Opinion What furore over a medical college’s admissions list tells us about communalisation of Jammu’s identity

The controversy emerged after the institute released its first MBBS seat-allocation list, which included 42 Muslim students out of a total of 50 seats for the 2025–26 batch. Various Hindu groups have argued that an institute financed by the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board should reflect greater Hindu representation and have demanded that the SMVDIME be designated as a “minority institution” so that reservation is provided to the community.

It is also being argued that an institution supported by donations from Hindu devotees must advance Hindu interests. The BJP has further demanded that the admissions be given to those who have faith in Mata Vaishno Devi. Even as this automatically raises questions of how, when, and on what terms to assess and quantify faith, the BJP delegation led by the Leader of Opposition has submitted a memorandum to the Lt Governor, who is also the chairman of the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, to revoke the admission list. Meanwhile, the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti (SMVDSS), a committee of various organisations, has already announced an agitation to demand the revocation of the admission list and minority status for the institution.

If this mobilisation builds up, it could affect not only the institution but also the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in Jammu. The implications of such public sentiment for the remaining 50 per cent non-minority seats in an institution marked by deepening communal undertones also need to be considered.

Under the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) Act, unless an institution formally secures a “Minority Institution” status, it cannot specify religion-based admission criteria, even if funded by a religious or charitable trust. In Jammu and Kashmir, Hindus form a large minority with the Union Territory (UT) government having the right to prescribe the percentage of the minority community to be admitted in a minority educational institution considering the population and educational needs of the area in which the institution is located. In any case, it must not exceed 50 per cent of the total seats on offer. Officially, the SMVDIME is not classified as a minority institution, and therefore, the admission process was done as per the guidelines of the National Medical Council and the state-level NEET pool.

The Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, in response, rejected the demand to cancel the admission, arguing that the students had qualified on the basis of merit, so they could not be denied seats on religious grounds. He cautioned that if religion becomes a factor in institutional decisions, it may also influence other areas of governance in the UT.

It has been argued by eminent political commentator Balraj Puri that historically, the Jammu and Kashmir issue was not simply about Hindu-Muslim relations as commonly believed, and that religion was not the sole basis of identity in the region. The issue was of autonomy — it encompassed not only the development of fair principles for Centre–state relations but also concerns about the internal distribution of power and local governance. However, major political mobilisations in Jammu in recent times, from the Amarnath agitation to the agitation demanding a state holiday on Maharaja Hari Singh’s birth anniversary, show a striking pattern wherein the Jammu identity has been restructured on religious lines.

Scholar Rekha Chowdhury has argued in the context of the Amarnath agitation that the widespread sentiment of regional neglect in Jammu was appropriated by Hindu right-wing organisations and communalised. The proposal of the SMVDIME to place all its MBBS seats in the All India quota, which would presumably ensure a higher percentage of Hindu students at the cost of the residents of the UT, prioritises religious identity over that of the rights of the region.

Given that the demand for a minority institution status for the SMVDIME was an afterthought, it also reinforces the divisive politics of “othering” Muslims that has been weaponised in Jammu’s educational institutions in recent years. Back in 2022, Bajrang Dal activists had stormed the Government Ayurvedic College in Jammu claiming Muslim students were offering namaz on the premises, before being assured this was not true and persuaded by the police to leave. Even in 2023, a violent clash inside a hostel at Government Medical College, Jammu, left several students injured following an argument over the film The Kerala Story.

The current protest raises a critical question: As religious divide hardens into public consciousness, are Jammu and Kashmir’s regional issues — statehood, land rights disputes, environmental strain, the domicile dilemma, and rising unemployment — being pushed to the sidelines? As the identity of Jammu is increasingly cast as Hindu, and in opposition to a Kashmiri identity which is in turn understood solely as Muslim, it further isolates other ethnic, caste and gender identities that find themselves lost as a part of this homogenisation.

Jammu must confront these hard questions that this political storm lays bare, especially whether the benefits of public charity and trust resources can be justifiably denied to a specific community or allocated on purely religious criteria. Will Jammu’s identity keep getting carved out along the fault lines of the UT’s divisive politics vis-à-vis Kashmir? And if Jammu continues to remain communally divided, will its regional identity persist or will it recede to the margins?

The writer is a PhD scholar at the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh