Police raid Kashmir bookshops after India bans titles for ‘secessionism’

Among the 25 banned books is 1 by Booker Prize victor Arundhati Roy, 1 of India’s astir celebrated surviving authors.

Police successful Indian-administered Kashmir person raided bookshops aft authorities earlier this week banned 25 books, saying works similar those by Booker Prize-winning writer Arundhati Roy propagate “false narratives” and “secessionism” successful the contested Muslim-majority region.

In compliance with the order, constabulary officials connected Thursday besides searched roadside publication vendors and different establishments dealing successful printed publications successful the main metropolis of Srinagar and crossed aggregate locations successful the portion to confiscate the banned literature, constabulary said. However, officials didn’t specify if they had seized immoderate specified material.

“The cognition targeted materials promoting secessionist ideologies oregon glorifying terrorism,” constabulary said successful a societal media statement. “Public practice is solicited to uphold bid and integrity.”

The raids came aft the authorities accused the writers of propagating “false narratives” astir Kashmir, “while playing a captious relation successful misguiding the youth” against the Indian state.

Authorities connected Thursday besides seized Islamic lit from bookshops and homes aft a akin directive successful February.

Kashmir has been divided betwixt India and Pakistan since their independency from British regularisation successful 1947. Both assertion the Himalayan territory successful full.

Rebel groups person fought since 1989 against the Indian regularisation of Kashmir, demanding independency oregon its merger with Pakistan.

Since 2019, Indian authorities person progressively criminalised dissent and shown nary tolerance for immoderate communicative that questions India’s sovereignty implicit Kashmir.

The bid banning the books was issued by the region’s Home Department connected Tuesday – the six-year anniversary of New Delhi’s imposition of nonstop regularisation – though the prohibition took clip to beryllium brought to wider attention.

The prohibition threatens radical with situation clip for selling oregon owning works by law adept AG Noorani and noted academicians and historians similar Sumantra Bose, Christopher Snedden and Victoria Schofield, among others.

The bid declared the 25 books “forfeit” nether India’s caller transgression codification of 2023, efficaciously banning the works from circulation, possession and entree wrong the Himalayan region.

Bose, a governmental idiosyncratic and writer whose publication Kashmir astatine the Crossroads was among the banned works, rejected “any and each defamatory slurs” connected his work, the Press Trust of India quality bureau reported.

“I person worked connected Kashmir – among galore different subjects – since 1993,” Bose said. “Throughout, my main nonsubjective has been to place pathways to bid truthful that each unit ends and a unchangeable aboriginal escaped of fearfulness and warfare tin beryllium enjoyed by the radical of the struggle region, of India arsenic a whole, and the subcontinent.

“I americium a committed and principled advocator of peaceful approaches and resolutions to equipped conflicts, beryllium it successful Kashmir oregon elsewhere successful the world,” helium said.

Roy’s 2020 publication of essays, Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction, was besides included successful the ban.

Roy, 63, is 1 of India’s astir celebrated surviving authors, but her penning and activism, including her trenchant disapproval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, person made her a polarising figure.

Historian Siddiq Wahid said the edict contravenes the constitution, “which allows for the freedoms of code and expression”.

“The database of banned books numbers respective that are authored and published by individuals and institutions whose reputations beryllium connected supplying evidence, logic and statement towards the conclusions they draw,” Wahid told the AFP quality agency. “Does that number for thing anymore?”

Indian-administered Kashmir elected a new government successful September and October, its archetypal since it was brought nether New Delhi’s nonstop control, with voters backing absorption parties to pb its determination assembly.

However, the section authorities has constricted powers, and the territory continues successful applicable presumption to beryllium governed by a New Delhi-appointed administrator.

Chief cleric and separatist person Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said the prohibition “only exposes the insecurities and constricted knowing of those down specified authoritarian actions”.

“Banning books by scholars and reputed historians volition not erase humanities facts and the repertoire of lived memories of radical of Kashmir,” Farooq said connected the societal media level X.

Banning books by scholars and reputed historians volition not erase humanities facts and the repertoire of lived memories of radical of Kashmir. It lone exposes the insecurities and constricted knowing of those down specified authoritarian actions, and the contradiction successful proudly…

— Mirwaiz Umar Farooq (@MirwaizKashmir) August 7, 2025