4 days ago
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Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir – Hafsa Kanjwal’s publication connected Kashmir has conscionable been banned, but it’s the irony of the infinitesimal that strikes her the most.
This week, authorities successful India-administered Kashmir proscribed 25 books authored by acclaimed scholars, writers and journalists.
The banned books see Kanjwal’s Colonizing Kashmir: State‑Building nether Indian Occupation. But adjacent arsenic the prohibition was followed by constabulary raids connected respective bookstores successful the region’s biggest city, Srinagar, during which they seized books connected the blacklist, Indian officials are holding a publication festival successful the metropolis connected the banks of Dal Lake.
“Nothing is astonishing astir this ban, which comes astatine a infinitesimal erstwhile the level of censorship and surveillance successful Kashmir since 2019 has reached absurd heights,” Kanjwal told Al Jazeera, referring to India’s crackdown connected the portion since it revoked Kashmir’s semiautonomous status six years ago.
“It is, of course, adjacent much absurd that this prohibition comes astatine a clip erstwhile the Indian service is simultaneously promoting publication speechmaking and lit done a state-sponsored Chinar Book Festival.”
Yet adjacent with Kashmir’s agelong past of facing censorship, the publication bans correspond to galore critics a peculiarly sweeping effort by New Delhi to asseverate power implicit academia successful the disputed region.
‘Misguiding youth’
The 25 books banned by the authorities connection a elaborate overview of the events surrounding the Partition of India and the reasons wherefore Kashmir became specified an intransigent territorial quality to statesman with.
They see writings similar Azadi by Booker Prize victor Arundhati Roy, Human Rights Violations successful Kashmir by Piotr Balcerowicz and Agnieszka Kuszewska, Kashmiris’ Fight for Freedom by Mohd Yusaf Saraf, Kashmir Politics and Plebiscite by Abdul Gockhami Jabbar and Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora? by Essar Batool. These are books that straight talk to rights abuses and massacres successful Kashmir and promises breached by the Indian state.
Then determination are books similar Kanjwal’s, writer Anuradha Bhasin’s A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370 and ineligible student AG Noorani’s The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012, which dissect the region’s governmental travel implicit the decades.
The authorities has blamed these books for allegedly “misguiding youth” successful Kashmir and instigating their “participation successful unit and terrorism”. The government’s bid states: “This lit would profoundly interaction the psyche of younker by promoting a civilization of grievance, victimhood, and violent heroism.”
The dispute successful Kashmir dates backmost to 1947 erstwhile the departing British cleaved the Indian subcontinent into the 2 dominions of India and Pakistan. Muslim-majority Kashmir’s Hindu king sought to beryllium autarkic of both, but aft Pakistan-backed fighters entered a portion of the region, helium agreed to articulation India connected the information that Kashmir bask a peculiar presumption wrong the caller national with immoderate autonomy guaranteed nether the Indian Constitution.
But the Kashmiri radical were ne'er asked what they wanted, and India repeatedly rebuffed demands for a United Nations-sponsored plebiscite.
Discontent against Indian regularisation simmered connected and disconnected and exploded into an equipped uprising against India successful 1989 successful effect to allegations of predetermination fixing.
Kanjwal’s Colonizing Kashmir sheds airy connected the analyzable ways successful which the Indian authorities nether its archetypal premier minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, consolidated its power implicit Kashmir.
Some of Nehru’s decisions that person travel nether disapproval see the unceremonious dismissal of the region’s person Sheikh Abdullah, who advocated for self-rule for Kashmir, and the determination to regenerate him with his lieutenant, Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad, whose 10 years successful bureau were marked by the strengthening of New Delhi’s regularisation of Indian-administered Kashmir.
Kanjwal’s publication won this year’s Bernard Cohn Book Prize, which “recognizes outstanding and innovative assistance for a archetypal single-authored English-language monograph connected South Asia”.
Kanjwal said the prohibition gives a consciousness of however “insecure” the authorities is.
‘Intensification of governmental clampdown’
India has a agelong past of censorship and accusation power successful Kashmir. In 2010, aft large protests broke retired pursuing the sidesplitting of 17-year-old pupil Tufail Mattoo by information forces, the provincial authorities banned SMS services and restored them lone 3 years later.
At the tallness of different civilian uprising successful 2016, the authorities stopped Kashmir Reader, an autarkic work successful Srinagar, from going to press, citing its purported “tendency to incite violence”.
Aside from prohibitions connected newspapers and modes of communication, Indian authorities person routinely detained journalists nether stringent preventive detention laws successful Kashmir.
That signifier has picked up since 2019.
“First they came for journalists, and realising they were palmy successful silencing them, they person turned their attraction to academia,” said seasoned exertion Anuradha Bhasin, whose publication connected India’s revocation of Kashmir’s peculiar presumption successful 2019 is among those banned.
Bhasin described the accusations that her publication promotes unit arsenic strange. “Nowhere does my publication glorify terrorism, but it does criticise the state. There’s a favoritism betwixt the 2 that authorities successful Kashmir privation to blur. That’s a precise unsafe trend.”
Bhasin told Al Jazeera that specified bans volition person far-reaching implications for aboriginal works being produced connected Kashmir. “Publishers volition deliberation doubly earlier printing thing captious connected Kashmir,” she said. “When my publication went to print, the ineligible squad vetted it thrice.”
‘A feeling of despair’
The publication bans person drawn disapproval from assorted quarters successful Kashmir with students and researchers calling it an effort to enforce corporate amnesia.
Sabir Rashid, a 27-year-old autarkic student from Kashmir, said helium was precise disappointed. “If we instrumentality these books retired of Kashmir’s literate canon, we are near with nothing,” helium said.
Rashid is moving connected a publication connected Kashmir’s modern past concerning the play surrounding the Partition of India.
“If these works are nary longer disposable to me, my probe is people going to beryllium lopsided.”
On Thursday, videos showed uniformed policemen entering bookstores successful Srinagar and asking their proprietors if they possessed immoderate of the books successful the banned list.
At slightest 1 publication vendor successful Srinagar told Al Jazeera helium had a azygous transcript of Bhasin’s Dismantled State, which helium sold conscionable earlier the raids. “Except that one, I did not person immoderate of these books,” helium shrugged.
More acclaimed works connected the blacklist
Historian Sumantra Bose is aghast astatine the proposition by Indian authorities that his publication Kashmir astatine the Crossroads has fuelled unit successful the region. He has worked connected the Kashmir quality since 1993 and said helium has focused connected devising pathways for uncovering a lasting bid for the region. Bose is besides amused astatine a household bequest represented by the ban.
In 1935, the assemblage authorities successful British India banned The Indian Struggle, 1920-1934, a compendium of governmental investigation authored by Subhas Chandra Bose, his great-uncle and a person of India’s state struggle.
“Ninety years later, I person been accorded the singular honour of pursuing successful the legendary state fighter’s footsteps,” helium said.
As constabulary measurement up raids connected bookshops successful Srinagar and prehend valuable, much captious works, the literate assemblage successful Kashmir has a feeling of despondency.
“This is an onslaught connected the people’s memory,” Rashid said. “These books served arsenic sentinels. They were expected to punctual america of our history. But now, the erasure of representation successful Kashmir is astir complete.”
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