Trailblazing Woman Priest Celebrates 15 Years of Durga Puja in Brazil

As of September 29th, 2025, Ratnabali Adhikari, a 70-year-old woman, has been serving as a priest for the Durga Puja festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil for the past 15 years. Adhikari has been performing the rituals with profound devotion, embodying the spirit of Shakti that the festival venerates. Her journey began in 2010 when she challenged the "men-only" practice, and the trend is now catching up in India and abroad.

Sao Paulo's Barowari Durga Puja also turned 15 on the same day, and Adhikari's presence as the purohit is seen as a remarkable aspect of the celebration. Anuja Bhattacharya, the organizer and a PhD aspirant at the Sao Paulo School of Business, stated that Adhikari's role is not just symbolic of gender parity but is also deeply inspirational, reinforcing the festival's essence as a celebration of feminine divinity. The Indian Embassy in Brazil has acknowledged the significance of this Puja.

In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, women are also challenging the patriarchal "job" of centuries and following the "gender-equality mantra." Moumita Chakraborty, a schoolteacher in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, began her journey last year with Aalapon, a Bengali cultural group, when around 250 Bengali families decided to start a Durga Puja with a woman purohit. Ireland's oldest Durga Puja, Sujan, also has women priests, and last year was a milestone moment when members Sreyanjana Mukherjee and Sukanya Sanyal performed the rituals as priests by breaking barriers. Sanyal will continue the legacy forward this year.