Lessons in intolerance

Campus politics in Madhya Pradesh has taken on a polarising edge,as Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ABVP students allege that many universities in Bhopal have stretched the Kashmiri visthapit quota to include anyone from Kashmir,and the influx of these potentially anti-national students is spoiling the atmosphere in the hostels. Ironically,while the ABVP a Sangh Parivar student wing clatters on about ending the Kashmir exception,and how the state should be better integrated into India,it rejects that very integration in real terms.

After all,the fact that so many young Kashmiris flock to Indias heartland for educational opportunities should be seen as a nation-welding project. Whats more,while Kashmiri visthapit may refer to a narrow band of Kashmiri Hindus the idea was implicit when the NDA government introduced the educational quota in many states,surely anyone displaced by the violence in the Valley should qualify for affirmative action. In that sense,the Bhopal universities reading of the rule is correct,and in keeping with the need to fling open college gates to young Kashmiris who do not have comparable institutions in their conflict-riven state. If this generation of disaffected Kashmiris,who are now expressing their resentment at the Indian state in no uncertain terms,can be co-opted into the national mainstream,then ABVPs hyper-nationalist students have reason to celebrate. Securing peace in Kashmir demands no less.

And protesting the presence of these students would only reveal the closing of the BJPs mind. After all,apart from book learning,there is a crucial element to a college education. Its a place where we come into contact with others whose life experiences have been different from ours,and where this collision and interplay of worldviews can be productive. To seal off those possibilities is tragic,and ensures that young people in Kashmir and MP continue to live in their insulated worlds and traffic in harmful stereotypes about each other.