New Delhi: The government of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has banned 25 books, including works by Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy, accusing them of promoting a false narrative and secessionism in the disputed region.
The censorship directive was issued under the authority of Manoj Sinha, the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, who was appointed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sinha, a former minister in Modi’s central government, instructed the Home Ministry to enforce the ban, citing concerns that the literature promotes separatist ideologies. According to the official statement, the government identified that these books “would deeply impact the psyche of youth by promoting a culture of grievance, victimhood and terrorist heroism.”
The order accuses the works of glorifying terrorists, distorting history, and inciting violence, stating they have contributed to the radicalization of youth in Jammu and Kashmir. The banned titles encompass a broad range of literature, including historical accounts, human rights reports, and political analyses authored by academics, journalists, and scholars from Kashmir, India, and abroad.
IFF’s Statement on the Jammu & Kashmir Book Ban
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) expresses grave concern over the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) Home Department’s order S.O. 203 of 2025, which bans and forfeits 25 book titles for allegedly “promoting secessionism” and “inciting… pic.twitter.com/aVqUr4cn89
— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) August 7, 2025
Among the prohibited works are Roy’s Azadi, which addresses alleged killings and disappearances by Indian forces, and Independent Kashmir by Australian political scientist Christopher Snedden, which explores the Kashmiri independence movement. Other banned publications include Colonizing Kashmir: State-building Under Indian Occupation by US-based academic Hafsa Kanjwal, and Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus and Sri Lanka by Sumantra Bose, professor at the London School of Economics.
Jammu and Kashmir, one of the most militarized regions in the world, has been contested between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947. Since the 1990s, Indian-administered Kashmir has witnessed a militant separatist insurgency, met with a sustained Indian military campaign.
The conflict has drawn accusations of widespread human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and suppression of free expression under stringent laws.
Since the Modi government revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomy status in 2019, tensions have heightened. The region was fully integrated into the Indian Union, and a crackdown on dissent has intensified, with frequent restrictions on media and public discourse. Earlier this year, in February 2025, police raided numerous bookstores in Kashmir, seizing over 650 books suspected of promoting banned ideologies.
