Withdrawal of over 4,700 books over objectionable content disturbing, unfortunate: Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

Srinagar, Sep 23: Kashmir’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Wednesday said the withdrawal of over 4,700 books by the government over objectionable content is “disturbing and unfortunate”.

Jammu and Kashmir government has withdrawn over 4,700 books, including 518 banned ones, containing objectionable content from colleges across the Union territory after scanning nearly 2.2 million publications. In a written reply to a question in the assembly by Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) MLA from Langate, Khursheed Ahmad Sheikh, the government said it has examined 21,81,582 books/publications to date.

Questioning the government on what exactly made these books objectionable, the Mirwaiz demanded that the titles and reasons for their removal must be made public.

“The disclosure by the Government in the Legislative Assembly that the Higher Education Department has withdrawn 4,249 ‘objectionable’ books from colleges and libraries across J and K, with almost 4000 of them from Kashmir alone, is both disturbing and unfortunate,” he said in a post on X.

“Academic freedom in universities and colleges and access to diverse perspectives are fundamental to education and evolution of society,” he added.

The Mirwaiz said attempts to ideologically regulate what students can and cannot read “impoverish learning and critical thought”.

“By withdrawing these books whose agenda is the elected government implementing, its own or someone else’s..? People deserve clarity on that,” he asked.–(PTI)