Culture & heritage

Mangal Shobhajatra

The colourful Bengali New Year procession organised in Dhaka, inscribed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2016.

Mangal Shobhajatra, the procession of well-being, marches through Dhaka every Pohela Boishakh morning with giant masks and effigies of owls, tigers and demons symbolising the defeat of evil and the hope of a peaceful year. Organised since 1989 by the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Dhaka, it was inscribed in 2016 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a secular festival open to all communities.