ON AUGUST 5, 2025, the Jammu & Kashmir Home Department issued a notification banning 25 books. The order was justified on grounds that the works propagate “false narratives” and “secessionist sentiment.” This was not an obscure list. It included Arundhati Roy’s Azadi (2020), journalist Anuradha Bhasin’s A Dismantled State (2022), constitutional scholar A.G. Noorani’s The Kashmir Dispute (2013), and Australian political scientist Christopher Snedden’s Independent Kashmir (2021).
The message from the administration is clear: certain perspectives will not be allowed circulation in the public domain. Yet banning a book rarely eliminates its ideas. Instead, censorship often heightens curiosity, drives reading underground, and deprives citizens of the chance to interrogate complex realities. In the context of Jammu & Kashmir—already a site of contested narratives and silenced voices—the consequences are profound.
India’s long tryst with censorship
India has a long history of censoring books, pamphlets, and periodicals. Colonial authorities enacted the Indian Press Act, 1910, to suppress material considered seditious or likely to excite disaffection against the Crown. Papers like Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s Kesari and The Maratha frequently faced prosecution.
