Educational unrest in Kashmir

The situation in Kashmir valley is though grim and attracts the immediate attention of the government, but the incumbent government is tending to continue the failed experiments of law enforcement to restore calm silence angered youth even in the campus of colleges which are the higher seats of learning. Unfortunately the government does not bother to give even a thought to a humanistic approach needed to restore peace in the college and university campuses. The handholding of youth unlike conduct of elections requires administrative and academic wisdom but not guns and lathis used to control violent protests in Kashmir for the last so many years. The students are protesting against the intervention of army, paramilitaries and police in the college and university campuses and they neither challenge the supremacy of the constitution or laws governing the functioning of educational institutions. Even in other states of the country, students have many a times in the past staged violent protests against the intervention of government forces in the working of educational institutions particularly colleges and universities but the state governments in such states did not tend to use the arm twisting methods to restore normal working in the educational institutions and instead addressed the concerns of the students through dialogue and debate.

Had government disallowed forces to enter the college campus the situation won’t have snowballed into the current crisis of student agitation across Kashmir? Sadly the incumbent PDP-BJP coalition government is not tending to abandon policy of force to win over the confidence of youth.

Intervention of the government forces in the campuses of colleges and universities and the resultant  protests and violent clashes have to be debated with the students so that government gets to the bottom of  the current crisis of student agitations and takes peaceful measures to restore the faith of students in the working of the government . Since the students are already facing a hostile environment keeping in view the precious academic losses they suffered during six month long unrest last unrest, the administrative and academic wisdom does not demand the locking of colleges and universities by the government. It is the constitutional, institutional and administrative responsibility of the government to deal with the current crisis of student agitation with utmost restraint and a humanistic approach the corner stone of which should be dialogue and debate with the students over the issues concerning the peaceful academic atmosphere in colleges and universities across Kashmir. The government has to understand that the recent video showing youth tied to an army vehicle was bound to raise the emotions of the youth and government should not have allowed either army or paramilitaries to enter premises of college and change the college campus into a battle ground. Had government disallowed forces to enter the college campus the situation won’t have snowballed into the current crisis of student agitation across Kashmir? Sadly the incumbent PDP-BJP coalition government is not tending to abandon policy of force to win over the confidence of youth. The incumbent Chief Minister has to accept the reality and make sure that army and paramilitaries and police don’t enter the colleges and university campuses unless summoned by the college and university authorities to deal with the violent crowds in extremely difficult situations.