Public Institutions in Kashmir have become the largest victim of this iconic tragedy, and more so has public education system. Whatever the merits or demerits of shutdown calls, the larger issue is that the education of our young must not suffer; creative but prudent means must be adopted and perhaps integrated with the dominant politics of Kashmir. A creative integration and adoption of other means like technology might constitute the antidotes to the problem of our school going young.
Unlike universities and colleges, schools must not be places of resistance nor must they be used to counter the resistance, as school children are the fragile part of society which need to be nurtured and not politicized. . They are future of every nation. The onus of ensuring the children get uninterrupted education goes to resistance leaders more than government as first rung mainstream leadership does not come from local schools but resistance leadership derives their ranks from them.
Resistance leaders does not come from outside but, yes, the adversarial leadership mostly come from outside as they belong to socio-economically well to do families. Most of the mainstream politicians or people in the bureaucracy have already shifted their children to outside schools thus making them less vulnerable to evolving fluid conditions in Kashmir.
It is the “ordinary” class(es) and their children that bear the brunt of the crisis. It is the responsibility of the entire leadership to keep politics away from school children and use a creative method to safeguard the interests of children or else they will have no one in future to carry forward legacies that are natural to the political ethos of Kashmir.
