The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
‘When will CM, separatists stop using students as football?’
AFTER remaining confined to her house at Zainakote on the outskirts of Srinagar for five months, Noor-us-sama, a science student, appeared for her Class 12 exams last month after the state government went ahead with them despite initial protests from students.
“Ours was the most unlucky batch. We had faced a similar situation in Class 10 in 2014 when our exams had got postponed due to the floods in the city. Instead of 2014, we sat for the exams in 2015, and some months later, appeared for Class 11 exams,'' says Sama, playing with her two younger brothers, who are in Classes 7 and 8.
“I thought I would make up for all that this year, but 2016 proved even worse,” sighs Sama, who had cleared Class 10 with distinction.
After her initial schooling at a private English-medium school in Karan Nagar, Sama now studies in the Kothibagh Higher Secondary School, a reputed government institution.
In the five months following Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani’s killing, Sama couldn’t move out of her house and due to the Internet and mobile phone blockades, struggled to stay in touch with friends and classmates. “I couldn’t even concentrate on my studies due to the protests and curfews,” Sama adds.
The Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education announced a relaxation of 50 per cent in the syllabus to get students to participate in the exams held for Classes 10 and 12. Though the students had the choice of writing the exams with full syllabus in March, more than 98 per cent of them opted for the November date, fearing that exams in March would leave them with little time to appear for the competitive entrance tests.
Sama admits she was not ready initially, but that her parents and friends encouraged her. “July is a crucial month for our studies, and we didn’t attend a single class from July. Still, our exams were conducted... But now, I am relaxed as I am hopeful I will secure good marks. Even my parents are happy.”
Sama, however, doesn’t see how exams such as these, with relaxed syllabus, can benefit students. “I have to appear in two entrance exams in April and June. I am worried about how I will perform after losing all these crucial months.”
Sama says that if she could, she would ask Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Education Minister Naeem Akhtar, as well as separatists to not use education for political gains. “The government used students to fulfill its wishes. So did the separatists, who wasted five months of our time... Caught between the politics of the government and the separatist leadership, students get kicked around like football. When will they leave the education sector alone?”
Sama says her father, a transporter, too suffered heavy losses during the past five months of unrest. Her mother told her to cut down on her expenses. “My brothers and I used to get pocket money. Not any longer. We didn’t complain as we knew the situation in the Valley was bad.”
Sama, who loves music and reading, aspires to become “an independent thinker”, and hopes the coming years will see peace. “As a student, we have suffered and don’t want the coming generations to suffer.”
MIR EHSAN “IF I happen to meet Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, I would ask him one straight question: Isn’t he the same person who took liquor to every door because of a liberal excise policy earlier? He has been invoking Mahatma Gandhi very often to support the liquor ban, but I would like to ask him if Gandhi was not relevant then."
At the same time, clarifies Arya Mohan, a student of Class 12 at DAV, BSEB Colony, Patna, she supports prohibition as well as Nitish Kumar and his “development vision”. “Prohibition is a great tool of women empowerment. In a low-income family, with its head a drinker, education becomes secondary. I am happy that some of these families probably understand the value of education now,” she says, adding that she has heard from friends stories of families being destroyed by drinking.
However, it’s time politicking around the issue ended, she adds. “Bihar is not the first state that has enforced prohibition. Gujarat did it years ago... We know the political designs of the Chief Minister. Everyone talks about him making prohibition a plank to support his campaign to be PM... But now that Nitish Kumar has enforced liquor ban, can he ensure its success?”
Arya laughs at the CM’S claim that people had started drinking milk instead of liquor, seeing it as part of the same politicking. “I am not sure that claim is true,” she says.
Arya also wonders at steps such as police confiscating a house in case of recovery of a liquor bottle as the right way to go about enforcing prohibition.
Arya, who scored 10 CGPA in her Class X boards, is preparing for her medical entrance. If she clears the entrance, she will be the first girl in her extended family to become a doctor, Arya says
Her father Dharmendra Mohan Singh is a Railways guard while mother Suchitra is a housewife. She has two younger siblings — sister Alavya, 8, and brother Aarav, 6.
SANTOSH SINGH