Viewpoint

The University of Kashmir Owes something to the Society
By: Ajaz Khan

The debate on ‘Kashmir issue’ has indeed flamed up both in Kashmir and in some circles of India and other parts of the world. However, the debate inside Kashmir has been mostly within the boundaries of the local dailies on a specific scale. India’s occupation of Kashmir is in its 63rd year and it is the students’ fraternity that has formed major of the bulk force of most of the uprisings so far. The current uprising is no different from the previous ones as this one too draws its force from the students of all ages- school goers, college goers and universities goers. However, despite offering priceless sacrifices by the students right from the day when India pulls her chains of occupation around Kashmir the true student activism has not been able to blossom.

Student activism has been a significant force for a change- social or political all over the world. Like students across different societies in the world, students in Kashmir have been in the first row of the movement to assist the aims of the movement to achieve. University, which forms the highest seat of learning in a society, has witnessed many student activisms all over the world. Student activism has not only transformed university campuses but the societies they serve. However, campus in the University of Kashmir has yet to deliver its duties. This is an extreme irony that nothing has been done in the University of Kashmir against the issue that the people of Kashmir are confronted with. Not a single definitive study on the Kashmir issue has been executed in the University of Kashmir. Never ever in its history possible resolutions of the Kashmir dispute have been examined in the University of Kashmir. This is a grave injustice done to the society of Kashmir that her University is still in slumber despite untold human rights violations and thousands of lives taken away from us by the occupation forces. How strange it looks that Kashmir issue has been discussed in Universities all over the world but never in the University that serves the society faced with the occupation. How would the professors, lecturers, and teachers that served or are serving the University go into history? What color history would paint their faces for the coming generations? History does not leave anybody and professors, lecturers and teachers of the Kashmir University are no exception to this very nature of history.

It is a high time that students across schools, colleges and universities in Kashmir start educating themselves and others about the Kashmir dispute. Students in colleges and universities must start debating the issue that we are all faced with. Proper awareness programs about the Kashmir issue must be conducted in the colleges and universities as they will let people to new ways of thinking and new ways of looking at the world around them.

The author lives in Srinagar and can be reached at: