Share your story and shine at JK Monitor!🌟 Welcome to JK Monitor, where every story matters and every achievement is celebrated! We invite you to share the remarkable journey of your life and showcase your accomplishments to the world. Join our exclusive interviews that honor exceptional individuals just like you. JAMMU: In a long-overdue and welcome decision, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has ordered the forfeiture and ban of 25 books that openly propagate secessionism, glorify terrorism, and undermine national integrity. This move is not only timely but essential to safeguard public order and protect impressionable minds from malicious propaganda, said Girdhari Lal Raina, Former MLC & BJP Spokesperson, Jammu & Kashmir UT.
A notification (S.O. 203) issued by the Home Department on August 5, under Section 98 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, declared these books “forfeited,” citing their false narratives and dangerous influence in misguiding the youth of Jammu & Kashmir, recalled Raina. The decision followed a detailed content review and intelligence inputs that revealed their systematic distortion of historical facts, vilification of security forces, and promotion of violence. These findings are not speculative—they are evidence-based, rooted in thorough investigations and credible security assessments, he added.
It is a matter of record that decades of death and destruction in Jammu & Kashmir have been fuelled by a well-oiled propaganda machinery that thrives on falsifying history, manufacturing grievances, and romanticizing terrorism, Ex MLC underlined. Such literature does not merely reflect opinion; it strategically implants a culture of victimhood and heroism for those who take up arms against the state. The sustained internal circulation of such material has been a significant driver of radicalization among sections of Kashmiri youth, he stressed.
Unsurprisingly, the affected individuals and their broader ecosystem have reacted with predictable outrage, invoking freedom of speech and expression as an absolute right. They conveniently overlook the fact that Article 19 of the Constitution of India guarantees this freedom subject to reasonable restrictions in the interest of sovereignty, integrity, security of the State, public order, decency, morality, contempt of court, defamation, incitement to an offence, or the protection of the interests of Scheduled Tribes. Free speech in any constitutional democracy is never a license to promote secessionism, glorify violence, or wage psychological warfare against the nation, GL Raina asserted.
Those who are now lamenting the ban would do well to examine their own record. They remained silent—or worse, complicit—when books like Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir, Lajja, Gandhi Vadh Kyon, or works by authors such as Ram Swarup, Salman Rushdie, and Taslima Nasrin were banned. Even films and serials, songs and poems critical of earlier regimes were banned on flimsy grounds, he reminded. The booklet Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir, published by Suruchi Prakashan for the Jammu Kashmir Sahayata Samiti, documented the horrific atrocities committed against religious minorities in Kashmir during 1989–90. Yet not a single self-proclaimed defender of free speech raised a voice against its suppression, Raina regretted.
This selective outrage is not about constitutional morality—it is about preserving a narrative monopoly, he opinionated. The hypocrisy is glaring, and unfortunately, it has a long shelf life.
