Caught between the contesting narratives of turmoil and tourism are the innocuous students and the education sector which has, after the state’s economy, become the new casualty of the nearly three-decade-long turmoil in Kashmir. With schools and colleges shut, even though the winter vacations have ended, students are feeling both angry and frustrated over the choices that are being shoved down their throats, despite their resistance.
“If you combine the number of shutdown calls, curfews, public holidays, summer vacation, this vacation and that vacation, Kashmir, it turns out, remains open for less than 150 days. With more than half of the year gone waste, it is a miracle that students are still interested in studying and are not picking up guns.
Indeed, it is nothing short of a miracle that despite the unending turmoil, the looming political uncertainty, the senseless violence it sparks on an almost daily basis and the trauma that it has produced among people in Kashmir, life still moves on. Resilience, after all, is an offshoot of resistance and Kashmiris never forget to remind themselves about this.
Earlier, the Hurriyat leaders used to issue diktats through protest calendars asking educational institutions and businesses that they must remain closed.Now the government is resorting to same practice by locking down schools and colleges to show the world that Kashmir is peaceful.
