The first ever Talent Search Examination conducted by RiSE, in Ganderbal, 2015
Evita Rodrigues
A Foreword
When my class shifted online in March, my Kashmiri classmates just weren’t able to participate anymore. The few that had broadband connections installed at home managed to connect, but a majority limited by 2G internet connections, couldn’t connect to Zoom classes, couldn’t download readings and couldn’t research for their assignments. They were just stuck. And now with the Delhi University mandating an online examination for final year students, most are out on a limb.
As education moves online on account of the COVID crisis, learning has proven to be more exclusionary than inclusive in a country like India. Among the various groups left behind, students in Kashmir are the worst hit because they have been struggling with frequent internet shutdowns and restriction to 2G connectivity. The COVID crisis has thrown students across the country out of gear over the past 3 months but Kashmiri students have been grappling with the challenges of learning under a lockdown for as long as they can remember – the internet restrictions have only compounded the situation and rendered them worse off than their peers in the rest of the country.
The current situation of a lockdown on the clamped-down as it were, throws up larger questions of education in a conflict zone, and the challenges it brings in its wake. It is incredibly important to take these into consideration as we conceive future modes and systems of education, so that learning can be democratized, and made truly inclusive and equitable.
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aving lived in Kashmir as an educator, but not as a learner, Mubeen Masudi brings to the table a unique perspective on education. Although born in Kashmir, his father’s transferable job meant he grew up in various parts of the country studying in different Tier-1 cities. Mubeen is very conscious of the distinct privilege he enjoyed over his peers educated in Kashmir, over even those who had the same economic background and talent as him. In 2007, he became the first Kashmiri Muslim to make it to IIT Bombay–the first in 49 years. He returned to Srinagar in 2012, aiming to improve the quality of education in Kashmir, and has lived and facilitated learning through many lockdowns since. So Mubeen has had first-hand experience of how difficult it is to facilitate learning under a lockdown, far before the pandemic stalled the education system. Incidentally, the second student to make it to IIT Bombay after him in 2016, was from the organisation he founded in 2012, RiSE Institute.
“When I first returned to Kashmir I wanted to provide students with the right kind of support and guidance to pursue their ambitions, and to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity. But these lockdowns made me realize that learning requires way more than that. As long as conflict persists, the educational opportunities that the rest of the country has and that Kashmiris have, can never be equalized. If the rest of the country studies for one year, Kashmiri students effectively study for an average of 6-7 months,” says Mubeen.
Mubeen at IIT Bombay 2007-2011
Of Aspiration and Achievement
The uncertainty of life in a conflict zone proves to be the biggest hurdle for Kashmiri students. According to Mubeen, “The biggest challenge is that they can never plan for themselves. They are used to having short-term annual goals, where the priority is simply to get promoted to the next year. They can never anticipate what the situation in Kashmir will be like even in the next six months. If there is a major lockdown, preparation for competitive exams goes for a toss.”
RiSE works across a large range of educational aspects, but primarily focuses on facilitating entry into higher education institutions. Working primarily with students from Grades 10-12, it conducts talent search examinations, organizes counselling and coaching for competitive exams, and assists with college applications. Since 2012, they have seen a tangible increase in the number of students admitted to institutions in Kashmir, other parts of the country, and abroad.
“We’ve been able to expose students to more opportunities, which has cultivated greater interest [in education]. In 2018, one of our students, Adeeba Tak, made it to the University of Pennsylvania on a 100% scholarship to study Mechanical Engineering. For a girl from South Kashmir to achieve this is an unprecedented result. Stories like this create relatable role models and since then, we’ve had many more students approaching us for US college applications, with more students securing admission in top American colleges,” says Mubeen.
What about the school system that prepares students for entry into higher education institutions? Mubeen maintains that the school system is in a terrible state, and observes that it gets progressively worse in higher secondary grade levels. It is a challenge for a conflict zone to attract the best talent, in the form of competent teachers. Decades of conflict have only compounded this state of affairs, making poor education a generational problem.
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
— RiSE (@RiseWithRiSE) May 30, 2020
For those outside Kashmir, grappling with the challenges of a lockdown for the first time, Mubeen draws an analogy. “For a student in Grade 10 in Delhi, they’ve lost a few months. The priority [there] is simply to complete the syllabus and get done with the exam. That student will not focus on olympiads or extracurricular activities, but just on the bare minimum to help them get through this exam. The priority of parents, schools, and the government, would also be the same. This is what the constant reality looks like for students in Kashmir–where the only priority is being promoted to the next class. Everything else is a luxury because you never know how many months you will get in an academic year”.
With the syllabus barely, if not rarely completed, and many students left to study by themselves, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities are a distant dream.
This academic year, schools in Kashmir have been closed since August, and opened for just 2 weeks in February–but this cycle repeats year after year. “Most competitive exams are supposed to be equal entry points into higher education institutions. Everyone is equal on paper and must take the same exam, yet you have someone from Delhi with 12 years of education, competing with someone from Kashmir with effectively 6 years of education. I’m 100% sure that if my father didn’t have a transferable job, and I had studied in Kashmir, I would never have made it to IIT Bombay or any good engineering college for that matter. I got incredibly lucky,” adds Mubeen.
Sheikh Faraz, one of Mubeen’s students at RiSE, gave his 12th board exams in the midst of the lockdown in November 2019. With the internet shutdown last year largely hindering his application to top-tier US colleges, he is now remotely preparing for the JEE entrance in July. How has the JEE preparation been going amidst the lockdown? “August was a crucial time for those of us answering the JEE exam this year. We were 18 months into the preparation and were in a good mindset. The shutdown created this psychological block, and we were really unable to find the motivation to study for months. We’re now trying to get back on track and bridge the gap but it’s difficult to get back into rhythm when everything ahead looks uncertain–every two weeks they still take away our 2G for two or three days.”
A group of students from the 2016 RiSE batch who made it to NITs and IITs
The Challenges of Identity
Having worked with many government schools across Kashmir, Mubeen remarks that he hasn’t observed much of a gendered gap in access to education. In fact, girls; schools are better equipped in terms of infrastructure and faculty, and witness a higher number of students and attendance rates.
“Kashmir is equitable in that sense. J&K is the only state in the country whose medical college has 50% reservation for girls–over the past 10-15 years, 50% of the doctors graduating have been women, which has only encouraged more women to apply.”
The challenge however, has been negotiating with many parents who are apprehensive about sending their daughters outside Kashmir to pursue higher studies. With the increasing visibility of right-wing politics across the country, Mubeen observes this hesitation when it comes to sending sons as well.
“From what I hear from my students, they’re very comfortable with the shift to foreign universities, whether in the US or UK–for the first time, they feel truly free and cannot be questioned for what they think, and don’t have to fear action being taken against them. But in India, they face the double whammy of being Kashmiri, and being Muslim. Nearly 96% of Kashmiri residents are Muslims. In general, it’s extremely challenging being a Muslim in India–it has always been difficult, but the past five years have been particularly bad. To add to that, the layer of Kashmiri identity makes things harder. For instance last August, Kashmiri students had to watch people around them celebrate what was being done to them, which naturally made them very angry. In Kashmir, you are taught that whenever outside Kashmir, one shouldn’t respond irrespective of the provocation. You always live in fear of being attacked if you speak your mind–and that does happen.”
With the demographics of Jammu and Kashmir largely shaped by conflict, evident through the dominance of Muslims in the Valley and Hindus in Jammu, the reality is that the youth of different religious groups within Kashmir themselves may experience conflict and education in painfully different ways.
J*, a Grade 12 student at RiSE, has decided to apply to study abroad. She asserts that the political situation has solidified her resolve, seeing the environment turn after the abrogation of 370, and the manner in which Muslims and Kashmiri Muslims were targeted during the anti-CAA protests. “We’re apprehensive about studying in India, as Kashmiris. I’ve always thought Delhi was a calm and tolerant space, but when my cousin joined a private university there last year, he was severely teased and abused after the abrogation of 370. He had a really tough time especially given it was his second month away from home.” “If our marks are good enough, our teachers have advised that we go down South. They tell us it is relatively safer there,” says Sheikh Faraz, who is giving the JEE exam next month.
The Internet Variable
RiSE used to organise live online classes for a few schools, but decided to do away with them in 2015, when internet availability became uncertain. Instead, remote classes were organized by recording lectures and sending them on a pen drive to various schools. In the absence of internet connectivity, local entrepreneurs and educators have not had the opportunity to innovate local ed-tech solutions, says Mubeen.
The Internet has the potential to be an equaliser as most existing ed-tech companies have started offering their online courses for free–but, all of this is possible provided you have a smartphone and a 4G connection. However, access in Kashmir is a big question with low 2G bandwidth, and intervals of complete Internet shutdowns too. Broadband WiFi is not accessible by a large section of students, forcing them to rely on mobile Internet connections. With India holding the record of the “longest ever Internet shutdown in a democracy” thanks to its actions in Kashmir, questions about the viability of online learning in the Valley obviously spring to mind..
Mubeen narrates the difference in approaches to education during a lockdown 2016 and 2019, which reveals how internet connectivity factors into learning under a lockdown.
In 2016, following the death of Burhan Wani, a complete curfew was imposed across the state, but landlines were working which enabled teachers to stay in touch with students. Broadband connections were also working, allowing Mubeen and his team to download video lectures and transfer them to nearly 400 pen drives that were then distributed to students. Mubeen would ask students to come early in the morning, before the CRPF began enforcing curfew, to collect these pen drives. Once the situation began improving, they began organising classes and counselling sessions at 5:00 AM, wrapping up by 7:30 AM (after which restrictions would be tightened, making it unsafe to travel). Access to phones and the Internet helped students stay in touch with their teachers and access learning material.
But 2019 was unlike anything even Kashmir had ever seen, with a complete communication blackout for three months–no landlines, broadband connections, or mobile Internet connections. Everyone, including students, were simply on their own. After 2-3 months, once landline connections were restored, the RiSE team began getting in touch with students, and actually flew to Delhi to download lecture content and load the pen drives. In November, they began distributing these and gradually restarted their classes and counselling sessions, with the same 5 AM to 7:30 AM routine. Things began to normalise in February, then the lockdown returned to Kashmir with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the COVID-19 lockdown, RiSE has started free classes for Grade 10 and 12 students on Zoom, which can be sustained on 2G internet connections. These were makeshift classes, says Mubeen, but better than nothing at all.
Online Examinations from Kashmir
In the meanwhile, Delhi University has decided to go ahead with its remote Open Book Examination, despite the move being widely contested on grounds of inaccessibility for many students. To write an exam online, one requires a smartphone and a 4G internet connection; in Kashmir the latter particularly is a huge hurdle.
Nousheen, a final year Kashmiri undergraduate student, is anxious about how she will do this over a 2G connection. “Most of us don’t have broadband connections, especially in rural areas. Even for those who can afford it, it’s difficult to install them now with all the offices shut. The university guidelines talk about Common Service Centres for those without 4G connections but nobody seems to know where these are in Kashmir, how functional they are, and how accessible they will be with the lockdown. Attending classes is hard enough, I had to travel to a relative’s home to use their WiFi just to download the Zoom app. When professors send audio recordings and readings, I leave them overnight to download. The situation is so unpredictable in Kashmir, what if there is an Internet shutdown during the exams and even the 2G is taken away? What if my locality becomes a red zone, how will I travel anywhere else to give these exams either?”
Nousheen fears that the Internet restrictions will hinder her preparation for entrance exams too. Kashmiri students will find it difficult to find out when forms open and fill them out on time; this results in many students missing deadlines. M.Phil and Ph.D. students at JNU have been conducting online coaching for the JNU entrance exams over Facebook Live, and have also created a Google Drive of resource materials, but she still cannot access or make use of either. Uncertain about whether entrance exams might switch to an online mode, Nousheen is considering returning to Delhi now just for a stable internet connection; but she worries about finding accommodation amidst the COVID scare.
“As Kashmiris we’ve always dealt with the uncertainty and resource crunch, I gave my 12th board exams during the 2016 turmoil. However earlier, as Kashmiri students, we competed amongst ourselves–Internet restrictions and curfews impacted everybody. Now that we’ve gone outside to study, it’s much more unfair. We’re at a disadvantageous position competing with so many people who have access to the Internet, and that is an added burden,” adds Nousheen.
Challenges in a Conflict Zone
Maknoon Wani, a final year student at the Delhi School of Journalism, recently wrote about how the admission process to a private Liberal Arts university failed to take into account the economic loss his family faced during the lockdown or provide him the requisite financial aid. His plight reveals the larger absence of mechanisms that should accommodate students from conflict zones within educational institutions and the need for alternative metrics to evaluate such students when it comes to matters of financial aid and fee concessions.
“I was accepted into the program in April, and in the process of applying for financial aid I had to show my family’s Income Tax Returns over the past 3 years. They looked at our financial health for the last three years without considering the lockdown, and especially the last eight months, where my family incurred huge losses. Their policy for evaluating students from conflict zones is vague and ambiguous, I don’t know how they select and grant aid. I just wanted to make a point that you can’t treat me as a student from mainland India–my needs and difficulties are different.”
Applying to other institutions, Maknoon now factors in the Internet restrictions into the challenges he faces. “It’s difficult with the Internet limitations–it took me four hours just to fill up the JNU application form on 2G. I now have access to broadband WiFi, which took nearly a month to install. Only major towns have the fibre cable laid down, rural areas do not, so students there will not be able to install it even if they could afford it.
Public-Private Schooling Gap
Kashmir witnesses a wide gap between public and private schools, with Internet restrictions widening that gap. J*, who studies at a private school in Kashmir, shares that they were given hard-drives with notes after the shutdown last year, but were left to make sense of the notes themselves, which was difficult without the Internet to fall back on. Now, because of the 2G limitations, their online classes on Zoom are restricted to audio interactions, with teachers unable to make use of cameras or the blackboard function, affecting comprehension.
“Most Kashmiris have already cultivated the habit of doing things on their own, of being self-sufficient. Last year forced us to completely rely on ourselves, but it wasn’t just last year, we’ve seen lockdowns all through our childhood. We’re used to self-studying but online classes are new to us as well, and it’s taking us a much longer time to adjust with 2G internet. We don’t know what to expect, but I just hope we will be able to give our exams in peace this year.” says J*. However, she is aware that this is still more than what her counterparts in public schools have access to.
A*, who completed her 12th grade at a public school in Kashmir in November last year, says they were left to fend for themselves even when it came to their board exams. She speaks of the harrowing psychological effect of living and learning in a conflict zone,
“For two months after the lockdown, I was just very numb and didn’t know what to do with myself. The area I live in is very volatile. There would be army raids and arrests every second day, for months I didn’t step out of my house. When I did, the landscape had changed, there wasn’t a single house with the windows intact. They were arresting young people even 14-year-olds–the environment was so unsettling.”
Public schools, she says, are largely in shambles and students are often left to fend for themselves, particularly during lockdowns. Before the August 5th lockdown, she largely relied on the Internet to learn and explore, but then even that was taken away from her. “We’ve been in a space of intellectual stagnation since 2016,” she rues, “and I have no idea how to go forward now. My parents don’t want me to get out of Kashmir, they fear for my safety. But at least in Delhi, I will have the Internet.”
“I always liked the unknown. Ironically I familiarized myself with the uncertainty of life. Life can change in any minute of the day. God can turn anything around in a speck of a moment. I know for a fact that everything changes. Nothing stays the same. This too shall pass.”
— RiSE (@RiseWithRiSE) May 28, 2020
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Author’s Note *Names changed.. Note --Thanks Evita for sharing this! --This article first appeared in https://thebastion.co.in/covid-19/learning-under-lockdown-voices-from-kashmir/ --All photographs courtesy Mubeen MasudiEvita Rodrigues is an undergraduate student in Political Science and Economics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. More by this author in The Beacon Holding up the Sky, Our Tomorrows
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