One evening in the village of Guptipara, in Nadia district of West Bengal, a group of Brahmin friends set out to join Durga Puja festivities at the home of a local landlord. What should have been a day of merriment soon turned grim. The men were turned away on the grounds of their low social standing.

Affronted, the twelve friends ( or baro yaar ) organised a celebration of their own — the Baroiyari Puja . In eighteenth-century Bengal, this act of quiet defiance sparked a social shift that reshaped the religious and ritual landscape of the region.

“The Guptipara Baroiyari Puja was a path-breaking event, being in a way instrumental in encouraging ‘public participation’, breaking the shackles of the Goddess confined to the precincts of rich households,” notes Professor Mrinmoyee De

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