In Jammu and Kashmir, the Army is the Best Hope for Education for the Poor

The road ends at Chotiwadi—or T Sant, as the army, and now just about everyone, calls it. From there, dirt tracks lead up to the enchanting wooded mountain terrains at the Line of Control between India and Pakistan.

There is an Army Goodwill School about half a kilometre from the point where the excellent road (completed just a year ago) ends. It is their lunch time and, having finished their midday meal, most of the schoolchildren are either playing or milling around the little campus.

One after another, they call out, "Good afternoon, sir," as I pass them. Some of them smile brightly. They are all in blue and white uniforms, with red socks and black shoes. Some of the girls wear white hijabs over white and blue shalwar kameezes. Many girls are in white blouses and blue frocks. A few have short hair.

A non-commissioned officer from Kerala quickly appears and shows me around. He is from the Army Education Corps, and manages the school, along with other NCOs from the local platoon, and the civilian principal.

There is a small library (largely filled with slim, boring-looking journals), a small but neat science lab, a computer lab with at least 20 terminals, and a sports store with cricket and fencing kits. Even girls learn to fence, I am told. 

Most of the children greet a visitor smartly and are generally able to answer questions in English and Hindi. Teachers do not crowd around a visitor. I only occasionally see one or two, minding their own business. 

Uncommunicative Students

A couple of kilometres up the road is a government school. It appears to be lunch break there too—although some students at the Army School were already back in their classrooms, preparing for the first post-lunch class. The government school is as brightly painted as the Army School, but the similarity is superficial.

I notice that most of the girls are sitting or standing on the first-floor verandah. But teachers immediately turn to talk to a visitor and half a dozen are soon standing around me.

The one who teaches English to senior classes has a commerce degree and does not seem fluent in English. He does not understand an oft-repeated question about the curriculum he teaches. Another teacher says: "CBSE." Yet another teacher helpfully adds: "poetry and prose."

I ask the teachers to stay back while I go up to where some of the students are playing cricket with a plastic ball and a kind of bat. I try to talk to the dozen or so boys who are standing on one side to watch the game. They stare at me, smile, grin, or look shyly away. Not one greets me. 

Finally, one says "doctor" in answer to a much-repeated question about "bade ho kar kya karna chahte ho (what do you want to do when you grow up)?" Two or three words from a dozen students are all the responses I get to various questions asked in Urdu over several minutes.

This school has classes up to Standard Ten, the Army School only up to Standard Eight. Yet, the latter’s students have much better social and communication skills. They would be able to fit into a higher secondary school even farther than the one at Machhal. Many of them would do well at the government college at Kupwara, and might even fit in at a college in Srinagar.

I was surprised to hear from the government school teachers that they have no Pahadi, Gujjar or Backerwal students, although there are many of these scheduled tribe communities in the neighbourhood. The Goodwill School, on the other hand, had a few students from every community.

One is left wondering whether the education department as it functions in this region still remains biased towards Kashmiri speakers—unlike in the Rajouri and Poonch districts. Home Minister Amit Shah had promised a different set of priorities nearly five years ago. 

Budgetary Priorities

My experience at T Sant, arguably the most distant corner of Jammu and Kashmir, raises troubling questions. I have noticed amazing investment in government colleges over the past couple of decades. The auditoriums at the Baramulla and Sopore government colleges, and some of the sports facilities at the Baramulla college, are now world-class. But is this an adequate policy priority?

To be sure, many of the children of those who control or influence the levers of power and policy go to such colleges after they are educated (in most cases) at private schools. But, surely it is the government’s task to cater to the poor and marginalised more than those who wield influence—which they have generally exercised in pursuit of separatism in the past.

I have maintained ever since I was involved with setting up the Islamic University of Science and Technology in 2007 that top priority needs to be given to teachers’ training, particularly for primary school teachers (top-class training for aspiring journalists, lawyers, and social workers too).

I had drawn up a detailed six-year plan for primary teachers and other professional courses to span Classes 11 and 12, three years of graduation, and the one year they currently devote to professional training.

But the Dean of Academics—who had risen to high positions while, and after, his father rose in politics—was dumbfounded by my multi-disciplinary plan. It didn’t suit the narrative. Nothing came of it. 

Patriotism Earns Neglect

The school at T Sant was set up in 2002, as were several other Army Goodwill Schools. They have done remarkably well in the 20-odd years since. Private schools mushroomed in Kashmir during the first decade of this century, but many of them are expensive.

The poor—as a survey published in my book The Generation of Rage in Kashmir demonstrated—are generally far more peaceable than the separatism-spouting sons of bureaucrats, other officers, and politicians who live behind walls of state security. Yet, most of the poor, many of the lower castes, and the historically deprived communities cannot afford these private schools. They must go to government schools or, where available, Army Schools.

Many of the students at both schools at T Sant walk and climb long distances but, thanks to the newly metalled road and the generosity of a Rotary Club in Mumbai, the Army School now has three bright yellow buses for the children to commute. The monthly fee is only Rs 185 and everything from uniforms to the stationary is free, I was told.

It is evident that budgetary allocations are not wasted, resources are well utilised, staff work diligently, and students are nurtured far better at the Goodwill School than at the one run by the civil administration. This may be predictable, but it is nonetheless deeply troubling—at many levels. 

[Part II of this article will analyse the factors regarding how long-term the army's civil engagement might last. It will be published on Sunday.]

(The writer is the author of ‘The Story of Kashmir’ and ‘The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’. He can be reached at @david_devadas. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)