Arabinda Das Gupta, managing director of Dasgupta and Co.
| Photo Credit: Bishwanath Ghosh

With internships now compulsory for undergraduate students to obtain a degree under the National Education Policy (NEP, 2020) — a requirement that many colleges in West Bengal are finding challenging — Kolkata’s oldest existing bookshop, Dasgupta and Co., has established itself as a platform for internships in publishing, claiming this to be a first for a Bengali publisher.

Although the College Street-based Dasgupta and Co., set up in 1886, initiated the programme exactly a year ago as the ‘Publishing and Book Management Course’ with the purpose of preparing students for careers in the publishing sector and across new-media platforms, the venture has gained significant traction this year, with students from as many as seven colleges enrolling.

“We have received a very good response this year. As many as 150 students from seven colleges have enrolled this year, mostly from their English departments. We hope young minds gain insight into the mechanism of the publishing industry and that this opportunity brings them better career prospects,” said Arabinda Das Gupta, managing director of Dasgupta and Co., which also operates as a publisher.

Classes are held for 15 days at the Asutosh Memorial Hall on Asutosh Mukherjee Road and cost ₹1,000 per student. Colleges that have enrolled for the course this year include Bethune College, Behala College, and Loreto College.

Educationist-writer Chinmoy Guha, Professor Emeritus of the University of Calcutta and former Vice-Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University, who inaugurated this year’s internship programme at Dasgupta and Co., said the course was a great service to humankind as, even in the age of technological explosion, the book remains an “eternal reservoir of ideas to which humanity will always remain grateful.”

“In these turbulent times, a book can still serve as a magic lantern for students. A computer will never fly with wings like a good book. Only a book can take us to the exquisite beauty of the blue sky! As Montesquieu reminded us, there is no earthly pain that a book cannot erase in an hour! I would tell the students to read a book “in order to survive” — to quote Flaubert — in a world which is moving from darkness to darkness,” Prof. Guha said.

Two years ago, the bookshop decided to convert a part of its premises into a free library for the benefit of students who cannot afford books. However, since the building is a heritage structure and any new activity requires official clearance, a formal opening of the library continues to be delayed. But according to Mr. Gupta, the library has now started functioning “unofficially,” with an average of 20 readers visiting daily.