The University of Jammu on Wednesday ordered a “comprehensive audit and inspection” of all its libraries, offices and digital repositories to ensure that no books or publications containing “anti-national, separatist or objectionable content” are available on campus, The Indian Express reported.
In a circular issued by the registrar, the university sought compliance reports from all departments and said that it would constitute a committee to formulate a standard operating procedure for procuring books and academic material.
The mechanism will include a screening process, periodic random scrutiny by a panel of academicians and regular examination of the university’s websites and digital repositories.
The directive came days after the Bharatiya Janata Party protested against the procurement of certain books by government schools, accusing the Union Territory’s National Conference government of promoting “academic jihad”.
Following the protests, two books were withdrawn from school libraries and eight officials were suspended, while a contractual employee was terminated, over the inclusion of what the government described as “pro-separatist content” in the books.
The withdrawn books, Personalities and Legends of J&K by Hilal Ahmed and Santosh Meena, and Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir by Dr Sushant Giri, were supplied to school libraries under the Samagra Shiksha programme for higher secondary classes.
The police also searched the premises of a publisher linked to one of the books after a first information report was registered under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
On July 12, the counter-intelligence unit of the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested three publishers – Inderpaul Singh from Oberoi Book Service, and Amardeep Singh and Girish Arora from the Noida-based Dominant Publishers.
Both Oberoi Book Service and Dominant Publishers were also blacklisted by the government.
This fresh row over books came almost a year after the lieutenant governor banned at least 25 books, including works by author and activist Arundhati Roy and former Supreme Court lawyer and constitutional expert AG Noorani.
Edited by Sneha.
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