Why is India vetting books in Kashmir in search of ‘anti-national’ content?

Authorities in India-administered Kashmir are conducting a mass filtering of books at the region’s prominent libraries and educational institutions over allegations that they carry “objectionable” content, including extolling leaders associated with Kashmir’s pro-freedom movement.

All educational institutions in the region have been ordered to vet books, journals, dissertations, doctoral theses and digital resources to “prevent the procurement, circulation or retention of any publication containing misleading, factually incorrect, distorted, inflammatory, unlawful or otherwise objectionable material, including any content which directly or indirectly promotes, glorifies, legitimises or justifies terrorism, violent extremism, secessionism, radicalisation, communal disharmony or any activity prejudicial to the sovereignty, unity, integrity and security of nation,” according to an order issued by the government on July ۹.

Authorities have also ordered an investigation to determine how books with “seditious content” made their way into public libraries and educational institutions in the disputed region. The inquiry, initially ordered only for school libraries, was broadened last week to include not just books, but also research publications, dissertations, journals, and content stored digitally by the universities.

Kashmir is controlled in parts by India and Pakistan, but claimed in full by both the nuclear powers. In ۲۰۱۹, New Delhi annulled Indian-administered Kashmir’s historic semi-autonomous status and brought it under direct federal control. Since then, the region has reported a widespread crackdown on educational institutions, rights activists and groups, journalists and other pro-freedom groups.

When did the latest crackdown begin?

It began earlier this month after Sunil Sharma, a politician belonging to the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), demanded a ban on a book titled Personalities and Legends of J&K, authored by regional educationists Hilal Ahmad and Santosh Meena. J&K stands for Jammu and Kashmir, the official name for the region.

The ۲۴۰-page book, of which Al Jazeera has a copy, is organised into five chapters featuring prominent politicians, activists, authors, poets, and historians from the region such as writers Salman Rushdie and Hari Kunzru, and Farah Pandith, the first-ever special representative to Muslim communities in the United States.

However, authorities have objected to the inclusion of key Kashmiri separatists in the book.

Among them is Maqbool Bhat, a former separatist leader who was hanged to death on the orders of an Indian court in ۱۹۸۴. The book calls Bhat a “martyr” – one of the many thorny references the BJP has flagged.

Also mentioned in the book is Masrat Alam Bhat, another separatist who led rallies during an uprising in ۲۰۱۰ and is currently in jail after his arrest during the ۲۰۱۹ clampdown.

An entry on late separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani says he had called Kashmir a “disputed region awaiting political resolution under the aegis of the United Nations”.

What are the officials objecting to?

Ironically, the book, along with another titled Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir – authored by Sushant Giri and published by a New Delhi-based outfit – was provided to public and school libraries in the region under a government-funded programme.

But the BJP’s Sharma described their presence as an example of “academic jihad”, invoking a popular Islamophobic dog-whistle and arguing that such books were intended to incite unrest in Kashmir.

“These forces are once again trying to poison the minds of young people and children, pushing them back towards separatism and terrorism,” Sharma told reporters, demanding a ban on such books.

Police in Kashmir, controlled by a New Delhi-appointed administrator rather than by an elected government in the region, immediately swooped down on the publishers of the two books and arrested three people, charging them with “endangering the sovereignty, unity, and integrity” of India.

How have Kashmiri residents responded?

For the region’s residents, a sweeping institutional audit of books has brought anxiety.

“Writing or even reading about the region’s past suddenly becomes fraught with risk. If you tell the story of Kashmir, you cannot escape the pain, the conflict and the realities of human rights issues,” a senior Kashmiri journalist told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals from authorities.

“In my own home, I have a collection of old human rights reports and archival books on Kashmir that the authorities would today classify as antinational. Out of anxiety, I am clearing them off my bookshelves. In Kashmir, books have become the new threat.”

A bookshop owner in the region’s main city of Srinagar, again on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera that people like him are confused about which books to keep and what to discard.

“We are unsure what will be considered antinational and what is in the national interest,” he said.

The bookseller said a similar situation is under way in the libraries of schools, colleges and universities, especially in departments like law, social sciences and the humanities.

How has government defended the move?

The BJP has defended the crackdown, arguing that the inclusion of “seditious” literature amounts to “fanning militant violence” in the restive region.

“This is not history or education … The book attempts to revive separatist ideology among the youth,” Sharma said. “It is an attempt to spread hatred against India and its armed forces.”

This is not the first time the Indian government has tightened control over Kashmir’s academia and publications.

Last year, authorities banned ۲۵ books, claiming they undermined India’s sovereignty, spread false narratives and instigated separatism. The banned titles included those authored by reputed jurists, scholars, journalists and award-winning novelists, including AG Noorani, Sumantra Bose and Arundhati Roy.

The police raided more than a dozen bookshops to ensure those books were removed.

Before that, the police also banned books written by Abul A’la Maududi, a prominent ۲۰th-century Islamic scholar who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic organisation now banned in Kashmir.

Police said their action was “based on credible intelligence regarding the clandestine sale and distribution of literature promoting the ideology of a banned organisation”. In the process, at least ۶۶۸ books were confiscated from several bookshops in Srinagar.

What do the authors and experts say?

They are calling the crackdown “an exercise in intimidation” to criminalise the act of reading a book.

“Even if there’s objectionable content here and there, how does that matter? After all, books are not bombs,” journalist and writer Anuradha Bhasin told Al Jazeera. “When was the last time someone read a book and chose to pick up a gun?”

Bhasin’s The Dismantled State was among the ۲۵ books banned last year. She said the administration was “going overboard” in its attempt to sift through each and every title that has ever been published on Kashmir.

“How many books will you parse through? There are thousands and thousands of them,” she said. “Even using AI to identify such so-called objectionable references entails the risk of flawed reading. I don’t think removing material was ever their motive. It was to criminalise the act of purchasing and reading the books themselves.”

Bhasin said the crackdown on books will “create a scare” and force people to “steer clear” of Kashmir-related books that discuss and debate the context behind one of South Asia’s “intractable” disputes.

“Come to think of it. The very word ‘objectionable’ is ambiguous. Anything can be potentially objectionable. The libraries will no longer have these books if the staffers are going to be suspended for ordering them,” she said.

Political scientist Sumantra Bose, whose two books – Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a ۲۱st-Century Conflict” (۲۰۲۱) and Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka (۲۰۰۷) – were among those banned last year, described the latest orders as “absurd”.

“If an authority wants to spend inordinate time, energy and resources looking for needles in not one but a million haystacks, that’s their choice. I personally don’t think it’s a sensible path, nor will it yield the desired result,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mohamad Junaid, a Kashmiri anthropologist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, called the auditing of books in Kashmir “memoricide”.

He said the “overpolicing” of books suggests that Kashmiris were being rendered “incapable of understanding their own condition as the first step towards their physical erasure as a people”.

“It is a deliberate attempt to alter facts about the past and forcibly change people’s perception of their own lived experiences. The government wants young Kashmiris to have no way to understand their own condition and to normalise its own control,” Junaid told Al Jazeera.