Puja:

  1. The Simla Byayam Samiti dresses the goddess in khadi, giving rise to the "Swadeshi Thakur"
  2. Twelve friends at Guptipara raise public subscriptions to hold the first Barowari puja
  3. Raja Nabakrishna Deb begins the Shobhabazar Rajbari puja and hosts Robert Clive
  4. Durga Puja in Kolkata is inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
A2 - 3 - 1 - 4
B3 - 2 - 1 - 4
C3 - 1 - 2 - 4
D2 - 1 - 3 - 4
This question is based on: Bengal's Durga Puja Has Always Had a Patron. The 2026 Question Is Who Decides Its Form
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About this question

Why in news

After the May 2026 change of government in West Bengal, BJP leaders have replaced TMC leaders as patrons of major Kolkata puja committees. This has raised debate over who decides the form of a UNESCO-inscribed living heritage.

Why for UPSC

UPSC uses current cultural controversies to test the static history behind them. Here that history is the shift from household puja to community (Barowari/Sarbojanin) puja to nationalist use of iconography.

Prelims summary

Kolkata's Durga Puja was inscribed in December 2021 under the 2003 UNESCO Convention, with Sangeet Natak Akademi as the nodal body. The festival grew from Shobhabazar (1757) to the Guptipara Barowari (1790) to the Swadeshi Thakur (1926).

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