The Jammu and Kashmir clampdown completes 53 days today. It has been 53 days without communication and internet in the region. While the condition of businesses, trade, healthcare, and livelihood remains dismal, the future of J&K children and teenagers, stares cluelessly at a blank.
Education is a fundamental right in India. The abrogation of Article 370 was done promising the country that Jammu and Kashmir will see a better tomorrow. However, 50 days since the unexpected revocation, the region’s children can’t envisage the silver lining to this lockdown as they haven’t been given enough clarity on what the impact the reorganisation of the state and the invalidation of the article will have on their academic and professional ambitions.
Speaking to The Logical Indian, students, teachers and eminent residents from J&K divulged the details on the worrisome condition of education back home.
A Teacher From The City
Ismat Javed’s sister teaches in one of Srinagar’s most prestigious schools. Situated in the heart of the city, Tyndale-Biscoe & Mallinson School is renowned in the valley for its roll of charismatic students. Its corridors which used to be filled with lively discussions and laughter, echoes of silence since 5th of August.
On the 19th of August, the government declared that they would be reopening primary schools and reporters encircled some establishments to capture footage of students returning. Unsurprisingly, the only people that could be seen entering campuses were gatekeepers, cleaning staff and a handful of teachers.
“What makes the government think that I’ll send my 7-year-old to school when there are so many men with loaded guns parading our streets?” exclaimed Jibreel Mir, a homemaker. Her daughter, Fatima, hasn’t been to school for 53 days and sits listlessly at home, without a purpose.
Ismat’s sister reports for work every day but comes back to narrate the same tale. “My colleagues come to school facing a lot of difficulties”, she told Ismat. “There isn’t a single student coming and many parents aren’t sending their children because they don’t want to fall prey to the propagated normalisation of the conflict”, Ismat said.
We tried to reach Ismat’s sister but owing to the communication blackout, it has been extremely difficult to connect with residents sans a landline connection.
Aspiring Rhodes Scholar
Umair Lone was ecstatic when he finished his application which had taken him months of preparation and planning to complete. All that he awaited was a letter of recommendation from his professor which was due to be sent on the 4th of August. Just before he compiled his papers for submission, Internet and communication were snapped in the valley and in a second’s time, as the range on his phone disappeared, his dream to study public governance as a Rhodes Scholar, also dissipated.
“There is an age limit for the application. Had I been rejected due to lack of merit, I would have taken it in my stride but I stand helpless in the face of the government’s decision which has deprived me of an opportunity that I worked really hard for”, he lamented.
Umair will not be eligible for the Rhodes Scholarship next year as he grows a year older than the prescribed age limit.
As a final-year law student and the president of J&K Student’s Movement, he was active on campus and well-known for his activism.
Kashmir University, where he was pursuing his degree, fails to answer his calls whenever he rings the office to attain some clarity over his future.
He grieves over the fate of his cousin who was preparing for NEET. “My cousin had invested a lot of money on books and fees for extra classes. She will be one of the many Kashmiris who will be denied her attempt at clearing NEET, while the rest of India comfortably takes the exam”, he stated grimly.
Bengalurean Teacher In Doda
This December, Karan Bhatia will complete two years of teaching Pahadi kids at Haji Public School. Founded by Sabah Haji and her family, Haji Public School’s culture has been cultivated abiding by values of liberalism and a strong code of ethics.
Speaking to The Logical Indian, Karan expressed how he’s been caught in awkward situations, torn between his identity as a teacher and an Indian who grew up in less jingoistic times. “There are strange indirect consequences that I have had to face.”
Karan, who teaches social science to middle-schoolers and high-schoolers, has been flummoxed while covering the topics of ‘democratic rights’, ‘the Indian Constitution’ and ‘human rights’, in his civics classes.
“How do I even begin talking about it?”, he says, “As a child, I was proud of the values our country was founded on. But today, when those very values are endangered and my students and their families are bearing the brunt of it, I feel incapacitated”, he said.
WiFi was an important tool for him to enhance his students’ learning experience. “Without relevant videos to watch and topics to research, the studen…
