Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin on October 20, Tuesday, wrote on Facebook that although Leftists in West Bengal organise bookstalls during Durga Puja, such stalls are absent during other ‘religious’ festivals such as Christmas and Eid. She questioned why Leftists choose not to sell books promoting ‘atheism’ during other religious festivals, but instead promote them only during a Hindu festival.
In her post, she wrote (translated from Bengali), “Someone asked, “Have you ever seen Leftists selling books on atheism to Muslims near an Eidgah on Eid? Have you ever seen them selling books by Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens to people attending Christmas prayers on Christmas Day? Then, quite naturally, the question arises: why do they want to sell books on atheism specifically at Hindu Durga Puja pandals?” What answer do the Leftists of Kolkata have to this question?”
This post has garnered over 7,000 likes and 1,300 reshares, and garnered significant traction, although she had disabled the comment section of the Facebook post.
Nasrin, who has been in exile since leaving Bangladesh in 1994 amid death threats and protests over her writings critical of the ‘dogmas’ of Islam, was forced to leave Kolkata in 2007 following violent protests against her autobiography ‘Dwikhandito’ and pressure on the then CPI(M)-led Left Front government.
She remained unable to return to West Bengal for nearly 19 years, with successive CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) governments in power. However, in July 2026, following the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coming to power in the state, Nasrin returned to Kolkata and was publicly welcomed and celebrated by sections of the Right-wing BJP-RSS ecosystem.
Against this backdrop, her recent Facebook post questioned what she portrayed as the Left’s selective promotion of atheism. Moreover, her statement comes on the heels of state authorities demolishing and damaging certain bookstalls set up by Left parties near Jadavpur’s 8b bus stand on October 17.
Fact Check
Alt News found several social media posts and news reports that refute Nasrin’s claim that the bookstalls are exclusively set up during Durga Puja.
The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) have been organising a bookstall near Park Street, where Christmas is celebrated in Kolkata, for at least 10 years. Prominent Left leader Biman Bose has also visited the stall. The bookstall has been featured on the social media handles of SFI, DYFI, CPI(M) and other affliated organisations, and has also been covered by the media. The Telegraph reported the setting up of the bookstall at Park Street for the first time in 2016, Alt News also founds images of stalls from 2017, 2022, 2024.
Below are images of a bookstall set up by SFI-DYFI during Christmas in 2017:
Below are images of a bookstall set up during Christmas in 2022:
Below are images of a bookstall set up during Christmas in 2024:
Similarly, the SFI-DYFI local committee in the Khidderpore area of Kolkata organised a bookstall during Eid this year. Khidderpore has historically been home to a significant Muslim population. The bookstall was organised for two days and was featured on the Facebook page of the CPI(M) Kolkata Port Assembly Committee.
Below are glimpses of the stall set up on Eid at Khidderpore:
Further, Nasrin claimed that the Leftist bookstalls only sell books promoting atheism. However, the images on social media, posted by people who bought books from hundreds of these stalls, clearly show a vast array of books from across genres being sold in these stalls.
An Alt News correspondent visited the CPI(M) bookstall set up near Jadavpur 8B bus stand and encountered a diverse section of books, ranging from Bengali classics, poetry, history among others. Books on Ramkrishna and Vivekananda were also available at the stall.
CPI(M) leader Shatarup Ghosh made a video, interviewing a woman who visited the stall and described herself as a devotee of spiritual leader Lalon Fakir. In the video, she shared her book haul which comprised books on Lalon Fakir, and other Hindu spiritual leaders like Nityananda Mahaprabhu, and even a cook book.
CPI(M) leader Sudip Sengupta, who is in charge of the 8B bookstall regularly posted pictures of the stall on his Facebook page. In one such image, physician Dr. Arjun Dasgupta was seen holding a book on Swami Vivekananda, along with a book on the Second World War.
According to Dasgupta, apart from Leftist books, the stall also contains books such as Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Anandamath. “I was looking at some old pictures my family took at the Jadavpur 8B stall, and I could see Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s books behind me. His books include ‘Anandamath’, which has the song ‘Vande Mataram’. So it is simply not true that these stalls only sell books promoting atheism. These stalls are part of Bengal’s culture, and anyone who loves books should stand against efforts to shut them down,” said Dasgupta.
“We Bengalis feel that a book is a book, whether it is sold at an ISKCON stall or a CPI(M) stall. We love books and naturally gather around any stall that sells them. When we were children, these stalls introduced many of us to great books from around the world. I vividly remember my father buying me a copy of ‘Ispat’, the Bengali translation of Nikolai Ostrovsky’s ‘How the Steel Was Tempered’. I think thousands of people like me have similar memories,” he added.
Similarly, the Rashbehari-1 area committee of the CPI(M) set up a book stall near the Kalighat temple during Durga Puja. Images of the stall show stacks of books ranging from Bengali children’s classics such as Thakurmar Jhuli to literary works including ‘Ichhamati’ by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, ‘Kapalkundala’ by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, ‘Grihadaha’ and ‘Devdas’ by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, among others. Books on Maa Sarada, and books written by Rabindranath Tagore were also visible at the stall.
Thus, the findings above show that Nasrin’s claim that Leftists organise bookstalls only during Hindu festivals such as Durga Puja is false, as there is documented evidence of Left organisations organising bookstalls during both Eid and Christmas. Her claim that books exclusively on atheism are sold at the stalls is also false, as there is documented evidence of books of various genres being sold across Left bookstalls.
