What the scheduling fiasco of Ekushey book fair tells us

Ekushey February (February 21) is a date that reminds the Bangladeshi people of their culture as well as their originary moments. Not too many states in the world have given a central role to language as the primary marker of their national identity. Bangladesh, the land where Bangla is spoken, has. Soon after Partition, the country, then the eastern province of Pakistan, realised that its civilisational core conflicted with the ruling class of the western province. Despite their demographic majority, the Bangalee people found their status relegated to second-class citizens and their language overlooked for administrative and academic use. Thus, the demand for Bangla as a state language, for which blood was spilled on February 21, 1952, became an inflection point that eventually caused the eastern territory to drift away from the religion-based two-nation theory and opt for an independent Bangladesh in 1971.

February is not only the month of language martyrs; it is also the month of books. The formal launch of the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela at the Bangla Academy grounds is more than a calendric event. However, in September last year, the Bangla Academy announced that they would prepone the book fair and start it not on the usual February 1 but a month and a half earlier, on December 17. The Bangla Academy director general mentioned the timing of the election and Ramadan as the main reason for the change. Then, on December 17, the academy announced that the fair would start on February 20 and run until March 15. With Eid-ul-Fitr holidays in between, the short span of the fair irked the publishers, who objected to this plan and decided to boycott this year’s fair. Their concerns are valid, as constructing makeshift stalls is an expensive venture, and they won’t be able to invest in such projects knowing that they will incur huge financial losses. A boycott is a major decision because publishers wait for this annual book fair, where they manage to showcase their new titles and earn 50-60 percent of their annual revenue.

The scheduling glitch—most recently, the fair was rescheduled for a February 25 launch—exposes a deeper cultural anxiety in a transitioning Bangladesh. We need to ask questions about our cultural gatekeepers. And then there are those who are weighing national memory in market terms. And the immediate victims are the publishers who wait for this month to keep their business afloat. At the same time, these indecisions are symptomatic of weak institutional governance.

It is not the first time that the book fair is coinciding with the month of Ramadan. But this time, suddenly, there was extra alertness and sensitivity for religious practices that created the confusion in the first place. Some publishers showed concerns over recruiting volunteers or student staff during the Ramadan and Eid break. Seasonal storms could cause further worries if the fair extends until the end of March. The consultation with stakeholders seems less transparent, albeit ineffective. When over 300 publishers threaten to boycott an event, it signals a breakdown of trust. And not to address this matter as a national priority will be disastrous.

The Ekushey book fair has traditionally been our intellectual pilgrimage. In order to restore the fair to its former splendour, we must not only safeguard the publishers but also endeavour to comprehend the reasons behind its challenges. There is a serious shortage of new readers. Booksellers are struggling as there has been a sharp decline in sales. The lack of good writing with celebrity status can be a cause. But we also need to consider the reading and buying behaviours of consumers. The new generation of readers arguably have shorter attention spans in the digital era. They have shifted towards screen-based consumption and PDF versions of their pirated imprints. There is a shrinking of the middle class with disposable income who are the main buyers of books. Our books lack competitive pricing due to high production costs, which include paper, printing, limited copies, and complex VAT procedures. As a result, publishers operate on wafer-thin margins. They expect authors to share the production cost. Instead of getting royalty for hard work, authors have to bear that cost. Serious literary works sell in the hundreds, not thousands, while academic and research publishing remain unsustainable.

So the entire Ekushey book fair ecosystem needs to be revisited. And it must speak of a “new Bangladesh,” where inclusivity extends to independent and small presses, district-based publishers, minority-language publications, academic and scholarly presses, women-led publishing houses, and diaspora Bangla writers. The last-minute changes of date cannot promise any such inclusivity. The fair still heavily privileges Dhaka-centric, mainstream commercial publishers. A genuinely inclusive fair could subsidise marginal presses, create thematic pavilions (for translations, indigenous literature, and young adults), facilitate rights exchanges and translation grants, and include panel spaces curated outside metropolitan networks. We need to think beyond political majoritarianism to promote cultural democracy. The irony would be profound if a fair born from linguistic rights failed to pluralise its own cultural space.

In an ideal world, we should maintain calendrical rigidity to honour the emotional charge that the month of February carries. Then again, the fair is not ontologically bound to the first day of February. Hence, we should focus on the spirit of Ekushey while holding the fair. This includes our commitment to language, the defence of free expression, the cultivation of a reading culture, and ethical publishing practices.

We need to take some pragmatic steps to address the structural weaknesses of our publishing ecosystem as well. The new government can think of a state subsidy to help the publishing industry with a coherent cultural policy. Most countries offer paper subsidies, cultural grants and tax incentives to protect their publishing houses. Then, the publishers should try to expand their circulation network outside urban centres.

There also needs to be soul-searching as to why our literature fails to reach global markets. We need to expand our reach by translating our books into other languages as well as adopting a policy to introduce world literature in Bangla. Only a handful of academic publishers prioritise our intellectual capital. They are severely underfunded. Scholarly monographs sell poorly, as we do not have the university libraries to consume such books.

By uniting the academy, publishers, authors, and distributors on a single platform, we can create a forward-looking cultural compact. A multi-year calendar should be announced two years ahead so that stakeholders can prepare accordingly. There can be school-university reading campaigns tied to the fair, with libraries encouraged to buy books. Dedicated translation grants can create a niche for our authors.

The schedule fiasco can be a learning lesson for all stakeholders. In a country emerging from political turbulence, how institutions treat culture signals their democratic maturity. Through a system of consultation, the government can highlight its ethos. Once the government acknowledges economic vulnerability, we can expect some policy-level empathy. The Ekushey book fair has historically stood for linguistic dignity against centralisation. It would be tragically symbolic if centralised decision-making now undermines its plural stakeholders.

Dr Shamsad Mortuza is vice-chancellor of University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh (ULAB).

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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