J&K executive defends HC book ban, says ‘separatist’ in nature

SRINAGAR: The J&K government on Wednesday defended its order banning 25 Kashmir-related books by filing a reply in the high court in response to a host of petitions challenging the order.Senior Advocate General (AAG) Mohsin Qadri told TOI, “We justified our decision to ban the books on the grounds of national security and public order. They (petitioners) now have time to file their rebuttal,” he said.Qadri said the government also defended the legal provisions invoked in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) to implement the ban as petitioners challenged its applicability in the case. “We are defending the ban and the terms of the law,” he said.The court said the hearing date of the case will be fixed after the petitioner’s lawyers Vrinda Grover, Sanjay Hegde and Rakesh Shakdher, among others, indicate their availability. Three advocates attended online.The UT government under the Lieutenant Governor is defending the ban, while the elected government under CM Omar Abdullah is not a party to the case as it did not issue a ban.The Supreme Court has constituted a three-judge bench to hear petitions challenging the move to ban books, including Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy’s Azadi.On August 5 last year, on the sixth anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370, the J&K Home Ministry under Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha ordered a ban on the publication and distribution of 25 books on Kashmir, saying they promoted “false narratives” and “separatism” in the Union Territory.These books include Kashmir: The Case for Freedom by Tariq Ali and Pankaj Mishra; Confronting Terrorism, edited by Maroof Raza, and written by Stephen P. Cohen; Independent Kashmir, by Christopher Snedden; Democracy and Between States, by Seema Kazi; Disputed Land, by Sumantra Bose; In Search of the Future, by journalist and author David Devdas; A State Disintegrated: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370, by Anuradha Bhasin; Colonial Kashmir, by Hafsa Kanjwal.The order states that the government “has credible intelligence that a significant driving factor behind youth involvement in violence and terrorism is the systematic propagation of false narratives and separatist literature through its ongoing internal cycle, often disguised as historical or political commentary while playing a key role in misleading the youth, glorifying terrorism and inciting violence against the Indian state”.After being informed, police raided bookstores across Kashmir and confiscated several books.