India bans books and police raid bookstores in crackdown on ‘false narrative' in Kashmir
The books were banned earlier this week by the provincial administration of lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha, appointed by Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government.
The order banning the books threatens people with jail time for selling or owning works by authors like Booker-winning novelist Arundhati Roy, constitutional scholar AG Noorani, and historians Christopher Snedden, Sumantra Bose and Victoria Schofield.
The "identified 25 books have been found to excite secessionism and endangering sovereignty and integrity of India", the order, issued by Kashmir's home department, said, adding that such works of scholarship played 'a critical role in misguiding the youth, glorifying terrorism and inciting violence against Indian state".
The action was taken following 'investigations and credible intelligence' about 'systemic dissemination of false narratives and secessionist literature' that was 'often disguised as historical or political commentary', it said.
The order declared the 25 books 'forfeit' under India's criminal code, effectively banning them from circulation and possession in Kashmir.
The works include political commentaries, documentation of human rights violations and historic accounts of the disputed region.
Kashmir, one of the most militarised places on earth, is claimed in full but held only in part by both India and Pakistan. In the part administered by India, an armed struggle for independence has seen nearly 100,000 people killed and thousands subjected to what campaigners have described as 'enforced disappearances'.
In August 2019, the Indian government did away with a constitutional guarantee of autonomy for Kashmir, putting it under direct rule by New Delhi. In the aftermath, it outlawed several political groups and threw thousands of political workers, activists, lawyers, and students in prison, where many of them still remain.
The raids on Thursday did not spare even roadside book vendors of printed publications in the main city of Srinagar and outlying towns. By the end, local media reported, several volumes of the outlawed books had been seized.
The 'authoritarian ban' triggered outrage.
Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister, said that banning books would not erase history but only "fuel division".
'In Kashmir, suppressing democratic voices and fundamental freedoms deepens alienation and mistrust,' she said. 'Censorship doesn't silence ideas, it amplifies their resonance.'
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a top cleric and major figure in the political movement for independence, said the ban "only exposes the insecurities and limited understanding of those behind such authoritarian actions, and the contradiction in proudly hosting the ongoing Book Festival to showcase its literary commitment".
Ms Roy's A zadi, a collection of essays referencing the thousands of people allegedly killed and disappeared in Kashmir by Indian forces, is also on the banned books list. Ms Roy won the PEN Pinter Prize last year and was hailed as a 'luminous voice of freedom and justice'.
The celebrated writer faces prosecution in Delhi over a 2010 speech disputing the notion of Kashmir being an 'integral' part of India.
Mr Bose, the Indian historian whose Kashmir at Crossroads was among the banned books, rejected 'any and all defamatory slurs' against his work.
'I have worked on Kashmir – among many other subjects – since 1993. Throughout my chief objective has been to identify pathways to peace so that all violence ends and a stable future free of fear and war can be enjoyed by the people of the conflict region, of India as a whole, and the subcontinent,' he told PTI.
'I'm a committed and principled advocate of peaceful approaches and resolutions to armed conflicts, be it in Kashmir or elsewhere in the world.'
Angana Chatterjee, author of the newly banned Kashmir: A case for freedom, said authoritarian regimes banned books to assert and mobilise their power 'as they govern through suppression, fear, and violence'.
David Devadas, author of In Search of a Future: The Story of Kashmir, argued that banning books was 'against the grain of our democratic ideals, and our civilisational ethos'.
'My book strongly advocates peace, dialogue and democracy in the spirit of prime minister Vajpayee's peace process which had reached fruition around the time my book was completed. I fully backed that peace process,' he said, referring to former Indian premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Amnesty India said in a post on X that the crackdown on books was not 'just about Kashmir'. 'It's about free expression,' the rights group said. 'If books can be silenced without any due process, so can people.'
In February this year, police had similarly raided bookstores and seized hundreds of volumes linked to a major Islamic organisation in Kashmir.
In 2011, police filed charges against Kashmir's education officials over a textbook for first graders that illustrated the word 'tyrant' with a sketch resembling a policeman.
A year earlier, police had arrested a college lecturer alleging he had given his students an English exam filled with questions against a crackdown on demonstrations challenging Indian rule in the region.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Indian court orders removal of thousands of stray dogs from Delhi region
India's supreme court has ordered the immediate removal of thousands of stray dogs from the Delhi capital region, citing canine attacks and the country's alarming rabies toll. The sweeping move has set up a clash between public safety advocates and those who see the animals as beloved fixtures of their neighbourhoods. The ruling on Monday, one of the strongest in the nation's long-running struggle with its street dog population, directs civic authorities to capture all strays, sterilise and vaccinate them and relocate them to newly built shelters. The court gave authorities eight weeks to create the facilities and install CCTV monitoring to ensure no animals are released back on to the streets. The bench stressed the need for immediate action. 'Round up all stray dogs from all localities … whether sterilised or unsterilised,' Justice JB Pardiwala declared. 'Children must feel safe while cycling and playing. The elderly must feel safe on their walks.' Stray dog control has become a lightning rod civic issue in Delhi and other Indian cities. While some residents see the dogs as a menace, others consider them to be like family. Many of the dogs are fed daily by 'community feeders' who provide food, water and veterinary care. Nishima Bhagat, who attended a candlelight march in the centre of the city on Monday night to protest against the court ruling, said: 'We are walking in solidarity to show that there are people for the voiceless. They [the dogs] cannot speak for themselves. They cannot be put into the pounds. We cannot uproot them from the place where they live.' India bears the highest rabies burden globally. Each year about 5,700 people die from rabies, according to government figures, and the World Health Organization believes the toll to be as high as 20,000 deaths. The last dog census, in 2012, put Delhi's stray population at 60,000 and the figure now is estimated to be closer to 1 million. Dog packs roam parks, construction sites and residential lanes. Attacks on children and elderly people often make news headlines. Between January and June this year, Delhi reported 35,198 animal bite incidents and 49 rabies cases, municipal data shows. Pardiwala dismissed India's animal birth control (ABC) rules, which mandate that sterilised dogs be returned to their territories, as 'absurd' and ineffective. 'All these so-called animal lovers, will they bring back the children who have lost their lives?' he said, urging civic authorities to act decisively rather than debate policy. The ruling said there could be no exceptions and that anyone resisting the removals would face charges. Animal protection groups called the order 'impractical and inhumane'. Bharati Ramachandran, the chief executive of the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, urged large-scale sterilisation, vaccination, and public awareness campaigns. Mini Aravindan, a senior official at Peta India, said: 'It's infeasible to build and staff enough shelters for hundreds of thousands of dogs' and the cost would be huge.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Death of Prince William's businessman pal who 'collapsed after swallowing a bee' sparks a £3billion inheritance row
The death of an Indian billionaire and friend of Prince William who swallowed a bee has triggered a feud over a £3 billion inheritance. Sunjay Kapur, 53, collapsed in front of horrified teammates during the game at Guards Polo Club in Windsor. Indian-born Mr Kapur was thought to have suffered a fatal heart attack after being stung in the mouth, potentially triggering anaphylactic shock. Kapur was the heir too the global car parts giant Sona Comstar, a £2.7 billion business founded by his father. Now the company has been plunged into a bitter succession battle, between the businessman's mother Rani Kapur and the firm's board of directors, The Telegraph reported. Rani Kapur reportedly wrote to the board on July 24 saying her son had died in 'suspicious and unexplained circumstances'. It came just a month after the board unanimously appointed a new chairman on June 23. In the letter, she reportedly accused people in the company of exploiting the family's grief to 'wrestle control' of the company. She said she had been forced to sign documents behind locked doors while under emotional distress. Mrs Kapur claimed she had been blocked from accessing her bank accounts and did not authorise appointments to represent her family. In her letter, which was also sent to India's market regulator, she claimed her late husband, who died in 2015, made her the sole beneficiary of his estate as well as majority shareholder of the Sona Group. The company said Mrs Kapur had not been a shareholder for six years and said she was not majority shareholder of the group. Sunjay Kapur's widow Priya Sachdeva also appears to have sided with Sona Comstar. Ms Sachdeva was appointed as a non-executive director at the company's annual meeting on July 25, despite Ms Kapur's objections and request to delay the meeting. Her office last week shared the coroner's report which confirmed that her husband had died of natural causes. The report said he died from ventricular hypertrophy and ischaemic heart disease and the investigation was closed. Ms Kapur wrote to the UK authorities calling for an investigation into his death, which was rejected. Mr Kapur's sister Mandhire Kapur has also been dragged into the dispute. In an Instagram post, she shared a photograph with her brother and mother saying she would 'protect what you would have wanted, and what Dad dreamed' Mrs Kapur claimed there was a conspiracy to take control of the company away from her family. Vaibhav Gaggar the senior advocate who represents Ms Kapur, told The Telegraph: 'It quite clearly reinforces what she's been saying, that her entire legacy is being usurped and no one is willing to look into the cause of death.' 'It may all be very well interlinked and she has quite unequivocally said there is a conspiracy behind her son's death.'
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Stateless Tibetans in exile in India yearn for identity and homeland
What does it mean to live in exile?"When we were in school, our teachers used to say that there is an 'R' on our forehead - meaning refugees," says Tibetan writer-activist Tenzin Tsundue is one of around 70,000 Tibetans living in India, spread across 35 designated 1959, thousands of Tibetans fled after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Following their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, they crossed treacherous Himalayan passes and reached India, where they were accepted as refugees on humanitarian grounds and because of shared religious and cultural living, or even being born, in India doesn't make them Indians, says Mr Tsundue. Tibetans in India live on renewable registration certificates issued every five years. Those born here can apply for passports if a parent was born in India between 1950 and 1987 - but must surrender the certificate to do so. Many hesitate, as it's closely tied to their Tibetan July, as the Dalai Lama turned 90, thousands of Tibetan Buddhists gathered in Dharamshala - a quiet town nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The town serves as the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) - the Tibetan as they prayed for their leader's long life, many like Mr Tsundue found themselves reflecting on the uncertainty of living in exile. The emotional weight of displacement, the legal limbo of statelessness and geopolitics around the Dalai Lama hung heavy on the birthday turn out to mark Dalai Lama's 90 birthday Tibetans continued migrating to India for decades after 1959, fleeing China's tightening grip on their Sangbo, 85, reached Dharamshala in 1970 after a gruelling seven-day trek through Nepal. "We ran at night and hid by day," he no place to stay in India, he survived by living in a tent for 12 years and selling spices in villages near Dharamshala. He now lives with his son and wife in a neighbourhood largely inhabited by many like Mr Sangbo, fleeing to India may have provided security - but they still yearn for their homeland."A home is a home, after all," says Pasang Gyalpo, who fled Tibet to Nepal before settling in India in years later, Mr Gyalpo bribed Nepalese guards and slipped into Tibet to bring his family to India. But Chinese police chased him soon after arrival, forcing him to flee. His family remains in Tibet."They are in their homeland, I am in a foreign land. What else can I feel but pain?" he younger Tibetans like Mr Tsunde, who are born in India, the pain is more existential."The trauma for us is not that we lost our land," he says. "It's that we were not born in Tibet and don't have the right to live in Tibet. It is also this great sense of deprivation that something so very essential of our land, culture, and language has been taken away from us."Lobsang Yangtso, a researcher on Tibet and Himalayan regions, explains that being stateless means lacking a sense of belonging."It's painful," she says. "I have lived all my life here [in India] but I still feel homeless." Tibetans in exile are grateful to India for refuge but lament their lack of rights - they cannot vote, own property or easily travel abroad without an Indian passport."We have the IC [an official travel document] which is given by the Indian government as an identity certificate," says Phurbu Dolma. But airport immigration staff often don't recognise Phuntsok, a Tibetan born in India, pointed out that many corporate jobs in India often require Indian passports. "Without one, we miss out on many opportunities."Who is the Dalai Lama and why does he live in exile?In recent years, thousands of Tibetans in India have emigrated to Western countries using the IC, which some nations accept for visa have left on student or work visas, resettled in countries like the US and Canada, or gone abroad on sponsorships from religious and humanitarian Tsering, the president of the CTA, believes that the reason is mainly economic. "Dollars and euros go further than what's available here," he for some like Thupten Wangchuk, 36, who crossed over to India as an eight-year-old, the motivation is more personal."For [almost] 30 long years, I haven't met my parents and relatives. I've no one here," he says. "The sole reason I want to go to a Western country is that I can become a citizen there. Then I can apply for a visa and go into Tibet to visit my parents." Some Tibetans acknowledge the need to be pragmatic given the geopolitical pulls and pressures."If you ask any Tibetan, they'll say they want to go back," says Kunchok Migmar, a CTA official. "But right now, there is no freedom in Tibet. No one wants to go back just to be beaten by the Chinese."The latest flashpoint emerged days before the Dalai Lama's 90th birthday. He said his successor would be chosen by a trust under his office - a move China rejected, insisting it would decide under its law. Beijing called the succession issue a "thorn" in its ties with official stance is that it "does not take any position concerning beliefs and practices of faith and religion". Notably, two senior ministers of the Indian government shared the stage with Dalai Lama on his Dalai Lama's announcement that he would have a successor brought relief among Tibetans. But there is uncertainty over what his death could mean for the Tibetan movement."If we prepare ourselves well from now, when His Holiness is alive and [if] the future leaders who will follow us can continue the same momentum, then I think it should not affect us as much as people think it could," says Mr optimism is not shared by all Tibetans."It's thanks to the current Dalai Lama that we have these opportunities and resources," says Mr Phuntsok. He adds many Tibetans fear that after his passing, the community may lose the long-standing support that has sustained them. Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, X and Facebook.
