In India, festivals aren’t just rituals, they’re reflections of how society negotiates change. And this year, that negotiation is on full display, as Artificial Intelligence (AI) quietly enters the cultural conversation during Durga Puja 2025.
From symbolic depictions to design processes, AI has found its way into various aspects of this year’s celebrations. In Kolkata, the Jagat Mukherjee Park pandal has chosen “Artificial Intelligence: Boon or Bane?” as its theme. The installation blends traditional goddess iconography with dystopian visual elements such as suspended keyboards, metallic motifs, and a reimagined Mahishasura representing the dark side of technological dependence.
Meanwhile, in Guwahati, the Accounts Colony Durga Puja Committee unveiled a 50-foot pandal partly designed using AI-assisted tools. The structure, which fuses traditional aesthetics with modern forms, highlights how technology is now not just a theme but a collaborator in cultural expression.
These are not isolated cases. Across India, especially in urban and semi-urban centres, more pandal committees are engaging with AI, either conceptually or in their production workflows, reflecting a growing awareness of technology’s role in shaping daily life.
Tradition Reimagined
Durga Puja has long adapted to contemporary realities. Over the years, themes have ranged from climate justice to refugee crises, public health, and even space exploration. The presence of AI in 2025 does not mark a rupture. It is part of a larger continuum where festivals evolve to reflect the current social psyche.
What’s notable is that AI is appearing in two ways, as subject and as tool. Some installations question the ethical dilemmas posed by artificial intelligence, while others use it behind the scenes for structural modelling, lighting design, or visual simulations. And yet, the spirit of the festival, the rituals, the artistry, the collective participation, remains rooted in its traditional core.
Rather than displacing cultural values, AI is providing a new lens through which to view them.
When Festivals Become Forums
India’s tech narrative is often shaped by industry, government, and academia. But festivals offer a different kind of stage, one where millions engage not as professionals, but as citizens, creators, and observers. The emergence of AI themes in public celebrations is a sign that the technology is moving beyond boardrooms and headlines, entering the space of public imagination.
What’s powerful here is not the presence of technology itself, but how people are responding to it. The visual metaphors, machines as demons, algorithms as forces to be questioned, show that the engagement is not just aesthetic, but philosophical. These are not answers, they are provocations.
A Moment of Cultural Dialogue
The arrival of AI in Durga Puja celebrations signals more than just innovation. It suggests that cultural spaces may become India’s most authentic forums for thinking through the implications of emerging technologies.
Not everything needs to be digitized, and not every ritual must be modernized. But as long as our traditions remain responsive, reflective, and open to reinterpretation, they will continue to stay relevant and even ahead of the curve. In that light, AI isn’t replacing tradition. It is helping reveal what tradition has always done best, tell the story of who we are becoming.
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