IAFN slams book ban in IIOJK as ‘unprecedented attack on academic freedom’
New Delhi: The India Academic Freedom Network (IAFN) has strongly condemned the recent book ban in Indian illegally Jammu and Kashmir, calling it “an unprecedented attack on academic freedom” and demanding its immediate revocation.
The IIOJK administration, led by New Delhi-appointed Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, on August 5 this year – the sixth anniversary of the reading down of Article 370 – passed an order banning 25 books authored by acclaimed Kashmiri, Indian and international writers.
“By banning books that it disagrees with, the state is providing compelling evidence of its repressive attitude,” the IAFN said in a statement.
Questioning the Indian government’s delay in restoring IIOJK’s statehood, the IAFN noted, “Even as elections have been held in J&K and the Supreme Court has recorded the Union Government’s assurance on restoring statehood, six years on, there is no sign of statehood. The order issued by the J&K Home Department under the control of Manoj Sinha, the Lieutenant Governor (LG), now seeks to obliterate any mention of J&K’s political past and details of the repression the region has endured.”
The statement added that the book ban seeks to counter ideas and arguments with the brute force of state power.
The IAFN called upon the Indian government to immediately revoke the order and assure both the people of IIOJK as well as the academic community and the Indian public at large that such attacks on academic freedom will not be repeated. “A book-banning Bharat can never be a vishwaguru,” the statement emphasized.
