“I told those who came to ransack our book stall to read our books,” says Bipul Dasgupta, a frail-looking 73-year-old CPI(M) worker who captured everyone’s imagination last week as a sharpening ideological battle in West Bengal played out over the past 10 days amid the Durga Puja festivities.

As people prepared to celebrate the festival, there were several incidents of violence targeting book stalls that Left parties — including the CPI(M), Forward Bloc, and the CPI(M-L) Liberation — set up around Puja pandals. From Jadavpur and Nagerbazar in Kolkata to Howrah, Bardhaman, Paschim Medinipur, and Cooch Behar in North Bengal, Left parties’ book stalls faced attacks.…