Pohela Boishakh

A new year for everyone

Pohela means “first” and Boishakh is the first month of the Bengali calendar. Its origins are debated: some historians link the calendar to the Mughal emperor Akbar, who wanted land taxes collected after the spring harvest rather than by the lunar Hijri calendar, while others trace it to earlier rulers of Bengal. The festive feasts are traced to the Mahifarash, a Muslim fishmonger community of Old Dhaka. In the 1950s and 1960s, under Pakistani rule, the festival became a popular way to express Bengali cultural pride. Today it is largely secular and celebrated by Muslims and Hindus alike.

Families and friends visit one another. Traders open a new ledger in the custom of Haal Khata, inviting loyal customers and offering them sweets; the red and white of the festive clothes is said to recall the old ledgers, which had red covers and white pages. Across the country there are fairs, traditionally held under large banyan trees, with toys, books and food, a wooden Ferris wheel for children, songs, jatra folk plays, and in places boat races, bull races and wrestling.

Songs at dawn and the procession of masks

In Dhaka the day begins at dawn under the banyan tree at Ramna Park, the Ramna Batamul, where the cultural organisation Chhayanaut sings Rabindranath Tagore’s song “Esho he Boishakh”.

Then comes the Mangal Shobhajatra, also called the Barshabaran Ananda Shobhajatra, a mass procession organised by the teachers and students of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Dhaka and open to everyone. It began in 1989, when students frustrated with military rule wanted to give people hope for a better future, following an earlier procession started in Jessore in 1985. For a month beforehand the faculty works on masks, said to drive away evil forces, and floats; among them at least one represents evil, one courage and strength, and one peace, and paintings of folk heritage are sold to fund the event. Each year has its own theme. In 2016 UNESCO inscribed the procession on its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, as an expression of pride in folk heritage and of unity regardless of caste, creed, religion, gender or age.