On Sunday, police from the intelligence wing of Jammu and Kashmir detained three persons working for publishing companies following a row involving two books that have been found to contain material praising separatist and militant leaders in the UT.
These arrests represent the most serious development till date in a controversy which has raged for the last two weeks in both Kashmir and Jammu.
The three people arrested include Inder Paul Singh of Oberoi Book Services, which is based out of Jammu, alongside Amardeep Singh and Girish Arora of Dominant Publishers, based out of Noida. As per the police report, the arrests were carried out as part of simultaneous raids carried out by counterintelligence operatives in both Jammu and Noida in order to ensure that none of the accused manage to slip away from custody.
The police stated that the arrests were made a few days after counter-intelligence agents had carried out raids at the offices of the publishers in both Jammu and Delhi on July 6.
The issue has been triggered by two books titled “Personalities and Legends of J&K” and “Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir." Both books had already been removed from the school libraries last month following objections that some passages in these books praised separatists such as the late Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who was head of the extremist group of the Hurriyat Conference, as well as other imprisoned secessionists like Shabir Shah, Masarat Alam, and Yasin Malik.
Different sources have provided some varying information on the authors of the two books and their publishing companies, but they all agree that one of these books, called “Personalities and Legends of J&K," has been written by Hilal Ahmad and Santosh Meena from Oberoi Book Service, while the other book, “Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir," has been authored by Sushant Giri. The two publishers have already been banned by the J&K administration.
It has been stated that there were as many as 251 copies of these books in circulation in these districts—Jammu, Ramban, Udhampur, and Baramulla—before the contents were questioned. It has been made clear that all the copies have been recalled since then.
An FIR was filed by the counterintelligence wing on July 4 with a very serious charge. The FIR charges that have been mentioned here under Section 49 (abetment) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Section 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), Section 152 (endangering the sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India), Section 196 (promotion of enmity and disharmony among groups), and Section 353 (publication or circulation of false statements, rumors, or reports).
In addition to these BNS sections, the FIR is based upon Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), a very severe anti-terror act normally used for unlawful acts that endanger national integrity.
The mention of UAPA along with the recent BNS acts indicates that the matter is being taken as something beyond an administrative or editing error but rather as an act that may fall within the purview of anti-terror laws—which would have very important implications in terms of the law in relation to the accused publishers and could pave the way for the handling of similar future incidents in the Union Territory.
According to the police, the exact involvement of the publishers in publishing and distributing this “highly inappropriate content” is still being investigated, implying that there is a possibility of other people being involved and charged in the matter.
However, the impact of the controversy has not been limited to the publishers alone. As per a report, on July 4, the lieutenant governor, Manoj Sinha, issued instructions regarding the suspension of eight officials and supervisory staff members of the School Education Department following the controversy.
According to the instruction that has been quoted in the media reports, it has been noted that "it has come to the notice of the department that these books have highly inappropriate content." Furthermore, it is stated that there has been "serious negligence, dereliction of duty, and lack of due diligence" by members of a subcommittee, which has been referred to as Sub-Committee Series 4 in the reports, and other supervisory officials.
Such an action against the officials of the department highlights the inherent flaw within the system because even with such a stringent system of screening of books that are procured and distributed under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme (India's flagship school education programme), content glorifying the separatists found its way into the books.
The incident has resulted in a wider crackdown against educational material within the Union Territory. After the revelation of the two books, the J&K government issued a directive to inspect curricula in all schools to determine whether there is any other such material present in the entire education curriculum. It is said that teachers and librarians in all the schools are on the lookout for any such books published by these firms. In some universities too, inspections are being carried out for the presence of any such material in their repository, either physically or digitally.
The issue of the two textbooks has garnered criticism from all political quarters, with even the BJP and Congress and other political factions criticizing the books for being glorifications of separatism for children. Such unanimous criticism of the books, even from parties that usually differ on Kashmiri-related issues, reveals how sensitive the subject of glorification of separatists in a region plagued by the questions of identity, autonomy, and security is.
The government of J&K has also set up a high-level inquiry regarding the clearing of books through the vetting process in the first place, which would look into not only the publishers' conduct but also the review process within the Samagra Shiksha scheme.
