A controversial book entered the libraries of government schools in Jammu and Kashmir, passed through an expert committee, survived official scrutiny, crossed several bureaucratic tables, attracted public expenditure and finally reached children. Apparently, the only stage it did not pass through was reading.
The book reportedly described Kashmir using objectionable political terminology and presented separatist figures in a manner that triggered serious questions about its suitability for school libraries. The government responded by withdrawing two books, suspending eight Education Department employees, removing a contractual worker and ordering an inquiry.
Thus, the administration has successfully discovered the traditional cure for every institutional failure in Jammu and Kashmir: suspend the people at the bottom before uncomfortable questions reach the people at the top.
Books Do Not Walk into Libraries
A book does not sneak into a government library at midnight wearing a pheran. It is proposed, examined, recommended, approved, purchased, supplied, received and entered into official records.
Every stage requires signatures. Every signature carries responsibility. Yet whenever a scandal erupts, the system behaves as though the offending book descended from the sky and landed directly on a school shelf.
Who selected it? Who constituted the committee? What were the qualifications of its members? Did anyone read the entire manuscript? Were only the cover, price and publisher examined? Was the procurement process designed to select useful books, or merely to complete spending targets before the financial year ended?
Suspensions may silence officials. They cannot answer these questions.
Eight Suspensions and One Missing Resignation
The government’s arithmetic is fascinating. Eight employees can be suspended, one contractual worker can be removed and two books can be withdrawn — but not one senior political authority has to say, “The department failed under my watch.”
Junior employees apparently possess unlimited responsibility but limited power. Ministers possess unlimited power but remarkably little responsibility.
The opposition has demanded the removal of Education Minister Sakina Itoo, while the government has initiated departmental action. Whether the minister personally knew about the books is for the inquiry to establish. But ministerial responsibility does not begin only when a minister has personally turned every page. It begins when a department becomes so casual that no responsible person appears to have turned any page at all.
A Ministry Bigger Than Its Minister
Sakina Itoo is not handling one modest department. The official government listing assigns her School Education, Higher Education, Health and Medical Education, and Social Welfare — four enormous fields touching nearly every family in the Union Territory.
Her 2024 election affidavit records “3rd Year MBBS” and Class XII, while MyNeta categorises her as “Graduate Professional”; the declaration does not list a completed MBBS degree. This does not legally disqualify her from becoming a minister. Indian democracy rightly does not reserve public office exclusively for degree-holders.
But education is not an ordinary portfolio. A minister supervising schools, colleges, universities, research institutions and medical education must possess either formidable academic depth or the humility to surround herself with people who do.
A certificate alone cannot create wisdom. Equally, political seniority cannot substitute for scholarship. When limited academic exposure meets excessive administrative authority, the danger is not simply that files will be mishandled. The larger danger is that mediocrity begins supervising merit, slogans start replacing scholarship and obedience becomes more valuable than intellectual competence.
An academically underprepared minister can damage more than examination schedules. Such leadership can weaken standards, trivialise research, politicise curricula, discourage outstanding teachers and gradually lower society’s expectations from education itself. The damage is not confined to classrooms; it enters the collective conscience of a generation.
The Rubber-Stamp University of Governance
Jammu and Kashmir’s administration increasingly appears to offer an advanced course in rubber-stamp studies.
Officials sign because the previous official has signed. Committees approve because rejecting a proposal creates work. Bills are cleared because budgets must be utilised. Books are procured because libraries must look stocked. Nobody asks whether the material is accurate, balanced, age-appropriate or remotely suitable.
Then controversy arrives, and everyone suddenly develops the ability to read.
This is not merely ideological negligence. It is administrative illiteracy — the inability of an institution to understand the consequences of its own decisions.
Children Are Not Political Dustbins
School libraries must expose children to history, literature, science, biography and competing ideas. But intellectual diversity is not the same as careless ideological dumping.
Children deserve context, accuracy and responsible scholarship. They must not become recipients of material approved by sleepy committees and defended by political camps according to convenience.
A government that cannot carefully inspect what it places before children has no right to boast about educational transformation. Smart classrooms, tablets, uniforms and impressive enrolment figures mean little when the intellectual material entering schools escapes meaningful scrutiny.
The Bitter Truth
The bitter truth is not merely that a controversial book reached government schools. It is that an entire chain of supposedly educated adults may have processed it without exercising education’s most basic habit: reading critically.
The inquiry must therefore travel upward, not merely downward. It must examine the selection committee, senior officers, procurement procedures, publishers, distributors and the political leadership responsible for departmental standards.
Otherwise, eight employees will remain suspended, one minister will remain comfortably seated, and the system will learn its favourite lesson once again:
When nobody reads the book, simply rewrite the blame.
