Keep off the grass: damage to park shuts down India's leading book fair

India's undisputed literary capital is in mourning after the loss of one of its most venerable and lucrative institutions: the Calcutta book fair.

The annual event, attended by millions of people from all over the world and a major source of civic pride in one of India's poorest major cities, was abruptly cancelled this year, days before it was due to open. The reason is the venue, another Calcutta institution, the Maidan. The city's answer to New York's Central Park, the huge Maidan sits in the heart of the city, surrounded by some of India's finest colonial-era buildings, including the white domed Victoria Memorial.

Since it was founded in 1976, the book fair has been held on the Maidan and millions have flocked there to marvel at its architecture as they look through the bookshelves. But in recent years growing concern over the environmental damage, not only to the Maidan itself, but to the surrounding monuments, has resulted in pressure to shift the fair elsewhere.

After the first few days of the 12-day fair, the grass of the Maidan is worn away, leaving only bare earth. And there have been concerns that the sheer volume of dust thrown up by the vast number of visitors is damaging the Victoria Memorial - in 2005, it is estimated that 14 million people attended the event.

The fair is just one aspect of Calcutta's love affair with books. The open-air market in College Street, the largest second-hand book market in the world, looks a ramshackle affair: a series of tiny stalls lining the street for miles. Yet you can find out-of-print English books you would struggle to track down in London, and the stallholders are legendary for their literary knowledge. The book fair is the largest in the world open to the public, not just to publishers. On the last day alone in 2005, sales exceeded 2 million rupees (£3,000). It is replete with the distinct flavour of Calcutta. Every year, the Cuban embassy has a prominent stall, because the government of West Bengal is communist.

Almost all of Calcutta's major events used to take place on the Maidan. But in 2004 the High Court banned public fairs - with the exception of the book fair, which was given a special exception for a few years, during which the fair's organisers were supposed to look for a new venue.

The fair has been loath to give up its location - the more so because the city is short of alternative venues - but now the court has had enough and ordered it off the Maidan. With the event due to open today it is not clear whether the organisers will be able to find an alternative venue.