Muzamil Manzoor
After the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A on August 5 2019, the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was divided into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh is the hot story that everyone knows. What attracts me to write this article is the ‘role played by the students organization of Ladakh’, their approach, intellect and strategy is note worthy. As Buddhist dominated Leh district of Ladakh has welcomed the center’s move in making Ladakh division a Union Territory unlike Muslim majority Kargil, but when it came to the issues of special safeguard for Unique tribal identity, land rights and synergy between development and environmental protection both are of the same and the very student organization of the region is demanding the inclusion of Ladakh in the sixth schedule of the constitution. That is a Tribal Union Territory, which guarantees environmental and land rights. This indicates ( beyond politics) how much aware and interested are the Ladakhi students regarding their rights especially about their environmental rights. Unlike Ladakhi student organizations I have never experienced much awareness in Kashmiri youth regarding their environment. There is no denial of the fact that we too have the ‘Student organizations’, but it seems that these are of no use. Their actions or protests revolve around the status-quo and remain mostly politically motivated. Student organizations should focus on the overall development of the student community and should not bring ‘politics’ into their protests. SOUL has proved that in student organized protests, politics should not be the part of protests. In Kashmir I have never seen the students organizations protesting for issues like students rights, environmental degradation, corruption, incompetent educational institutions, dowry, late marriages etc. As mentioned above, students organizations are meant for over all development of the society but in Kashmir these organizations have never been out of their ‘cocoon of politics’. This has resulted in the degradation our society especially youth.
Students organizations should behave like an organization, fully organized, disciplined and maintained so that students community in particular and our society in general would be benefited at a larger extent.
No sigh of ease could be seen by so called ‘Student Organizations’, instead of mediators they are acting as spoilers. A common student is suffering because it takes him months to collect his marks certificate or any other certificate for that matter while as our students organizations are busy in ‘Protesting’ because something has happened in Palestine, how unfortunate, our institutions have become the hub of corruption and mismanagement but no one is ready speak against it. Drug addiction is on rise, water bodies are getting extinct, the famous Wular and Dal lakes have lost their sheen, use of single use plastic material, deforestation, dowry, unemployment, low standard education like issues are on rise, no student body is speaking on these issues and this mess has challenged our position as a student, citizen or an activist. Students organizations should behave like an organization, fully organized, disciplined and maintained so that students community in particular and our society in general would be benefited at a larger extent.
( The author is a content writer. Views are his own, [email protected])
