Who Will Run Kolkata Book Fair 2027?

The West Bengal government has announced a major restructuring of the International Kolkata Book Fair ahead of its 50th season, constituting a 24-member high-powered advisory board to guide the organisation and planning of the 2027 fair, which is scheduled to be held from January 22 to February 3. The move follows meetings at Nabanna on August 17 and 21 and will bring the Publishers & Booksellers Guild together with the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC) and National Book Trust (NBT), while representatives of several cultural, educational and social organisations will join the new advisory structure.

The restructuring marks a significant shift from the Guild-centric model under which the fair has traditionally been organised. The Guild will continue to be involved, but it will no longer be the sole organising body. According to the government, the broader structure is intended to ensure greater participation and address organisational and infrastructure-related issues that have emerged over previous editions. The new advisory board will provide guidance to the organisers rather than directly take over the running of the fair.

One of the most closely watched aspects of the new arrangement is the absence of Publishers & Booksellers Guild president Sudhanshu Shekhar Dey and secretary Tridib Kumar Chattopadhyay from the 24-member board. Four other Guild representatives; Debajyoti Dutta, Anil Acharya, Milind De and Rajkumar Barman have however, been included. The government’s move therefore does not exclude the Guild from the new structure but changes the extent of its institutional representation.

The board brings together representatives from a notably wider range of organisations and backgrounds. It includes Swami Aryeshananda of the Ramakrishna Mission’s Udbodhan publication division and Swami Sarashwatananda of the Bharat Sevashram Sangha, along with social workers Tanuja Chakraborty and Saptarshi Chowdhury, advocate and Desher Dak editor Debjit Sarkar, teacher Ophelia Singha, journalist Prasenjit Bakshi, Grantha Bikas Parishad representative Anirban Dey, Calcutta University professor Arindam Bhattacharya and poet Binayak Bandyopadhyay. Journalist Jayanta Biswas, essayist Rabiranjan Sen, writer Mohit Roy, Amitabha Roy, advocate Osman Gani and EZCC director Ashis Giri are also among the members. Representatives from the National Book Trust, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies and Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation will also be part of the board.

Journalist and Doordarshan consulting editor Prasenjit Bakshi has been appointed convener. The board will be able to meet whenever necessary and invite additional members from the Guild or other organisations involved in the fair. Sub-committees dealing with different aspects of the event may also include members of the advisory board, giving it a role that extends beyond a purely symbolic committee.

The new structure is subject to a  growing debate over who should have an opinion in organising one of Bengal’s biggest cultural events. The Guild has organised the International Kolkata Book Fair since its inception in 1976 and has remained its principal organiser through successive political regimes. Ahead of the 2027 Golden Jubilee edition, however, questions over the Guild’s long-standing dominance had become increasingly political.

That debate intensified in June when Bengal BJP president and Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya called for the Book Fair to become a more inclusive and “universal platform”, arguing that publishers and other stakeholders should have a greater voice. A BJP-backed publishers’ organisation, the Bangiya Granthashilpa Parishad, had also emerged more prominently in the discussion around the future of the fair.

The political dimension has attracted attention because several members associated with the new advisory structure have links to organisations and voices that were not prominent in the previous Guild-dominated arrangement. At the same time, the government has officially framed the restructuring around wider participation and resolving operational issues, rather than describing it as a political takeover. The distinction is important: the official plan retains the Guild as an organiser and brings EZCC and NBT into a joint organising role.

The 2027 edition will also carry the significance of being the Golden Jubilee edition of the International Kolkata Book Fair. The fair began in 1976 with only 32 publishers and has since grown into one of the world’s major public book fairs. The 49th edition, held from January 22 to February 3 this year, drew around 32 lakh visitors and generated book sales of approximately ₹26.4 crore, according to figures cited by the Guild.

The venue for the 2027 edition, however, is not yet finally confirmed. The Guild has sought the Central Park ground in Salt Lake, which has hosted the fair in recent editions, but the minutes of the August 21 meeting do not constitute a final allotment. Instead, the government has asked the Guild to remain in contact with the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs Department regarding the request.

The timing of the restructuring also matters. The 2026 fair had already seen record-scale public participation, while preparations for the Golden Jubilee edition were expected to require additional space and infrastructure. The Guild had previously indicated that the growing number of publishers and visitors was putting pressure on the available fairground.

For the 2027 edition, therefore, the biggest change may not be what readers find inside the stalls but who gets a voice behind the scenes. The Guild remains part of the fair, but it will now share the organising framework with EZCC and NBT, while a 24-member advisory board representing publishers, cultural institutions, academics, journalists and social organisations will guide the event.

With the Golden Jubilee approaching, the new arrangement sets the stage for a Kolkata Book Fair that could look familiar to visitors while being organised under a markedly different institutional framework. The real test will be whether the broader structure delivers the inclusiveness and smoother coordination promised by the government without diluting the identity that has made the Kolkata Book Fair one of Bengal’s most recognisable cultural events.