Chief minister Omar Abdullah has distanced himself from the book ban in Jammu and Kashmir, which rights watchdog Amnesty International has castigated as a violation of international human rights law.
Lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha’s administration has banned 25 books by acclaimed Indian and foreign authors that have Kashmir as their subject, alleging these books carry the threat of radicalisation or glorify terrorism.
Sinha’s order, issued on Tuesday, requires anyone who has a copy to surrender it to the authorities. Jammu and Kashmir police have been raiding book stores to seize these titles.
Many have accused Omar of having issued the ban order, with his long silence reinforcing the allegation. The chief minister finally spoke out on Thursday night after a social media user called him a “coward”.
“Get your facts right before you call me a coward, you ignoramus. The ban has been imposed by the LG using the only department he officially controls — the Home Department. I’ve never banned books & I never would,” Omar posted on X.
The post that provoked him had said: “@OmarAbdullah unban the books. Unban the books. For the rest of your life you will be known as the coward who was scared of books. Unban the books.”
The India chapter of Amnesty has come out with a long post, titled “Let’s talk about what’s really being silenced”. It underlines that the proscribed titles include works by writer Arundhati Roy, legal expert A.G. Noorani, political scientist Sumantra Bose and journalist Anuradha Bhasin.
“These aren’t ‘terror’ manuals, they’re critical voices. What’s actually in these books? Gender & militarisation in Kashmir. Human rights violations. Historical perspectives on the Kashmir dispute. Stories of state violence and resistance,” it says.
“The govt claims the books are vilifying security forces and causing religious radicalisation thus becoming ‘a significant driver behind youth participation in violence’. Yet no police report (has) been filed. Just a sweeping ban under Section 98 of the criminal procedure law.”
Amnesty has argued that banning books on the basis of an executive notification, “without due process and judicial oversight”, doesn’t bring peace but silences dissent.
“When governments fear ideas, it tells you more about the state than the speech. Placing blanket bans on books is unnecessary, disproportionate and does not serve a legitimate aim rather it restricts people’s right to seek and receive information. It is a violation of international human rights law,” the post says.
It adds that the issue is not just about Kashmir but about free expression: “If books can be silenced without any due process so can people.”
Among the books banned are Roy’s Azadi, Bose’s Kashmir at the Crossroads, Noorani’s The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012, Bhasin’s A Dismantled State (The Untold Story of Kashmir after Article 370), David Devadas’s In Search of a Future (The Story of Kashmir), and Hafsa Kanjwal’s Colonising Kashmir: State-Building Under Indian Occupation.
Also banned are books by renowned foreign authors such as Kashmir in Conflict by Victoria Schofield and Independent Kashmir by Christopher Snedden.
The ban order says all these books have been found to attract the charges of secessionism and endangering the sovereignty and integrity of India.
It adds that they therefore come under the ambit of Sections 152, 196 and 197 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which prescribes punishments for booksellers, readers, publishers and authors.