A picture of Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, displayed alongside portraits of eminent figures such as Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore at a Durga Puja pandal in Mahishadal, Purba Medinipur district, West Bengal, has caused a fierce controversy. A report on Wednesday (21 October) confirmed the news.
Inside the pandal, organised by the Mahishadal Youth Cultural Organisation (MYCO Club), Godse’s picture hung in a row of framed portraits next to Swami Vivekananda, Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi.
Mohammed Zubair of the fact-checking website Alt News shared on the social media platform X a video recorded by a man named Surya Maity. Once it came out, placing Gandhi’s killer beside the country’s most revered figures drew widespread criticism on social media.
There has been no formal response from the MYCO Club, the local police or the West Bengal government on what the organisers intended.
In 2022, a Durga Puja in Kolkata linked to the Hindu Mahasabha also caused controversy when its Mahishasura idol was made to resemble Mahatma Gandhi; it was changed after protests. Nathuram Godse assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January 1948 and was hanged in 1949.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report