Murshidabad’s 300-year-old Bera festival, celebrated on the last Thursday of the Bengali Bhadra month, has fallen victim to the pandemic as district authorities and the Murshidabad's royal family have postponed it indefinitely to stick to the new normal of social distancing.

Traditionally celebrated at midnight with a nightlong festival on the Bhagirathi river bank adjacent to the Hazarduari palace, lakhs gather for the annual festival commemorating the launch of a river float that carried state taxes to Mughal courts in north India in the 17th and 18th centuries.

“We are postponing the festivities with a heavy heart but there is no other way out,” said an official at Murshidabad Estate, a government body that oversees the festival with royal family members.

Usually, the festival starts with the launch of a cloth-and-candlelit river float, followed by a carnival and food stalls near the palace. The float, illuminated with gold and silver lamps, draws lakhs of visitors every year from Bengal and beyond.

“This is a 300-year-old festivity that celebrates our local heritage and links with the Mughal period. The Nawab of Bengal Murshid Quli Khan had begun this tradition in the 1700s. The nawab had started the Bera festivity, a tradition of appeasing the river, so that the vessels carrying taxes to north India reached safely,” said a local historian, adding that the festival usually falls in the same week as Muharram.

Local sources said businesses and traders have already suffered a huge setback in the wake of the Covid-19 related slump. Bera’s postponement added to their woes.

Hoteliers’ association sources said losses this year would be “incalculable” in Behrampore during Bera.

Secretary of the Murshidabad City Traders’ Association, Swapan Bhattacharya, said: “It has been several months that tourists have stopped coming to the city. We were looking forward to Bera for tourists to finally earn something. Its indefinite postponement was the last thing we expected.”

Jayanta Mandal, manager of Murshidabad Estate, said: “Covid protocol of the state government prohibits large gatherings. This (Bera) is a sentimental issue but the step has been taken for everyone’s safety and well-being."