On August 6, 2025, the Jammu and Kashmir administration announced a broad ban on 25 books, accusing them of propagating secessionism, glorifying terrorism, and distorting history. The list included works by acclaimed authors like Arundhati Roy (Azadi), A.G. Noorani (The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012), Sumantra Bose (Contested Lands, Kashmir at the crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict), Anuradha Bhasin (A Dismantled State : The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370), Hafsa Kanjwal (Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian Occupation), David Devadas (In search of a future: The story of Kashmir) , and others who has been widely respected in literary and academic circles.
The official notification, S.O.203, invoked Section 98 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, along with sections of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, to declare these books “forfeited” to the government. Their alleged crime is creating a “false narrative” that misguides youth, glorifies terrorism, vilifies security forces, and fosters a culture of grievance and alienation.
The state’s argument is neatly packaged: ideas can be dangerous, literature can be a weapon, and the written word can radicalize. But what this action ignores to acknowledge is that suppressing ideas often strengthens them. Banning books undermines democratic values and weakens the very intellectual space where societies negotiate truth.
The Long Shadow of Censorship
Kashmir’s history is already tangled in competing narratives—political, historical, and emotional. The state’s latest action takes a side not just in policy, but also in the realm of knowledge itself. By forbidding these works, the administration is not simply rejecting their content; it is determining what people are allowed to think about, which histories they may read, and what questions they may ask.
This is not the first time literature has faced censorship in the subcontinent. From colonial-era crackdowns on nationalist writings to the Emergency-era bans on political pamphlets, governments have long feared the power of the printed page. But in today’s interconnected world—where digital archives, PDFs, and online discussions prevent ideas from being buried—such bans seem more symbolic than practical. And their symbolism is dangerous; they suggest that dissent should be erased rather than debated.
The Problem with the “False Narrative” Argument
One of the government’s main justifications is that these books present a “false narrative” of history and politics. However, truth in matters of history, particularly contested history, is rarely singular. The Kashmir conflict is a mosaic of perspectives—state narratives, separatist viewpoints, international perspectives, and countless lived experiences of ordinary people. Declaring one version as “truth” and another as “false” without allowing open scrutiny is a form of intellectual authoritarianism. In academic discourse, competing interpretations are meant to be engaged with, debated, and tested against evidence—not silenced by decree.
By removing these works from circulation, the state prevents readers from encountering uncomfortable ideas, to question them, to refute them, or even to be persuaded by them. This is a loss impact not only those who agree with the authors but also those who might vehemently disagree; because robust disagreement is the lifeblood of a free society. Over time, the intellectual environment narrows. Fewer critical works get written, fewer debates occur, and a society that once thrived on argument and counterargument finds itself speaking in a monotone.
The administration has justified the ban on grounds of national security and public order. It claims that these books radicalize youth by promoting grievance and alienation. While it is true that words can inspire action, the leap from inspiration to terrorism is not inevitable. History offers a cautionary counterpoint: silencing voices often makes them more radical. When young people feel their questions are unwelcome and their curiosity is policed, they seek answers in underground spaces, often with less moderation and more extremism.
Rather than banning books, a healthier approach would be to place them in dialogue with other perspectives—encourage critical reading programs, debates, and open forums where ideas can be challenged, contextualized, and dismantled if flawed. Censorship, by contrast, leaves ideas unexamined, festering in the dark where conspiracy theories thrive.
The decision has also drawn sharp criticism from political quarters. The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued a statement condemning the ban as “a brazen attack on the freedom of expression” and “yet another expression of authoritarianism.” It accused the Lieutenant Governor—acting as the BJP-led Union government’s representative—of curtailing fundamental rights under the pretext of combating secessionism and terrorism.
The Fiction of Total Erasure
In the age of the internet, banning books is as effective as trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. Digital copies circulate beyond borders; summaries, reviews, and excerpts are shared on social media; and readers who are determined to access a text will almost always find a way.
This raises the question: is the ban really about stopping access to these works, or is it about making a political statement—demonstrating the state’s power to decide what is acceptable to read? If it is the latter, then the act is less about security and more about shaping the public imagination through selective erasure.
A Dark Precedent for the Future
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the J&K ban is the precedent it sets. If books can be banned for being “objectionable” or “distorting history” in one political context, what prevents future administrations from banning works that question any aspect of government policy, be it on the environment, economy, or civil rights?
Censorship has a way of creeping. What begins as a “special case” soon becomes a standard tool of governance, used to silence inconvenient voices on a range of issues. And each time the public accepts such an action without resistance, the boundaries of permissible speech shrink a little more.
Kashmir’s story has never been simple, and its future will not be built by silencing parts of its past. The 25 banned books represent more than paper and ink—they are windows into perspectives, however uncomfortable, that form part of the region’s complex reality.
A confident democracy does not fear books. It engages with them, challenges them, and if necessary, disproves them through better evidence and stronger argument. Suppressing them, on the other hand, only lends them the aura of forbidden truth. After all, as Isaac Asimov quotes,
“Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.”
PM himself propagated movies like the Kashmir files, Kerala story, etc. actual incidents have been glorified in them!
BBC was targeted by our government machineries for put forwarding Gujarat riots…this is just an undeclared emergency.