Indian authorities in Kashmir ban books by eminent writers and scholars

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Indian authorities have banned 25 books in Kashmir that they say propagate “false narratives” and “secessionism” in the disputed region, where strict controls on the media have escalated in recent years.

The ban threatens people with prison time for selling or owning these works by authors such as Booker Prize-winning novelist and activist Arundhati Roy, constitutional expert A.G. Noorani, and noted academicians and historians like Sumantra Bose, Christopher Snedden and Victoria Schofield.

The order was issued on Tuesday by the region’s Home Department, which is under the direct control of Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha, New Delhi’s top administrator in Kashmir.

Sinha wields substantial power in the region as the national government's representative, while elected officials run a largely powerless government that took office last year after the first local election since India stripped the disputed region of its special status in 2019.

The order declared the 25 books “forfeit” under India’s new criminal code of 2023, effectively banning the works from circulation, possession and access within the Himalayan region. Various elements of the code threaten prison terms of three years, seven years or even life for offenses related to forfeit media, although no one has been jailed yet under them.

“The identified 25 books have been found to excite secessionism and endangering sovereignty and integrity of India,” the Home Department said in its notice. Such books played “a critical role in misguiding the youth, glorifying terrorism and inciting violence against Indian State,” it said.

The action was taken following “investigations and credible intelligence” about “systemic dissemination of false narratives and secessionist literature” that was “often disguised as historical or political commentary,” it said.

In compliance with the order, police officials on Thursday raided bookstores, searched roadside book vendors and other establishments dealing in printed publications in the main city of Srinagar and across multiple locations in the region to confiscate the banned literature, police said. However, officials didn't specify if they had seized any such material.

Bose, a political scientist and author whose book “Kashmir at Cross Roads” was among the banned works, rejected “any and all defamatory slurs” on his work, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

“I have worked on Kashmir — among many other subjects — since 1993," Bose said. "Throughout, my chief objective has been to identify pathways to peace so that all violence ends and a stable future free of fear and war can be enjoyed by the people of the conflict region, of India as a whole, and the subcontinent.

“I am a committed and principled advocate of peaceful approaches and resolutions to armed conflicts, be it in Kashmir or elsewhere in the world,” he said.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.

Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

Since 2019, authorities have increasingly criminalized dissent and shown no tolerance for any narrative that questions India’s sovereignty over Kashmir.

In February, police raided bookstores and seized hundreds of books linked to a major Islamic organization in the region.

In 2011, police filed charges against Kashmir education officials over a textbook for first graders that illustrated the word “tyrant” with a sketch resembling a police official. A year earlier, police arrested a college lecturer on charges that he gave his students an English exam filled with questions attacking a crackdown on demonstrations challenging Indian rule in the region.

In some cases, the accused were freed after police questioning, but most of these cases have lingered on in India’s notoriously slow judicial system.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key resistance leader in Kashmir, condemned the book ban.

“Banning books by scholars and reputed historians will not erase historical facts and the repertoire of lived memories of people of Kashmir,” Mirwaiz said in a statement. He questioned authorities for organizing an ongoing book festival to showcase its literary commitment but then going on to ban some books.

“It only exposes the insecurities and limited understanding of those behind such authoritarian actions, and the contradiction in proudly hosting the ongoing Book Festival," he said.

Banning books isn't common in India, but authorities under Prime Minister Narendra Modi have increasingly raided independent media houses, jailed journalists and sought to rewrite history in school and university textbooks to promote the Hindu nationalist vision of his governing Bharatiya Janata Party.

Meanwhile, curriculums related to Muslim Mughal rulers who ruled much of India between the 16th and 19th centuries have been altered or removed. Last year, an Indian court ended a decades-long ban on Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses”, owing to the absence of any official order that had banned the book in 1988.

A Kashmiri man looks at a book in a bookstore in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

A Kashmiri man arranges books in a bookstore in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

FILE -Booker Prize-winning novelist and activist Arundhati Roy, center, participates in a gathering for Kashmiris to observe Eid al-Adha away from their homes in New Delhi, India, Aug. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

Books on Kashmir are displayed inside a book store in Srinagar, India, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

A Kashmir woman walks past a book store in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

HAVANA (AP) — Trumpets and drums played solemnly at Havana's airport Thursday as white-gloved Cuban soldiers marched out of a plane carrying urns with remains of the 32 Cuban officers killed during a stunning U.S. attack on Venezuela.

Nearby, thousands of Cubans lined one of Havana’s most iconic streets to await the bodies as the island remained under threat by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The soldiers' shoes clacked as they marched stiff-legged into the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces and placed the urns on a long table next to the pictures of those killed. Tens of thousands of people paid their respects, saluting the urns or holding their hand over their heart, many of them drenched from standing outside in a heavy downpour.

Thursday’s mass funeral was only one of a handful that the Cuban government has organized over the past half-century.

The soldiers were part of the security detail of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the Jan. 3 raid on his residence to seize the former leader and bring him to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges.

State television also showed images of what it said were more than a dozen wounded combatants from the raid, accompanied by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez after arriving Wednesday night from Venezuela. A man identified in state media as Col. Pedro Domínguez attended Thursday's ceremony in a wheelchair.

He said it was a “disproportionate attack” that killed 11 colleagues around him as they slept. Domínguez said he was committed to doing “whatever it takes to defend this people and to remain united in the face of threats from the United States.”

Tensions between Cuba and the U.S. have spiked, with Trump recently demanding that the Caribbean country make a deal with him before it is “too late.” He did not explain what kind of deal.

Trump also has said that Cuba will no longer live off Venezuela's money and oil. Experts warn that the abrupt end of oil shipments could be catastrophic for Cuba, which is already struggling with serious blackouts and a crumbling power grid.

Officials unfurled a massive flag at Havana's airport as President Miguel Díaz-Canel, clad in military garb, stood silent next to former President Raúl Castro, with what appeared to be the relatives of those killed looking on nearby.

Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas called the slain soldiers “heroes” of an anti-imperialist struggle spanning both Cuba and Venezuela. In an apparent reference to the U.S., he said the “enemy” speaks of “high-precision operations, of troops, of elites, of supremacy.

“We, on the other hand, speak of faces, of families who have lost a father, a son, a husband, a brother,” Álvarez said.

The events demonstrate that “imperialism may possess more sophisticated weapons; it may have immense material wealth; it may buy the minds of the wavering; but there is one thing it will never be able to buy: the dignity of the Cuban people,” he said.

Carmen Gómez, a 58-year-old industrial designer, was among the thousands of Cubans who lined a street where motorcycles and military vehicles thundered by with the remains of those killed.

“They are people willing to defend their principles and values, and we must pay tribute to them,” Gómez said. “It’s because of the sense of patriotism that Cubans have, and that will always unite us.”

The 32 military personnel ranged in age from 26 to 60 and were part of protection agreements between the two countries.

Officials in Cuba have said they expect a massive demonstration Friday across from the U.S. Embassy to protest the deaths.

“People are upset and hurt ... many do believe that the dead are martyrs” of a historic struggle against the United States, analyst and former diplomat Carlos Alzugaray told The Associated Press.

In October 1976, then-President Fidel Castro led a massive demonstration to bid farewell to the 73 people killed in the bombing of a civilian flight financed by anti-revolutionary leaders in the U.S. Most of the victims were Cuban athletes.

In December 1989, officials organized a ceremony to honor the more than 2,000 Cuban combatants who died in Angola during Cuba’s participation in a war that defeated the South African army.

In October 1997, memorial services were held following the arrival of the remains of guerrilla commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara and six of his comrades, who died in 1967.

The latest mass burial is critical to honor those slain, said José Luis Piñeiro, a 60-year-old doctor who lived for four years in Venezuela.

“I don’t think Trump is crazy enough to come and enter a country like this, ours, and if he does, he’s going to have to take an aspirin or some painkiller to avoid the headache he’s going to get,” Piñeiro said. “These were 32 heroes who fought him. Can you imagine an entire nation? He’s going to lose.”

The remains arrived a day after the U.S. announced $3 million in additional aid to help the island recover from the catastrophic Hurricane Melissa. The first flight took off on Wednesday, and a second flight was scheduled for Friday. A commercial vessel also will deliver food and other supplies.

Cuba had said on Wednesday that any contributions will be channeled through the government.

But U.S. State Department foreign assistance official Jeremy Lewin said Thursday that the U.S. was working with Cuba’s Catholic Church to distribute aid, as part of Washington's efforts to give assistance directly to the Cuban people.

“There’s nothing political about cans of tuna and rice and beans and pasta,” he said Thursday, warning that the Cuban government should not intervene or divert supplies. “We will be watching, and we will hold them accountable.”

Lewin said the Cuban government has a choice to: “Step down or better provide towards people.” Lewin added that “if there was no regime,” the U.S. would provide “billions and billions of dollars” in assistance, as well as investment and development: “That’s what lies on the other side of the regime for the Cuban people.”

Rodríguez, the Cuban foreign minister, said the U.S. government was “exploiting what appears to be a humanitarian gesture for opportunistic and politically manipulative purposes.”

Coto contributed from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

People line up outside the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the remains are on display of the Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured President Nicolas Maduro, as it sprinkles rain in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Military members line up outside the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured President Nicolas Maduro, are on display in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Military members pay their last respects to Cuban officers who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces where the urns containing the remains are displayed during a ceremony in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Soldiers carry urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Adalberto Roque /Pool Photo via AP)

A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A motorcade transports urns containing the remains of Cuban officers, who were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, through Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People line the streets of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, to watch the motorcade carrying urns containing the remains of Cuban officers killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Workers fly the Cuban flag at half-staff at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune near the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026, in memory of Cubans who died two days before in Caracas, Venezuela during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)