Bengal’s Goddess Contradiction
A history of worshipping powerful women shapes the region’s identity as a matriarchal utopia — but the data tells a more uncomfortable truth.
In Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, Tijori is the patriarch of the Randhawas, a Punjabi family that has built its fortune on a sweets business. He raises his hand against his wife, reprimands his son for dancing, and fat-shames his daughter when she can’t find a man. Cut to the Bengali Chatterjees. The father is a Kathak dance teacher, openly jokes about sex in front of his daughter, and drinks wine with his wife and widowed mother — who has a boyfriend. As director Karan Johar puts it for his film’s vision: “The thought was patriarchy versus matriarchy…We do know that the Bengali community is predominantly a matriarchal society.”
Johar’s words represent a longstanding perception of Bengalis. Not only are we the subcontinent’s snobbish elite who love our sweets, we’re also the community that elevates our women — to the extent that we pray mostly to goddesses, Kali and Durga. As they say, stereotypes have some basis in reality. But, as Srimati Basu, gender studies professor at the University of Kentucky, told The Juggernaut: “Is this just a story that men tell themselves?”