“Attack on People’s Memory”: Kashmir Ban Sparks Book new Fears of Control Censorship

Srinagar, Kashmir by India- The Hafta Kangal book was just banned from Kashmir, but the paradox of the moment it raises more than others.

This week, the authorities in Kashmir, run by India, banned 25 books designed by scholars, writers and famous journalists.

The banned books include Kashmir colonialism: building the state under Indian occupation. But even with the ban was Followed by police raids In many libraries in the largest city in the region, Serenagar, during which he seized books on the black list, Indian officials hold a book festival in the city on the banks of Lake D.

“Nothing has been surprised about this ban, which comes in a moment when the level of control and control in Kashmir has reached since 2019,” Kashmir said since 2019. He abolished the case of Kashmir, almost offensive Six years ago.

“Of course, it is more absurd that this ban comes at a time when the Indian army promotes reading books and literature through the Chinar Book Festival sponsored by the state.”

However, even with Kashmir’s long history of censorship, the book’s ban is for many critics a comprehensive attempt by New Delhi to emphasize the control of the academic circles in the disputed region.

“The youth mislead”

The 25 banned book by the government provides a detailed overview of the events surrounding the division of India and the reasons that make Kashmir have become such a regional conflict by starting.

They include writings like Azadi from the Bokerer Award winner Arundi RoyHuman rights violations in Kashmir by Piotr Piavic and Agynska Koszuka, the Battle of Kashmiris for freedom by Mohamed Youssaf Sirav, Kashmir Politics and Plebiscite by Abdel -Gokhami Jabbar and do you remember Conan Buspora? By Essar Batool. These are books that speak directly to violations of rights and massacres in Kashmir and their promises by the Indian state.

Then there are books such as Kanjwal’s, journalist Anuradha Bhasin, a dismantling country: the story that is indescribable to Kashmir after Article 370 and legal researcher AG NoOrani the Kashmir Counting 1947-2012, which distorts the political journey of the region over the decades.

The government blamed these books for “misleading youth” in Kashmir and inciting them to “participate in violence and terrorism.” The government’s order stipulates the following: “This literature will deeply affect the psyche of young people by enhancing the culture of grievance, the victim and the terrorist championship.”

the Kashmir dispute It dates back to 1947 when the departed British submitted the Indian subcontinent in Himti India and Pakistan. The Hindu King sought from the Islamic majority to be independent of both, but after the Pakistan -backed fighters entered part of the region, he agreed to join India provided that Kashmir enjoyed a special situation within the new union with some of the guaranteed self -rule under the Indian constitution.

But the Kashmiri people have never asked what they wanted, and India has repeatedly refused to reject a referendum under the auspices of the United Nations.

Disturbance against Indian rule intensified and stopped and exploded in an armed uprising against India in 1989 in response to allegations of election reform.

Kashmir colonial Kashmal highlights the complex roads that the Indian government has strengthened under its first Prime Minister, Jawaher Lal Nehru, its control over Kashmir.

Some of Nehru’s decisions that were criticized include the unfamiliar dismissal of the region’s leader, Sheikh Abdullah, who called for the self -base of Kashmir, and the decision to replace him with the rule of his lieutenant, Bakshi Gulam Mohamed, who was 10 years old in his post by strengthening New Delhi.

The Kanjwal book won the Bernard Cohn Book for this year, which “is recognized by a distinguished and innovative grant for the first bicycle that was composed in English in South Asia.”

Kanjwal said that the embargo gives a feeling of “insecurity” to the government.

“Intensifying political census”

India has a long history of censorship and information control in Kashmir. In 2010, after the outbreak of the major protests after the killing of a 17 -year -old student Tufail Mattoo By the security forces, the boycott government banned and recovered services after only three years.

At the height of another civil uprising in 2016, the government stopped the Kashmir reader, an independent publication in Serenagar, from going to the press, noting “its tendency to incite violence.”

Regardless of the ban on newspapers and communication methods, the Indian authorities routinely detained journalists under strict preventive detention laws in Kashmir.

He has chosen this style since 2019.

The veteran editor said: “First, they came to the journalists, and they realized that they succeeded in silencing them. They turned their attention to the academic circles.” Anwawrad with HasinWhose book on India’s nullification of the special situation of Kashmir in 2019 is among the banned.

Hasin described the accusations that her book enhances violence as strange. “No place is glorifying terrorism, but it criticizes the state. There is a distinction between the two that the authorities want in Kashmir blur. This is a very dangerous direction.”

Bahsin told Al -Jazeera that such a ban will have long -term effects on future works that are produced on Kashmir. “The publishers will think twice before printing anything crucial to Kashmir,” she said. “When my book went to print, the legal team examined it three times.”

“Feeling of despair”

The book banned criticism from various circles in Kashmir with students and researchers called him an attempt to impose mass memory loss.

Saber Rashid, an independent researcher, 27, from Kashmir, said he was very disappointed. “If we take these books from the law of Kashmir literary, then we left nothing,” he said.

Rashid is working on a book on the history of modern Kashmir regarding the period surrounding the division of India.

“If these works are no longer available to me, my research will be unbalanced.”

On Thursday, uniform police officers showing libraries in Srenajar and asking their owners whether they own any of the books in the banned list.

At least one book seller in Srinagar Al -Jazeera told Al -Jazeera that he had one copy of the disassembled Bhasin state, which he sold just before the raids. “Except for that, I had no of these books,” I ignored.

More famous works on the blacklist

Historian Sommantra Boss feels the proposal made by the Indian authorities that his book Kashmir at the crossroads has fueled violence in the region. He has worked on the Kashmir conflict since 1993 and said he focused on developing paths to find a permanent peace for the region. Boss is also enjoying the family heritage represented by the ban.

In 1935, the colonial authorities in British India banned the Indian struggle, 1920-1934, a group of political analysis, written by Subhis Chandra Boss, his great pain and leader of the Freedom Nidal in India.

He said: “After ninety years, I granted the single honor to follow the footsteps of the legendary freedom fighter.”

As the police advance in raids on libraries in Srenajar and underestimate valuable and more important works, the literary community in Kashmir has a sense of despair.

“This is an attack on people’s memory,” Rashid said. “These books were guards. It was supposed to remind us of our history. But now, the memory of the memory in Kashmir was almost complete.”