My book A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After 370 is among the list of 25 books banned by Jammu and Kashmir’s Home Department under the Lieutenant Governor, an Indian government appointee.

This is not the first time that books have been banned in India, but this case is egregious. 

Twenty-five books have been targeted on vague, insubstantial grounds at an unprecedented scale. This is not only a shocking testament to the brazen censorship of the government, but it also reflects Kashmir’s dystopian reality. 

According to the official notification, the banned books are “playing a critical role in misguiding the youth, glorifying terrorism and inciting violence against the Indian State”. It adds that the identified books have been found to “incite secessionism and endanger the sovereignty and integrity of India”. The claims are misleading and based on whims, not evidence.

Misleading official claims

None of these works glorify terrorism or peddle any hidden agenda, as is being claimed by the government. Most of these books are published by reputable publishing houses that certainly do not publish random material without ensuring that the research and evidence provided for every assertion is thorough.

Particularly in the case of Kashmir, which has been the most contested space, the publishers are extremely cautious and often add a double layer of scrutiny.

My own work is an outcome of over two years of research, authenticating and writing. A journalistic narrative on Kashmir after it lost its special status and statehood in 2019, it is based on sources in the public domain, interviews, and field work, besides analysis of the new laws and policies, historical context, and how these impact people on the ground. 

Since it was critical of the state and was written in times when the Indian government had begun to exacerbate its high-handed control in Kashmir, showcasing the state’s intolerance to any dissent or counter-narrative, Harper Collins India, my publisher, treated the region as even more sensitive.

The editors implemented rigorous fact-checking protocols and multiple review stages, with every assertion thoroughly documented and verified. 

My book survived three tedious legal vettings, with publishers verifying every claim against evidence before approving the publication.

The book was written to put into the public domain the truth about the government claims on Kashmir while silencing all voices of dissent, targeting journalists, eliminating civil society spaces, and crushing political activism. This was implemented by turning Kashmir, geographically truncated and politically demoted to a Union Territory, into a police state and surveillance state.

Like many other books on the list, which formed a significant archive on Kashmir’s history and politics, my book documented the contemporary period, filling in the vacuum on information and knowledge about the region in the absence of media reportage.

Some of these banned books include those by noted writers like Arundhati Roy, as well as academic authorities on Kashmir like A.G. Noorani, Sumantra Bose, Christopher Snedden, and Victoria Schofield, whose rigorously researched works are a must on the list of scholars and academics working on Kashmir. 

If such books are to be pushed into a black hole, it would be impossible to grasp a comprehensive, layered, and nuanced understanding of one of the most troubled regions in the world.

No evidence, only contradictions

The criminalisation of the 25 books on flimsy and vague grounds is a gross injustice to not only the authors but also to the pool of knowledge these books contribute. 

The notification mentions nebulous accusations of promoting "false narrative" and "secessionism" without providing specific evidence or clear definitions of what constitutes such violations. 

It justifies the ban on the basis of investigations, but neither offers a detailed analysis, nor concrete examples of how these books, in full, some passages from them, or some words were promoting the said objectives.

If it were not such a serious issue, it would be amusing to see the government contradicting its own narrative of normalcy and peace by banning literature it deems as glorifying terrorism and a source of potential disruption to peace. 

While the ban validates the Indian government’s authoritarian control, in contravention of the Indian constitutional provisions on freedom of expression, it also exposes its hypocritical claims of India as the ‘mother of democracy’. 

Far-reaching consequences

The obvious purpose of the ban is multi-fold.

It fits in neatly into the present Hindu nationalist government’s model of controlling the narrative through erasures across India, as demonstrated by its reckless pulping of curriculum in schools and universities, as well as its iron-fist control of Kashmir under excessive militarisation, surveillance and coercion, as demonstrated by the virtual silencing of the media and the conversion of local newspapers into publicity pamphlets of the government. 

The purpose is also to send a chilling message that only the version of history and politics stamped and endorsed by the government is acceptable, that no dissent or counter-narrative is legitimate, and that all knowledge and information must be dispensed with.

The notification that calls for ban and forfeiture of all the banned books is as much a threat for those who read and keep books to quench their thirst for knowledge as it is for the writers and scholars yearning to research and write.

Such bans may seem senseless in today’s hi-tech digital world when absolute erasure of the written and spoken word is impossible. Yet, they have far-reaching and damaging consequences as they instill a fear of scholarship, research, academics, and knowledge, resulting in generations that will hesitate to write, read, and thus think. 

No great nations are formed by reducing their citizens to ill-informed entities without the ability to think.