After Kashmir’s ban on books, librarians are on a tightrope

ON AUGUST 5, 2025, the Jammu & Kashmir Home Department issued a notification banning 25 books. The order was justified on grounds that the works propagate “false narratives” and “secessionist sentiment.” This was not an obscure list. It included Arundhati Roy’s Azadi (2020), journalist Anuradha Bhasin’s A Dismantled State (2022), constitutional scholar A.G. Noorani’s The Kashmir Dispute (2013), and Australian political scientist Christopher Snedden’s Independent Kashmir (2021).

The message from the administration is clear: certain perspectives will not be allowed circulation in the public domain. Yet banning a book rarely eliminates its ideas. Instead, censorship often heightens curiosity, drives reading underground, and deprives citizens of the chance to interrogate complex realities. In the context of Jammu & Kashmir—already a site of contested narratives and silenced voices—the consequences are profound.

India’s long tryst with censorship

India has a long history of censoring books, pamphlets, and periodicals. Colonial authorities enacted the Indian Press Act, 1910, to suppress material considered seditious or likely to excite disaffection against the Crown. Papers like Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s Kesari and The Maratha frequently faced prosecution.

Independence in 1947 did not bring an end to state censorship. The newly adopted Constitution recognised freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) but immediately placed “reasonable restrictions” under Article 19(2)—covering public order, morality, security of the State, and relations with foreign powers. These restrictions have since provided legal scaffolding for book bans. Section 95 of the Code of Criminal Procedure—now retained as Section 95 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023—allows governments to forfeit any publication deemed prejudicial to the State or public harmony.

This provision has been invoked repeatedly. Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was banned in 1988 following protests. Perumal Murugan, a Tamil novelist, was driven to declare himself “dead as a writer” after his works were attacked. Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History was withdrawn under legal pressure in 2014. These episodes highlight how censorship often bends to political or social pressure, rather than standing on constitutional principle.

The current ban in context

The August 5 order claims to act as a preventive measure in a fragile region. Yet history suggests bans seldom succeed in calming disquiet. Instead, they deprive students, researchers, and ordinary citizens of access to serious scholarship. Noorani’s The Kashmir Dispute or Bhasin’s A Dismantled State are not incendiary pamphlets; they are serious works of law, history, and journalism. To remove them from circulation is to deny the public the tools to critically evaluate the issues that shape their lives.