Srinagar, Aug 7: Banning the books will not erase historical facts and the repertoire of lived memories of people of Kashmir, said Kashmir’s chief cleric and Hurriyat chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq today.
Mirwaiz was responding to a Jammu and Kashmir government notification that declared 25 books – including works by Arundhati Roy and A.G. Noorani as ‘forfeited’, alleging they distort facts, glorify terrorism, promote secessionism, and radicalize youth.
A notification issued on August 5 by the Principal Secretary of the Home Department, Chandraker Bharti, by order of Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha, said, “These books found to excite secessionism and endangering sovereignty and integrity of India, thereby, attracting the provisions of Sections 152, 196 & 197 of Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023.”
“Banning books by scholars and reputed historians will not erase historical facts and the repertoire of lived memories of people of Kashmir. It 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!,” he said on X. The books that have forfeited Kashmir: The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012 by constitutional expert AG Noorani, Kashmir at the Crossroads and Contested Lands by Sumantra Bose, In Search of a Future: The Kashmir Story by David Devadas, Arundati Roy’s Azadi, A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370 by Anuradha Bhasin, Kashmir the Case for Freedom by Tariq Ali, Pankaj Mishra and others, Christopher Snedden’s Independent Kashmir, and Imam Hassan al-Banna’s Mujajid Ki Azan.
Banna was the Egyptian founder of Muslim Brotherhood.
The CPI(M) termed the order “an authoritarian attack on democratic rights and academic freedom.”
“On the sixth anniversary of the #BJP’s dismantling of #Article370, the #JammuAndKashmir Home Department under the Lieutenant Governor has banned 25 books, including A.G. Noorani’s ‘The Kashmir Dispute’, a work cited by the Supreme Court in the Article 370 case, and titles by Arundhati Roy, Sumantra Bose, and Anuradha Bhasin for propagating “secessionism”. This is an authoritarian attack on democratic rights and academic freedom. We strongly condemn this brazen act of censorship,” the CPI (M) said on X.
