The ban threatens people with prison time for selling or owning works by authors such as Booker Prize-winning novelist 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.
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.
"The identified 25 books have been found to excite secessionism and endanger the 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 the 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 on Thursday raided bookstores, searched roadside book vendors to confiscate the banned literature.
However, officials didn't specify if they had seized any 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."
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 criminalised 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 organisation in the region.
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.
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.
