Kashmiri students face uncertain future as tensions rise

Kashmiri students fleeing Indian university campuses after a wave of attacks and harassment in the aftermath of the deadly 14 February suicide car bombing on Indian paramilitary forces in Pulwama, Kashmir, are facing an uncertain future as many have returned home to their tense, restive state or have interrupted their studies to stay in temporary but secure accommodation.

Unable to return to their campuses – and with some institutions in India saying they will not enrol Kashmiri students in the coming academic year, together with the closure of many universities in the tense Kashmir valley itself – they may have to continue their studies in states and cities in India perceived as safe.

Education consultants say Kashmiri students may have to go to other Southeast Asian countries offering scholarships for their degrees.

Saving life a priority

Soon after the news of the Pulwama bombing, reports of attacks on Kashmiri students in various colleges and universities across India started to trickle in, with the community of Kashmiri Muslim students going into panic mode across India. According to students now in Kashmir, saving life took priority over higher education and students fled their colleges and hostels.

The Kashmiri students were studying everything from medicine to nanotechnology as such courses are not available in Kashmir. Many also benefited from the Indian government scholarship scheme which subsidised their education outside Kashmir.

Now back in Kashmir, Abrar, 20 who was pursuing a graduate course in radiography at Maharishi Markandeshwar University in Mullana in the Northern Indian state of Haryana, says like most of his friends he doesn’t want to go back to campus, as his worried parents are asking him to explore other courses and colleges in Kashmir.

“Just after the [Pulwama] attack the tension was evident on the campus. Everybody started to maintain their distance from us,” he told University World News.

“Silently we decided to leave the campus and go back to our accommodation. But things didn’t change until early morning when mobs came shouting, ‘Catch these Kashmiris and shoot them’,” he says, adding that they threatened to kill the Kashmiri students if they did not leave within 24 hours.

Many rushed to temporary shelters in college hostels. “Those who could not get timely help were beaten up by the mob,” says Abrar, from the rural Baramulla district of Kashmir, who says he rushed back to Kashmir with dozens of other students.

Many back in Kashmir

According to police in the Kashmir capital, Srinagar, more than 500 Kashmiri students were studying in Mullana alone and the majority are now back in Kashmir.

Overall, “more than 4,000 Kashmiri students have come back and many more have temporarily shifted to some other place. They are in a state of shock,” says GN Var, Srinagar-based chairman of an association of private schools in Kashmir.

Var has managed to rope in some of the coaching centres and various schools to offer free education for the affected students.

However, accommodating the increasing number of fleeing students is becoming an impossible task, with no prospect of the students returning to their campuses as military tensions between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir situation flared up this week.

Staying in Kashmir is also a difficult option, with many courses simply not available and the security situation highly volatile.

Universities and colleges in Kashmir were scheduled to reopen on 21 February but are still closed due to the Pulwama attack and rising Indo-Pakistan tensions.

According to the latest government order, Kashmir’s universities will open on 5 March, but this is likely to be deferred again. The closure has affected new admissions and university recruitment, with all interviews and examinations postponed.

Trust issue a new barrier to return

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took 10 days to call for the safety of Kashmiri students, which failed to instil confidence among Kashmiri students, according to educationalists.

Regaining enough trust to continue their studies will be a challenge. The students have escaped death and lynching, Var says. Expecting them to return to their campuses will be a difficult task.

As Shoab Mir, 21, an engineering student at Dev Bhoomi Institute of Technology Dehradun, says, “The biggest shock was when we saw our own friends in the protesting mobs. That broke us and we decided to leave. Whom to trust, we do not know.”

“There is no question of going back, even if it costs us our degree. There may be some normalcy after some time, but what if there is another major attack in future and the response could be deadlier. It is like living under constant threat,” says Shoab, who is from Srinagar.

Visibly shaken, Shoab describes how he and five others “had to run for the entire night through deserted roads and orchards” when a mob in Dehradun started to hunt out Kashmiri students.

Rescued from mob by police

The group was rescued after they sent an SOS to Kashmir police who managed to alert a Dehradun police unit to rescue them in the dead of night and send them to Chandigarh, which has become a transit point for Kashmiri students fleeing campuses.

Some universities have reportedly cancelled the enrolments of some Kashmiri students, buckling under pressure from the majority community, with two colleges in Dehradun even publicly announcing they won’t take students from Kashmir from the next session.

“In such a situation parents are more worried than students. Because they feel that in an alien place nobody is there for them to trust, not even their teachers,” says Bashir Ahmad Shah, who runs a private school in Kashmir and is in discussion with the Kashmir government on how to help fleeing students.

Security will be factored into enrolment decisions

Every year thousands of Kashmiri students enrol in universities outside their home state. Now “the security angle would [have to be] be factored in”, says Bashir.

Dehradun, the most affected town for Kashmiri students, could become a “no-go area” for Kashmiri students, while the states of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat and several other areas would be deemed “high risk”.

Kashmiri student admissions in these places and colleges will “either decrease or completely evaporate”, says Bashir.

South Indian states and cities such as New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata, which saw minimal violence against Kashmiris or where the local police immediately swung into action to prevent harassment of Kashmiri students, are seen as the only alternatives.

Alternative destinations

Many education consultants have started preliminary work to provide colleges in Southeast Asia as an alternative to Kashmiri students.

But many are already on Indian government scholarships under the US$168 million Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme for Kashmiri students to study outside the state. This is now mired in confusion. To continue to benefit from the scheme, Kashmiri students have to go back to the campuses.

Officials administering the scheme say they are monitoring the situation and no decision has been taken yet about what to do if students don’t rejoin the classes.

According to Var, most of the money provided by the government goes to colleges outside Kashmir and are in “vulnerable areas” in India so students are unlikely to opt for them.

“If they don’t amend the rules and include Kashmiri colleges in the scheme, we will be boycotting the scheme from the next session,” says Var.

Alleging that the provincial government of Jammu and Kashmir has blocked the establishment of private colleges and universities in Indian-administered Kashmir, Var wants the provincial government to relax rules and allow the emergence of private institutions as well as increasing the intake at established educational institutions, so that students can continue their studies in Kashmir itself.

The names of students have been changed at their request.