School-less in Srinagar

This elegant house in Rawalpora,on the fringes of Srinagar,surrounded by apple orchards heavy with fruit,is not really home. Three months ago,her father Mateen Ahmad,a government contractor,sent her here from his house in the troubled Channapora area in Srinagar so that his daughter could study undisturbed. “I have not seen my younger sister Maha for more than a month now,” she says. “I couldn’t go home even for Eid. Mommy says wait till exams are over.”  

The Class IV student rarely steps out of the house. Even the walk to a coaching centre barely 200 metres away,where teachers give lessons in English,mathematics,science and Urdu,is not without fear. “She has seen two boys getting injured just outside her house in Channapora,’’ her uncle Khalid Ahmad says. “Whenever she sees someone armed,she runs inside.” She is taught for two hours by her aunt,after which her day is taken over by Cartoon Network and solitary games. “How can we go to school when they are killing us?” she says,suddenly solemn. How long will she stay away from school? “Till we get azadi,” she responds. When asked what she means by azadi,she smiles hesitantly.

There is an eerie silence in Kashmir’s schools; classrooms are shut and playgrounds empty. Outside,stone-pelters and security forces dominate the environment. But in their homes,young boys and girls are valiantly holding on to the routine of schoolwork and the unlikely comfort of textbooks. Mudasir Ahmad Najar,15,a Class IX student in Government High School,Jamia Qadeem,Sopore,turns the pages of his science textbook in his home. “I am trying to study but it is hard to concentrate in these conditions,” he says. “Whenever there is a clash (between protestors and security forces) outside,I have to shift rooms,” he says. “Whenever the police fire a tear gas shell,my study is filled with smoke”.

Like Muntaha and Najar,Kashmir’s 13.73 lakh schoolchildren have lost a summer of schooling to separatist strikes and government curfew. Since May,when massive protests erupted in the Valley,around 13,680 schools — government and private — have been shut. Shutdowns are not new to the Valley but this is the first time since 1990 that schools have been shut for this long. Then,schools had been closed for three months on the back of an indefinite strike by government employees.

The vicious coil of protests-shootings-curfew also began with the death of a student. On June 11,Tufail Ahmad Matoo,a Class X student was walking from his tuition centre to his home in Saida Kadal,a school bag slung across his shoulders. At Rajouri Kadal in old Srinagar,he found himself in the middle of a police chase. On the pursuit of a group of stone-throwing

protestors,the police opened fire and Matoo was killed.

His death and the subsequent police action was the emotive fuel the separatists needed. In the hundred days of these protests,more than 100 civilians have been killed,including schoolchildren — eight-year-old Sameer Ahmad Rah,Asif Hassan Rather,9,Milad Ahmad Dar,11,and Faizan Rafiq Buhroo,11,all students of primary school.

“This is leading us to destruction,” says Mehvish Dilshad,a Class XI student of Mallinson Girls School in Srinagar,her frustration visible on her face. “The leaders

must understand this and exempt the schools from strikes. How long will the schools remain closed?”

The academic year in Kashmir starts from November and ends the following October. In December,schools close for two and a half months and open in March,thus giving eight months of schooling time to children. This year,schools have stayed open for less than three months. Over 10.73 lakh children of government schools have been in school for less than two months. Kashmir’s Director of School Education Shagufta Parveen acknowledges the academic loss but is helpless. Schools in Srinagar and other towns are the worst affected,she says. The annual exams will be on schedule,in the first week of November,though the syllabus has been reduced. “Students in higher classes will have to cover only 60 per cent of their syllabus,” Parveen says.

Separatist leaders say they are not against the education of children but the crisis demands “shutdowns”. “Look at the situation. Whether there is a strike call or not,the government imposes curfew to stop the protests. If they allow people to protest peacefully,everything will be fine. They won’t because they don’t want us to raise our voice against injustice,” says Masarat Alam,one of the top leaders of the hardline faction of Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani that issues weekly protest calendars. “Tufail Matoo was returning from tuition when he was killed. How many were students among the 100 of our young men who have been killed?”

To be school-less in Kashmir is not just to take one more bitter,resigned step away from the path of normalcy. It is to give up a claim on a future that was,if only for a brief while,a glow on the horizon. And that is why,in this state carved up by violence and mistrust,in this most desperate time,education is still a priority.

That is why 27-year-old Bashir Ahmad and educated young men like him have set up a community school in Mehand,a remote village in south Kashmir’s Anantag district. Every day,over 400 students from Mehand and adjoining villages come here to learn. Bashir teaches social sciences and this is his “contribution towards the movement”.

Many volunteers in the school are young men who grew up and studied in similar circumstances in the early ’90s,like Bilal Ahmad,30,who lives in Sopore. When militancy erupted in the Valley in 1989,Ahmad was in Class IV. Over 600 school buildings were destroyed in militant violence and several schools were turned into makeshift security camps. “I have learned it the hard way. For many of my friends,that was the end of their education,” says Ahmad,now a teacher in a government school. “I realise the importance of schooling. When the idea of a community school was floated by my friends,I was the first to volunteer”.

A network of these community schools have come up across the Valley; schools with no names or teachers on their roll,makeshift arrangements that run out of houses,mosques or even open spaces.

In north Kashmir’s Sopore town,a few teachers,university students and a post office employee run a school out of a home in Arampora neighbourhood for students in Classes XI and XII. On the banks of Nagin Lake in Srinagar,an empty hall on the first floor of a mosque doubles as a classroom for several children.

The internet has come to the aid of a few private schools and colleges,who upload e-lessons on the web for students. Ibtihaj Ahmad,a Class IX student in the Budding Bloom School at Khawjabagh in Baramulla,spends hours every day on his computer preparing for the board exams in November. He can do so thanks to the e-learning package he had ordered. “They were delivered 20 days ago. I can at least learn science and mathematics now,” he says.

Thirty-year-old Tanveer Ahmad Aga is a teacher of physics at Government Higher Secondary School in Bomai. These days,he runs a tuition centre from his home,free of cost. “Every day,22 boys and girls come to my residence,” Aga says. Several times,he has had to accompany them to their homes,fearing that the police would detain them. “Most of the children on the streets (protestors) are of their age. Whenever a policeman sees them,he stops them,” he says. “I don’t even know all their names. But this is my responsibility. If I can’t teach students in school,I’ve to teach those who come to me.”

Or as Mehvish Dilshad,the 17-year-old student of Mallinson Girls School,struggling to cope with her syllabus “without a teacher or a guide”,says,showing a wisdom far beyond her years,“Without education,political progress is futile.”