Tripura to revive royal-era Basant Utsav, CM Manik Saha to inaugurate the event on March 16

“Basant Utsav will be celebrated in a new way this year with the involvement of different cultures, including Bengali, Manipuri, and others. A meeting was conducted to oversee the preparations, where officials from different departments took part,” West Tripura District Magistrate Vishal Kumar said on Tuesday.

Agartala Mayor Dipak Majumder, who presided over the meeting, said the municipality would also host events to attract visitors.

The event will have indigenous Holi Geet (holi songs) apart from dance performances of different communities, including Manipuri, Rabindra, and Vaishnav.

Records show that Basant Utsav or Holi festival was celebrated during the period of the Manikya regime which saw the participation of the royals and common people. The Tripura kings like Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore composed Holi songs to celebrate the occasion and the royal members engaged in throwing coloured water or powder within the palace premises, scholars say.

According to scholar Sourish Debbarman, Basant Utsav, which was organised around the same time as Holi, was celebrated as Madan Utsav in Tripura’s royal circles, and it used to be the national festival of Tripura.

As per Tripura Burunji’, a historical chronicle written in 1724, the festival was popular during the 1660s during the reign of Maharaj Kalyan Manikya when Udaipur, 50 km from Agartala, was the capital of princely Tripura. To celebrate the occasion, the king would build a mancha or stage to host concerts and dance performances based on the life of Radha and Krishna during the festival.

According to historical records, the festivities continued even when the royal capital was shifted to Old Agartala in 1760 by Maharaja Krishna Manikya.