Boomerang effect? Jadavpur bookstalls report fourfold rise in sales after Durga Puja attack sparks resistance

KOLKATA:  Bookstalls run by left parties that came under attack during the Durga puja in Kolkata report a massive uptick in sales this year. The CPI(M)’s stall at Jadavpur, has seen its sales quadruple – from Rs 4 lakh last year to over Rs 16 lakh this year – as Left-Front-supporters, student groups and local residents rallied to support it in the days following the October 17 attack. 

Bookstalls at Durga puja pandals are a West Bengal tradition. CPI(M)’s has been a fixture outside the Jadavpur pandal for 40 years, said Subhash Majumdar, a party worker who manages it. Then, on the night of October 17, unidentified people, allegedly backed by the  police, BJP-led state government, and other forces, arrived to dismantle bookstalls set up by the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) or SUCI, All India Students’ Association (AISA) and Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and CPI(M). SUCI’s could not be saved but the rest were protected by a motley crue of party workers, students and local residents. 

The attack also boomeranged. As word of it spread, hundreds came to the stalls to show support. “The rush was so heavy that the stall could not close at its scheduled time of 10 pm. People continued buying books until midnight and sometimes until 12.30 am,” Majumdar said. 

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The stall has worn its politics openly. Its 2026 signboard declared it a Marxiyo o Progotisheel Pustak Bikroy Kendra – Centre for the Sale of Marxist and Progressive Books – and connected it to the CPI(M). Despite that, its collections have been significantly more varied, including many authors who weren’t Marxist by any stretch of imagination. It has stocked Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay – ironically, the composer of Vande Mataram – Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Sukumar Ray, Satyajit Ray and Mahasweta Devi, contemporary Indian authors as well as translations of works by international ones. 

School girls and 90 year-olds 

Majumdar recalled a schoolgirl who told him she had never bought books from the stall before but had decided to do so as a mark of protest against the attempt to remove it.

Readers came from different parts of Kolkata, including Howrah, over 10 km away, Majumdar said. Some visitors were in their 80s and 90s, and one reader in his 90s came specifically to express solidarity. Majumdar said the increase in sales reflected the response of readers following the incident.

Jyotirmay Bakshi, a Left Front supporter, avid reader, writer, poet and playwright, recounted how the confrontation unfolded. Bakshi, who runs his own theatre group and has written a play titled Darwin er Jibon (Life of Darwin), said the unidentified people arrived to dismantle the stalls, while police and other forces supported the operation. The organisers and their supporters tried to stop them, eventually joined by locals to protect the remaining stalls.

According to Bakshi, “Police personnel began arriving around 9.30 pm on October 17. The deployment increased in phases, with personnel in white uniforms followed by the Rapid Action Force (RAF), central forces and civic volunteers. By around 1.30 am, a large contingent had gathered at the site,” he said. Two large waste-collection vehicles were also present, Bakshi alleged, claiming they had been brought to collect debris from the stalls and books after their dismantling.

The organisers of different stalls  initially tried to stop the operation through discussions. But those failed and around 3.30 am, the unidentified men, together with the men in uniform eventually began dismantling the stalls, he said. Part of the AISA stall was also damaged but ultimately, the crowd grew too large for dismantling of the rest to continue. 

“Their intention is to stop people from reading and gaining knowledge, including scientific knowledge. They have been saying these things, but now people have seen for themselves what is happening. They can understand how Hitler and Mussolini used similar methods to suppress people,” added Bakshi.

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AISA, APDR also claim record sales

The increase in sales was not limited to the CPI(M) stall.

Saptak Mistry, unit secretary of AISA, said this was the organisation's 10th year of setting up a bookstall during the Puja season and this year, the stall recorded its highest sales. 

"The response from the public shows that people are standing against this bulldozer culture. Children came with their parents, and elderly people also turned up to buy books and express their anger," Mistry said.

APDR, which has been setting up a bookstall for the past two years, also recorded its highest sales, according to students with AISA. 

"Books do not have religion, caste or gender. Selling books and buying books according to one's choice is the birthright of any person. When that is attacked, we have to stand against that attack," said Suronjito Basu, who visited the stall on Bijoya Dashami.

Basu said he buys books throughout the year because he loves reading. He visited the stall as he plans to buy books for himself and one for his daughter.

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Srimanti Ray, who works at a corporate bank usually buys a book for herself whenever she comes across a bookstall during the pujas. She prefers physical books to reading on screens. "The more we read, the more our knowledge increases. We also remain mentally healthy. For me, reading is perennial," she said.

Sraboni Chakraborty, a homemaker, visited the stall to buy books for her son. She said reading was a habit shared by everyone in her family, including her 90-year-old father-in-law, who was increasingly finding it difficult due to fading eyesight.

Bookstalls ‘followed procedure’ 

The organisers said they had followed the required procedures to set up their stalls, including paying the municipality and informing the local police station.

They alleged that they were asked to remove their stalls from the evening of October 12, despite complying with the required formalities. They also questioned why the bookstall set up by the RSS, the ruling BJP’s ideological parent, named ‘Maharishi Aurobindo Akhand Bharat’  was not subjected to similar action.

APDR's stall remained at the site until October 20, others told Careers360.

The organisers said the attempt to dismantle the stalls had prompted readers and supporters to turn up in greater numbers, while the CPI(M), AISA and APDR reported increased sales during the Puja season.

Bakshi said, “The message from Jadavpur has reached the whole of West Bengal and the entire country that book stalls cannot be dismantled. People have shown that they will come together to protect bookstalls and defend their right to read books of their choice.”