It would be rash to conclude that students of the University of Kashmir have regained their cherished right of protest merely because, as the Srinagar weekly Kashmir Life reported recently, they commemorated the rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofar at Shopian on the night of May 29-30, 2009, allegedly at the hands of men in uniform. Hundreds assembled in front of the Allama Iqbal Library.
The theme of the protest went beyond remembrance of the dastardly crime. The banners and placards conveyed a message. One of the placards read: “The war has just begun; we will see it through.” The Kashmir University Students’ Union (KUSU) is banned. As well as demanding rescission of the ban, the students “vowed to continue to work in Kashmir University for the Kashmir cause”.
Students would not be students if they did not react to the state of their people and voice their outraged feelings. In this, they have received little support from the politicians, whether of the two Hurriyats or the People’s Democratic Party, and none whatsoever from the academia in India.
On December 13, 2013, however, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq raised the issue in his weekly speech on Friday at the Jamia Masjid. He accused New Delhi of “promoting mainstream political activities” at the Kashmir University “in connivance with the Jammu & Kashmir government and the university authorities”.
While the KUSU was banned, a Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India was floated as a unit of the national body. Visitors to the university are not exposed to the students at large but only to a select group of invitees. The mirwaiz raised a pertinent issue. The university does not allow students “to discuss the Kashmir issue” or conduct research “on the sufferings of Kashmiri people”.
He pointedly asked, if the Kashmir issue can be discussed in the Delhi University, the Jamia Millia Islamia and the Jawaharlal Nehru University and even in universities across the globe, why couldn’t Kashmiri students discuss their own problem where they study.
The Abdullahs, both Farooq and son Omar, have been bent on controlling the Kashmir University and stifling freedom of speech on its campus. Vice-chancellors obediently toed the line. An English daily reported in 2001, “the Kashmir University campus has been declared out of bounds for journalists by its vice-chancellor Jalees Ahmad Khan Tareen. University teachers have also been instructed to keep away from the press and avoid talking about politics”.
On October 21, 2001, chief minister Farooq Abdullah “asked the VC to constitute an intelligence wing, probe the activities of teachers and students and throw all such elements out of the university”. “We have been barred from commenting on events unfolding in the region and Kashmir. In fact, there is a ban on even speaking to the media,” a professor revealed.
Teachers of the law faculty lecture on the rich connotation of the constitutional right to freedom of speech which is denied to them and the students by the vice-chancellor. The media centre teaches freedom to journalists of the future but the right is denied to, both, teachers and students.
Students who objected to frisking when the then chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad visited the university were called to account as were those who asked for demilitarising the campus.
On February 15, 2013, during the Telangana movement, the high court of Andhra Pradesh directed the police to remove all outposts on the campus of the Osmania University. The court ruled that the students had every right to democratic protest.
The US Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that pupils at school do not “shed their constitutional rights … at the school house gate”. It upheld their right to wear black armbands in class to protest against the Vietnam War. University students are, if anything, entitled to greater rights. They have the right to vote, are entitled to all the rights of adult citizens; and have every right to be politically involved.
There is need for codifying the rights of students and teachers in respect of freedom of speech, freedom of association (to form unions), the right to have a campus newspaper or journal, the right to invite speakers from outside, the right to speak to the media, the right of access to university authorities; the right of protest, the right to hold meetings on the campus, the right to exclude and, if need be, throw out unauthorised persons who intrude (i.e. intelligence men), and the right to hold elections to student bodies or union of teachers.
Achievement of these rights depends on the force of public opinion. The mirwaiz should mobilise all across the political divide for restoration of the autonomy of Kashmir University and the rights of its students and teachers.
The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai
By arrangement with Dawn
