KOLKATA, INDIA, April 13, 2020 (Deccan Herald): Over 200,000 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’ organization spokesperson said on Monday. “If there are no pujas and other religious functions in the next few months to prevent gatherings, how will the priests survive?” the spokesman of the Paschim Bango Sanatan Brahman Trust, an organization of Hindu priests in the state, asked.
The organization 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. 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 programs to avoid gatherings, he said.