Bhilai - Culture

Culture

The local dialect is Chhattisgarhi, which is very similar to Hindi.

All major festivals are celebrated in a scale similar to their region of origin. Like the Durga Puja celebrations of Bhilai are in tune with that in Bengal. The same can be said about Maharashtra's Ganesh Chaturthi, Andhra's Ugadi, Tamil Nadu's Pongal, Muslim's Id, Jagganath Puri's Rath Yatra. The population of Sikh's in the region is high, and the Sikh festivals like the Guru Nanak Dev ji's Guruparab, Guru Gobind Singh's Guruparab, Baisakhi (The Birth of Khalsa), Shaheedi Gurparab of Guru Arjan Dev and Guru Teg Bahadur is celebrated with a great passion by all the people irrespective of their religion. If Sikhs visit there, they must go to the satsang (a place where all of them get together for praying and singing God's name) house. That place is known for praying for many people in Bhilai and some areas of Punjab. Bhilai also boasts of high levels of linguistic and religious unity, which has been the hallmark of its culture since its inception.

The main reason obviously lies in the fact that before the establishment of Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), with collaboration from Russian counterparts, it was almost nothing but an agricultural area with small villages like AmdiGaon (now AmdiNagar-HUDCO) and many others. But the setting up of BSP made a cale all over India to make a rush and henceforth bring the multi-ethnicity with them. This steel city is often called "Mini India" because of the multi-province, multi-religion population.