New Delhi: The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has expressed outrage over the decision of the Jammu and Kashmir Government’s home department headed by lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha to forfeit 25 book titles in an omnibus order under Section 98 of the BNSS, for “promoting secessionism” and “inciting violence against [the] Indian state” in the Union territory.

In a statement issued by its national president Kavita Srivastava and general secretary V. Suresh, the PUCL termed the notification “an arbitrary and brute exercise of power by the state uncanalised by the discipline of the Constitution”.

“What the state is seeking to tell the citizens is that any opinion which is not the opinion of the state cannot be tolerated. This is a form of totalitarian thinking which is unacceptable in a constitutional democracy,” said the PUCL statement.

“By the mass forfeiting of books, the Jammu and Kashmir government is utilising a colonial, British-era law (Section 95 of the colonial, British era, CrPC finds its Bharatiya or so-called decolonial avatar, as Section 98 of the BNSS) which was designed to suppress demands for Indian independence. This law has been used by the British to ban canonical texts like Hind Swaraj by Mahatma Gandhi,” the statement added.

PUCL said that among the 25 books forfeited are books by Anuradha Bhasin, Sumantra Bose, Tariq Ali, A.G. Noorani, Arundhati Roy, Ather Zia and a host of others, books that give a flavour of the realms traversed covering history, memory, poetry and politics.

“These books represent a vibrant intellectual culture of thinking and writing about Kashmir. These viewpoints may be deemed unacceptable by the Indian establishment, but they are viewpoints which are protected speech under the Indian Constitution. The forfeiture notice is an attempt at stifling collective memory and preventing thought in Kashmir,” said the PUCL statement.

“By clamping down on these books, the attempt to stifle the very heart of intellectual life: which is to seek knowledge and form opinion by gathering thought from all, including contrarian, sources,” it added.

'The forfeiture notification is illegal and unconstitutional'

The PUCL said that the Jammu and Kashmir government must appreciate that there may be viewpoints they disagree with, but a constitutional democracy is based on the fact that dissenting opinions exist and should be respected.

“What is not apparent from a reading of the Government notification is a reasoning as to the grounds for forfeiture. What the notification has is a bald, bare and sweeping assertion with no reference to how any of the twenty-five books have contributed to ‘radicalisation of youth in J&K include distortion of historical facts, glorification of terrorists, vilification of security forces, religious radicalisation, promotion of alienation, pathway to violence and terrorism etc,’” said the PUCL statement.

“When there is an omnibus forfeiture order of 25 books, without any specific reference to the content of any of the books, prima facie it appears that the exercise of the power of forfeiture is not a justified exercise of power under Section 98 of the BNSS and will not come within the reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) of the Constitution,” it added.

The PUCL said that Section 152 of the BNS which is the so called decolonial law, strikingly goes even further than Section 124-A (sedition) of the IPC in its criminalisation of speech.

It demanded an immediate withdrawal of the forfeiture notice of 25 books by the Jammu and Kashmir government and also called for the repealing of Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

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