A day after > Class 12 students turned up in large numbers for their school-leaving examinations in the Kashmir Valley, attendance for the Class 10 tests too crossed the 95 per cent mark. Successful conduct of these tests is crucial not just as a signal that >normalcy could be returning to Jammu and Kashmir after the months-long unrest, but equally importantly, to secure the school year for students. In the event, given that classes had been disrupted since the July 8 killing of Hizbul Mujahideen ‘commander’ Burhan Wani, the syllabus had been reduced by half for students opting to appear for the examinations now. But their successful start, amid demands that they be summarily postponed, should also allay fears caused by a series of arson attacks on school buildings across the Valley. More than 30 schools have been attacked in recent months — in fact, on Monday teachers managed to prevent serious damage when a school in Baramulla district was set ablaze. The attacks are a clear signal of the determined plan by miscreants, their identity yet to be established, to hold classes hostage. It is critical that, going forward, the State government rally teachers and parents sufficiently to build a constituency to firewall the school calendar from disruptions imposed on the Valley.
After a long summer when too many children were caught in the crossfire, with some killed or blinded due to the security forces’ unconscionable persistence with pellet guns, a curtailed syllabus for examinations must serve as a reminder of the risks to the aspirations of yet another generation. To bring back calm, more needs to be done to use the tenuous calm on the street to normalise the daily transactions among local communities. If anger spilled over on to the streets in unexpected and disturbing ways after Wani’s death, as the weeks and months passed it led to maximalist rhetoric on the part of the separatists, expectedly, and the government, unnecessarily. It is bewildering, for instance, why Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar would choose to commend the demonetisation measure by linking it to a decline in protests in Kashmir. A larger-hearted acknowledgement by New Delhi of the distress in the Valley is essential. Getting past the protests and shutdowns of 2016 will require far more than was done in 2010. In this fractious Parliament session, the government needs to foster an all-party initiative to reach out to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Taking careful note of their inordinate hardships this year would be a good beginning.
