The Valley's Silence Begins Young

With curbs still in place on protests against the revocation of Article 370, making student organisations operational on Kashmir's campuses remains a remote possibility

- Ishfaq Naseem

THE wide hall of Gandhi Bhawan at Kashmir University (KU) was dimly lit, filled with students and experts talking about the everyday existential issues that plague the city and its dwellers. A few blocks away, political science students walked to their class, exchanging complaints that could have been conventionally raised through the aegis of a student association. But at the varsity campus, there is none.

Twenty-two-year-old headscarf-clad Rifat Mir, a political science student at KU, fumed at the discomfort that students staying in the hostel had to endure after additional beds were placed inside their rooms. Another student rued that there was no student association to counsel new students on how to adjust to campus life and also cope with the thought that they would have to struggle hard for jobs once they completed their studies.

At KU, students have been learning about and discussing wider issues such as traffic jams in Srinagar city, but they are barred from engaging in political activity through a students' association on campus. “There is a de facto ban on forming a students' union. I think an association is important to bring before the KU authorities issues such as the shortage of space in hostels,” says Mir.

Jawaz Bashir, another political science student, chips in, arguing for the need for a student-run platform through which they could understand why the benefits of better funding to the university after a higher NAAC ranking did not help in improving the facilities for students. “An association is a must to give a democratic voice to the issues of students, which is not there,” he says, adding that alternate forums, such as the vice chancellor's meetup with students twice a year, were of little help in resolving the immediate issues that confronted them.