In 1972, community organiser Ela Bhatt and a group of women met at Ahmedabad’s Victoria Garden to discuss the conditions in which self-employed women worked. That meeting led to the formation of the Self-Employed Women’s Association, or SEWA, which became one of India’s most significant labour organisations.Ahmedabad’s public spaces have never just been places to pass the time: since the freedom struggle, they have hosted many important gatherings meant to organise, debate and build political movements.That history makes the attack on a reading gathering at AUDA Garden in Vastrapur on August 27 particularly revealing. A group of people had gathered to read books including Anne Frank’s diary, Malala Yousafzai’s I Am Malala, Bhagat Singh’s Why I Am an Atheist and George Orwell’s 1984. Members of the Bajrang Dal disrupted the gathering and assaulted some of those present.The organisation later said its objection was directed at Yousafzai, citing her views on Pakistan and Kashmir. The incident followed a controversy at a school in the city, where members of the Bajrang Dal and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad – Hindutva groups under the umbrella of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – objected to the inclusion of I Am Malala and Anne Frank’s diary in the school’s reading programme.The school eventually made the books optional and ended the contract of the consultant who had been involved in developing its curriculum.Hindutva supporters have presented the argument about the books as though this were a dispute over curriculum. That isn’t particularly convincing. The school has said that the books were part of an optional book club rather than the compulsory curriculum. Yet, a reading list containing two internationally recognised books became a political controversy, and the response to protest outside the school and pressure the institution until it changed its position instead of examining the books through an educational process.Ahmedabad Mirror, 28 August, 2026.Activists??? VHP and Bajrang Dal goons attacked, silent book reading citizens, with deadly weapons, abused and terrorise them in a public park. pic.twitter.com/v5XIBPnsdc— Nirjhari Sinha (@NirjhariSinha) August 28, 2026