India’s largest red light area in Kolkata’s Sonagachi inaugurates Durga Puja

Durga Puja is a Hindu festival devoted to the worship of goddess Durga. It is celebrated through prayers, ceremonies, public gatherings, and specially made idols. In Kolkata and across Bengal, the festival is also a major cultural event. Neighborhoods, clubs, families, artists, and visitors take part in organizing and visiting pujas.

The article shows this importance through Sonagachi’s celebration. Sex workers created their own puja after feeling unwelcome at other community events. Their ceremony offers worship, gathering, and a public claim to belonging. The idol-making tradition also connects the festival to Sonagachi, since artisans collect clay from sex workers’ courtyards for Durga idols.

The festival therefore carries both spiritual and social meaning. Sonagachi’s puja challenges the idea that sex workers should remain outside public community life. Growing visits from ministers, MLAs, students, activists, and residents suggest wider acceptance. Its organizers still hope to join mainstream celebrations one day, rather than needing a separate puja.

Sonagachi’s sex workers inaugurated their 14th Durga Puja on Wednesday, October 14. The celebration faced continued resistance from some locals. During the inauguration, residents allegedly complained that the stage was larger than permitted and tried to create a scuffle. The organizers continued with the ceremony despite this pressure.

The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, known as DMSC, organized the puja. Its secretary, Bishakha Laskar, said the group had needed to approach the High Court even to obtain space. She also said locals and neighborhood clubs were unwilling to cooperate with the sex workers in organizing their own celebration.

The puja reflects both resistance and determination. DMSC created it because sex workers often felt judged or looked down upon when visiting other pujas. The event gives them a place to worship and gather publicly. It also asserts their rights and challenges the stigma surrounding their work.

The event is significant because it marked the 14th Durga Puja organized by the sex workers’ group. Reaching a 14th celebration shows persistence despite social stigma, local objections, and difficulties securing space. The puja has become an established annual event in Sonagachi rather than a one-time protest.

The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee organizes the celebration. Its secretary, Bishakha Laskar, described continuing problems with locals each year. Even during this inauguration, some locals alleged that the stage was too large and reportedly tried to create a scuffle. The group nevertheless held the ceremony.

The organizers said participants and guests have increased in recent years. Local MLAs, ministers, social activists, college students, and residents now visit to pay their respects. This broader attendance indicates a possible shift in public attitudes. It also gives the puja greater visibility while the organizers continue seeking equal participation in mainstream society.

The sex workers felt they needed a separate puja because other celebrations did not treat them as equal participants. Bishakha Laskar said they were often judged and looked down upon when visiting other pujas. This social stigma made ordinary attendance uncomfortable and denied them the sense of belonging available to others.

Nearby residents and neighborhood clubs also refused to cooperate in organizing a puja with them. The group therefore created its own event. DMSC even had to approach the High Court to obtain space. The separate puja became a way to worship without depending on groups that rejected or stigmatized them.

The arrangement is not presented as the final goal. Ismail, the son of a sex worker, said the event was a safe space, but expressed hope that sex workers could eventually join every puja like the rest of society. The separate celebration protects dignity now while demanding inclusion later.

The puja provides sex workers with a safe space for worship and community life. It lets them celebrate publicly without depending on groups that have judged or excluded them. It also allows them to reclaim space and agency. The ceremony includes people close to the community, including Ismail, the son of a sex worker.

The event’s value is visible in its growing attendance. Local MLAs, ministers, social activists, college students, and residents now visit to pay their respects. A guest at the ceremony said society cannot progress without giving sex workers rights and treating them as equal citizens. These visits create public recognition rather than silence.

Greater participation could help weaken the stigma that keeps sex workers separate. It might encourage more residents and community groups to cooperate with them. The organizers hope eventually to participate in every puja like everyone else. Until then, their own puja remains both protection and a platform for equality.

The article describes a longstanding tradition in which artisans collect a little clay from the courtyards of sex workers to make Durga idols. Kumartuli, Kolkata’s prominent potters’ colony, is very close to Sonagachi. Each year, this clay becomes part of the material used to create idols worshipped during Durga Puja.

The practice creates a striking connection between the sex workers’ community and the festival. Their courtyards contribute to the making of sacred idols, yet the women whose spaces provide the clay have often felt unwelcome at the pujas where those idols are worshipped. Their physical contribution is accepted even when their social presence is rejected.

That contradiction helped motivate the sex workers to start their own puja. The celebration lets them reclaim space and agency within a tradition connected to them. It also exposes unequal treatment: the community is symbolically included through its clay, but its members have been excluded as citizens and participants.

Sex work generally means an adult providing sexual services in exchange for payment. That broad term can include consensual choices by adults, but it must not hide coercion or trafficking. Trafficking involves exploiting people through force, threats, deception, or abuse of vulnerability. These situations remove meaningful consent and require protection and legal action.

The article highlights this distinction by naming three different groups: women who enter sex work, men who pay for sex, and people who traffic women into the sex trade. It argues that women often carry society’s judgment, while the men who pay and traffickers are not questioned in the same way. The criticism focuses on unequal blame.

Discussions about rights therefore need precision. Adult sex workers should not automatically be treated as criminals or sub-human, as the article describes. At the same time, trafficking and coercion demand protection for victims and accountability for exploiters. The article supports equal citizenship while condemning the unequal social burden placed on women.