The city celebrated Ram Navami like never before. The event was peaceful.

Thousands of processions — big and small rolled out across the state on Sunday. In Calcutta, Salt Lake and Howrah, police ensured that all the norms laid down by the administration were followed. Organisers, too, were keen to comply.

Several senior police officers said this was, by and large, one of the most peaceful Ram Navami celebrations in the recent past.

“There was no display of weapons, no instigating slogans, no violence. Everything went off peacefully. If we look back at the happenings in 2022 and 2023, today was a welcome change,” said an officer posted in Bengal police who has earlier been in charge of areas struck with communal violence spiralling out of the Ram Navami celebrations in the state.

One of the major changes that the police felt was the tendency among the organisers to follow the guidelines.

Except for one or two rallies around Calcutta, there was no major show of metal weapons, as directed by Calcutta High Court.

In most cases, there were no deviations from the prescribed routes, a violation that organisers are prone to.

The police, too, made a tactful deployment to cover both “head and tail” of major processions, unlike previous years when the focus was on escorting the rallies. The police made efforts to video record the entire length of the processions.

The two major Ram Navami rallies in Howrah, by the Anjani Putra Sena and by Vishva Hindu Parishad, organisers of which moved the court after being denied permission because of a history of violence, rolled out rallies in Howrah uneventfully. Police said they would analyse the video recordings and submit a report before the court on Wednesday.

In 2023, multiple communal clashes were reported across Howrah on Ram Navami. The flare-up triggered by the religious processions resulted in the imposition of Section 144 of the CrPC across the affected pockets in Howrah last year and took several days to return to normalcy.

On Sunday, Howrah police commissioner Praveen Tripathi said there were no untoward incidents related to Ram Navami. “There was huge cooperation from the people. There was a special deployment today. Our RAF and combat force did a great job,” Tripathi said.

Across Calcutta, there was a huge police presence, but the coordinated effort made by men in uniform not to “disturb” the processions was also apparent.

An officer in central Calcutta said there were specific guidelines for carrying the anti-riot gear. “This indirectly meant that we were not expected to engage. Rather, we were expected to use our anti-riot gear only if needed,” said the officer.

In Salt Lake, there was no show of weapons. Tableaux depicting Ram durbar and a recreation of Sita’s exile in the woods were there. No DJs, but dhaks and kirtan.

Though a man kept asserting that Ram was not an outsider to Bengal, he did not refer to any statement. There were no statements with communal overtones.

The directions of the high court were followed. “We had asked all attendees to follow the court’s directions. Our only objective is to draw more people to our processions,” said Satyaki Das, an RSS functionary and one of the organisers of the Salt Lake rally.

An organiser of another rally in central Calcutta, between Wellington and Thanthania, said there was no need to brandish arms. “We have passed that stage. Hindus have awakened,” said the man.

Before the rally started, the organisers were seen asking the attendees to keep one flank of the road free for traffic. As the crowd swelled, the road was closed.

At another rally at Ganesh Talkies, an organiser pointed out how the number of rallies has increased. “There were only 12 rallies in 2012,” he said.

The city police had received applications for 80 rallies till Saturday afternoon.

“The state is in shambles. There is corruption everywhere. Ram is our only hope,” said a woman walking in a rally on Prince Anwar Shah Road.