Bengalis landed in the Land of Nokia more than 25 years ago, at a time when many in India had not even heard about Finland or confused it with Philippines or England!! The small group of Bengalis found each other and huddled together, determined not to miss out on the pujo pujo gondho. Thus started the first pujo in the year 1999 with just a painting of Ma Durga. We, as a community have grown and have come a long way since that. In 2023, we celebrated our 25th pujo and had an open day with free entry for all.
For many years now, Durga Puja has been a topic of interest for many Finnish people. Bengali Association of Finland ry (established later), donated the first idol to the Helina Rautavaara Museum in 2016, where it has found it’s permanent place for display along with a VR audio-visual film and photos around the puja celebration in Finland from 2017. This project was led by the World Culture department, University of Helsinki during 2017. In recent years, the museum sector and heritage agencies have started taking an interest in immigrant communities and their culture. They have started documenting the customs of different communities as part of Finland’s intangible or living heritage. One of the pioneers in this venture is the KAMU Espoo City Museum. The museum regularly produces new research data and, as the data accumulates, new, interesting perspectives on Espoo’s history are sought. With its redevelopment program underway, KAMU is bringing current perspectives on the city, place and community into the discussion. As the Puja is being recently held in Espoo for the third time in a row, I convinced my colleagues that the Bengali community, especially Durga Puja is a part of the events of Espoo which needs to be recorded as part of contemporary documentation process. Subrata Das, a member of BAF ry donated Durga Puja photos from the year 2023 which was held in the Espoo International School to the museum. Finally, 12 photos which represented the spirit of Puja, were selected and became a part of their collection/archive. Additionally, these were uploaded in the Finna open access platform by KAMU (Finna is maintained and developed by the National Library of Finland), which is home to millions of items of cultural and scientific material in Finland.
Wiki-inventory for Living heritage, managed by the Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto) brings visibility to intangible cultural heritage in Finland. There are already over 200 elements from over 250 communities. The last to be included in the National list was the Mexican festival of the Dead in October 2023. This assured me that the Heritage Agency was ready to consider heritage of different communities as officially part of Finland’s heritage. After a hearty discussion and encouragement from the Senior Advisor of the Finnish Heritage Agency, an article on Indian Durga Puja in Finland was written by myself and edited by volunteer editors from the community.
For this, we officially collaborated with two partner organizations, Helinä Rautavaara Museum and KAMU Espoo City Museum. They have been interested in our community work and Durga Puja for quite long. The first draft of the article was submitted to the Heritage Agency on 4th October 2024. Revisions are undergoing with an intent to get the article published as soon as possible. If published, this will help us to get more visibility and standing in the Finnish society.