Most Indians don't read for pleasure so why does the country have 100 literature festivals?

"Sounding amused, publisher Pramod Kapoor recalls the reaction of the Indian cricketing legend Bishen Singh Bedi when he learned Kapoor was printing 3,000 copies of his autobiography. Only 3,000? he protested. I fill stadiums with 50-60,000 people coming to see me play and you think that's all my book is going to sell? Kapoor, the founder of Roli Books, explains that Bedi's legions of admirers were unlikely to translate into book buyers. That was in 2021."

"Nothing has changed. The average book in English sells only around 3-4,000 copies. If it tops 10,000, it's counted a bestseller. India does not have a great book-reading tradition. The author and columnist Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr calls this a mystery that social scientists should explore. Maybe it's because of the strong oral story-telling tradition? The epics are well known and passed down the generations and taken very seriously. I'm baffled by why so few Indians buy books and read, he says."

A cricketing legend objected to a 3,000-copy print run, saying stadium audiences numbered 50–60,000. Average English-book sales are around 3–4,000 copies, and sales above 10,000 are treated as bestsellers. Book-buying remains limited in India, with many middle-class homes lacking books and public reading rare. Buying books is often a luxury for middle and lower-middle classes. Oral storytelling and well-known epics persist as strong cultural traditions. Literature festivals attract large crowds but function largely as spectacles offering music, dance, handicrafts and food, with the book element often serving as a cultural backdrop.

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