At the start of the uprising in Kashmir, in the 1990s, agitated mobs would set educational institutes and bridges on fire. It is quite obvious, the desire to burn down a bridge in warfare.
Bridges play the most significant role in the connectivity of a country. But in warfare, they play the role of veins for the body of a country’s defense viz. its army. But, what was the point in gutting down schools?
The de facto character behind the curtain in heightening and intensifying violence in the state was being played by the ISI of Pakistan. Everything that could push Kashmiri youth away from sanity and towards violence was the prime motive of the ISI. The best way to hit the target was to separate the youth from school life, and ultimately recruit them into the armed insurgency. Hundreds of schools were burnt down. On one hand, it was a loss of national assets, but on the other, it was a cunning and crafty intrigue that was purposely contrived to pull down the moral and civilization stature of the Kashmir Valley.
In reality, it was the ISI’s strategic plan to string out violence for decades to avenge the Kashmiri people for not supporting them in 1947/48 and to make India ‘bleed by a 1000 cuts’. The success of this plot was only possible when the youth of Kashmir consistently joined the armed uprising.
But this success could only be accomplished if the youth of the land lost access to schools. Thereby, ISI proxies committed the heinous crime of burning down schools in Kashmir.
As many as 32 years have elapsed since the beginning of militancy, and gutted school buildings which were once filled with the laughter, energy, and enthusiasm of Kashmiri children, still prevail in the villages of Kashmir, telling a tale of horrific ruin. A large section of the Kashmiri population still dwells in the villages of Kashmir. What is needed to impede the progress of a nation moving towards higher levels of civilization is to cut the access of its youth to education. No wonder then that Pakistan’s ISI put its every effort to vandalize the educational system in Kashmir.
In 2016, the same bizarre crime of setting educational institutions on fire, continued, aiming to deprive the children of the land from the blessing of education. Government high school of Saidnara Bandipora, Kabarmarg High school in Anantnag, Govt. School of Kumdlan Shopian are among the 32 schools burnt down in just the autumn months of Oct-Nov 2016, the vandalism induced by a combination of ‘madness and perversion’ as the authorities described it, after the death of Hizbul Mujahiddeen terrorist Burhan Wani.
In this proxy war incepted by Pakistan against India, fought on the land of Kashmir, the proxy agents of the inceptor, running political parties in the name of accession to Pakistan, consciously or unconsciously have been playing their role in ruining Kashmir’s educational system. It can’t be forgotten how Geelani dared to declare in public that “education “blossoms” during periods of shutting down”. The frustration of the people hit monumental proportions with news reports of his granddaughter being facilitated to appear for her examination while the rest of the valley suffered so badly. Yaseen Malik let the cat out of the bag when he retorted that the Indian government was trying to open schools ‘by hook or by crook’ to give an impression that Kashmir was inching towards normalcy.
“When the firemen finally arrived, there was nothing left, just smoke,” Tahseen Ali, a 31-year-old teacher at the Government Boys Middle School in Budgam, in India-administered Kashmir, said of the school that burned down on October 30, 2016. Even the school’s pupils, boys aged between eight and 14, had tried to put out the flames, says another teacher, Tasleem Arif. “They tried to save the school but couldn’t. Some were injured, others had their hands burnt.”
Father of one of the school children, Saadat Ali Mir quoted,” In estimation, around 12 long years of our children have been wasted away in ‘hartals’ announced by these proxy agents to carry out their political agendas on the behest of their master, Pakistan’s ISI. We don’t know what Pakistan has given us except death and destruction”. Well the answer to his simple yet deep question is quite clear-The more they succeeded in vandalizing education, the more seeds of violence were sown on the land.
In recent years what has been attracting debatable attention at all levels of society, is drug abuse in Kashmir. No doubt drug abuse is a serious social issue in the west too, but in Kashmir, it is the stratagem- a ploy, a well-thought-out plan of the perpetrator, under which the youth of the land is to be amputated from education. Once he is shut off, he is vulnerable and can be easily diverted toward violence. It is a double-edged sword being utilized to make violence sustainable.
Pakistan’s ISI has been investing money, weapons, and now drugs to continue this proxy war against India. But, the target that it always obsessively desired to hit the most was education. Burning down schools and twelve years of hartals so far are the worst and the ugliest attempts to vandalize education in Kashmir. Ironically, It is the same Pakistan that displays empathy towards Kashmiris, but simultaneously plots devious plans to devastate the people of the land. The most prominent objective now is to safeguard the youth of the land, thereby safeguarding the country. And the solutions are clear- One is to boost proficient education and the other is to generate employment.
We as a nation must awaken our consciousness. We must not allow miscreants and wrongdoers to vandalize our education. Those who instigate us to burn down our schools cannot be our friends but our worst foes. Those who provoke us to abandon education, be part of “strikes” and shut down our schools cannot be our empathizers.