Despite the brutal crackdown the movement for self-determination is growing stronger with all sections of the population identifying with it and making every program of the leadership a success. Massive protest demonstrations taking place in every nook and corner of the JK state on a daily basis are a constant reminder that atrocities have miserably failed to weaken the Kashmiri people’s resolve to take their struggle for the right to self-determination to its logical conclusion. As is the case with every popular uprising, the youth are on the forefront of the ongoing movement in Kashmir, and hence the prime target of brutal policies. In the past couple of years alone, hundreds of school children and college and university students have been killed, blinded and put behind bars under draconian laws like the Public Safety Act(PSA) where they are routinely subjected to the worst methods of torture.
Since the beginning of Kashmir’s popular uprising in the late 1980s New Delhi’s policy has been to bleed Kashmiris dry – physically, economically, politically and intellectually. Most of the schools and colleges have turned into camps and bunkers. Decades later, the situation has not changed much. Most of the army camps and bunkers are still located either in the educational institutions or in the immediate vicinity of the institutions. On the top of all this are frequent raids on schools, colleges and universities wherein students are rounded up, harassed, thrashed and sometimes even imprisoned. In such an intimidating atmosphere, what kind of education can be imparted and received is not hard to imagine.
Children are the future of every nation and ensuring their proper education is the most important aspect of nation building. As we carry forward our struggle for political independence we must not remain oblivious to other equally, if not more, vital dimensions of our life as a nation. Education of the younger generation, therefore, must be our first and foremost priority and we must take this up as a national obligation. This is a humble, earnest and urgent appeal, and I would like to direct it particularly towards teachers and senior students perusing their college and university education, to come forward and help the nation to navigate this challenge successfully. Equipping our children with quality education is as much a liberation struggle as our fight to end oppression, and teachers and senior students are the ablest to shoulder this responsibility. Their assistance and guidance to students in primary, middle and high schools and beyond will enable them to catch up and no longer lag behind in any manner.
This task becomes even more crucial in the face of the designs that seek to render our generations politically and intellectually bankrupt and thereby plunge them into despair and darkness. We must join hands to defeat these designs and ensure a better and brighter future for ourselves and our posterity.
May Allah help and support us in these endeavors.
Writer is Hizb Supreme Commander and Chairman United Jihad Council. Views are his own