India has shut down a medical college in Indian-administered Kashmir in an apparent capitulation to protests by right-wing Hindu groups over the admission of an overwhelming number of Muslim students into the prestigious course.<\/p>\n
The National Medical Commission (NMC), a federal regulatory authority for medical education and practices, on January 6 revoked the recognition of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI), located in Reasi, a mountainous district overlooking the Pir Panjal range in the Himalayas, which separates the plains of Jammu from the Kashmir valley.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Of the 50 pupils who joined the five-year bachelor\u2019s in medicine (MBBS) programme in November, 42 were Muslims, most of them residents of Kashmir, while seven were Hindus and one was a Sikh. It was the first MBBS batch that the private college, founded by a Hindu religious charity and partly funded by the government, had launched.<\/p>\n Admissions to medical colleges across India, whether public or private, follow a centralised entrance examination, called the National Entrance Examination Test (NEET), conducted by the federal Ministry of Education\u2019s National Testing Agency (NTA).<\/p>\n More than two million Indian students appear for NEET every year, hoping to secure one of approximately 120,000 MBBS seats. Aspirants usually prefer public colleges, where fees are lower but cutoffs for admission are high. Those who fail to meet the cutoff but meet a minimum NTA threshold join a private college.<\/p>\n Like Saniya Jan*, an 18-year-old resident of Kashmir\u2019s Baramulla district, who recalls being overwhelmed with euphoria when she passed the NEET, making her eligible to study medicine. \u201cIt was a dream come true \u2013 to be a doctor,\u201d Saniya told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n When she joined a counselling session that determines which college a NEET qualifier joins, she chose SMVDMI since it was about 316km (196 miles) from her home \u2013 relatively close for students in Kashmir, who often otherwise have to travel much farther to go to college.<\/p>\n Saniya\u2019s thrilled parents drove to Reasi to drop her off at the college when the academic session started in November. \u201cMy daughter has been a topper since childhood. I have three daughters, and she is the brightest. She really worked hard to get a medical seat,\u201d Saniya\u2019s father, Gazanfar Ahmad*, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n But things did not go as planned.<\/p>\n As soon as local Hindu groups found out about the religious composition of the college\u2019s inaugural batch in November, they launched demonstrations demanding that the admission of Muslim students be scrapped.\u00a0They argued that since the college was chiefly funded from the offerings of devotees at Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, a prominent Hindu shrine in Kashmir, Muslim students had \u201cno business being there\u201d.<\/p>\n The agitations continued for weeks, with demonstrators amassing every day outside the iron gates of the college and raising slogans.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, legislators belonging to Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) \u2013 which has been accused of pursuing anti-Muslim policies since coming to power in 2014 \u2013 even wrote petitions to Kashmir\u2019s lieutenant governor, urging him to reserve admissions in SMVDMI only for Hindu students. The lieutenant governor is the federally appointed administrator of the disputed region.<\/p>\n In the days that followed, their demands escalated to seeking the closure of the college itself.<\/p>\n As the protests intensified, the National Medical Commission on January 6 announced that it had rescinded the college\u2019s authorisation because it had failed to \u201cmeet the minimum standard requirements\u201d specified by the government for medical education. The NMC claimed the college suffered from critical deficiencies in its teaching faculty, bed occupancy, patient flow in outpatient departments, libraries and operating theatres. The next day, a \u201cletter of permission\u201d, which authorised the college to function and run courses, was withdrawn.<\/p>\n But most students Al Jazeera talked to said they did not see any shortcomings in the college and that it was well-equipped to run the medical course.\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think the college lacked resources,\u201d Jahan*, a student who only gave her second name, said. \u201cWe have seen other colleges. Some of them only have one cadaver per batch, while this college has four of them. Every student got an opportunity to dissect that cadaver individually.\u201d<\/p>\n Rafiq, a student who only gave his second name, said that he had cousins in sought-after government medical colleges in Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian-administered Kashmir. \u201cEven they don\u2019t have the kind of facilities that we had here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Saniya\u2019s father, Ahmad, also told Al Jazeera that when he dropped her off at the college, \u201ceverything seemed normal\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe college was good. The faculty was supportive. It looked like no one cared about religion inside the campus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst based in Jammu, questioned how the medical regulatory body had sanctioned the college\u2019s authorisation if there was an infrastructural deficit. \u201cLogic dictates that their infrastructure would have only improved since the classes started. So we don\u2019t know how these deficiencies arose all of a sudden,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Choudhary said the demand of the Hindu groups was \u201cabsurd\u201d given that selections into medical colleges in India are based on religion-neutral terms. \u201cThere is a system in place that determines it. A student is supposed to give preference, and a lot of parameters are factored in before the admission lists are announced. When students are asked for their choices, they give multiple selections rather than one. So how is it their fault?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera reached out to SMVDMI\u2019s executive head, Yashpal Sharma, via telephone for comments. He did not respond to calls or text messages. The college has issued no public statement since the revocation of its authorisation to offer medical courses.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, students at SMVDMI have packed their belongings and returned home.<\/p>\n Salim Manzoor*, another student, pointed out that Indian-administered Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, also had a medical college where Hindu candidates are enrolled under a quota reserved for them and other communities that represent a minority in the region.<\/p>\n The BJP insists it never claimed that Muslim students were unwelcome at SMVDMI, but encouraged people to recognise the \u201clegitimate sentiments\u201d that millions of Hindu devotees felt towards the temple trust that founded it. \u201cThis college is named after Mata Vaishno Devi, and there are millions of devotees whose religious emotions are strongly attached to this shrine,\u201d BJP\u2019s spokesman in Kashmir, Altaf Thakur, told Al Jazeera. \u201cThe college recognition was withdrawn because NMC found several shortcomings. There\u2019s no question of the issue being about Hindus and Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, announced that SMVDMI students would not be made to \u201csuffer due to NMC\u2019s decision\u201d and they would be offered admissions in other colleges in the region. \u201cThese children cleared the National Entrance Examination Test, and it is our legal responsibility to adjust them. We will have supernumerary seats, so their education is not affected. It is not difficult for us to adjust all 50 students, and we will do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Abdullah condemned the BJP and its allied Hindu groups for their campaign against Muslims joining the college. \u201cPeople generally fight for having a medical college in their midst. But here, the fight was put up to have the medical college shut. You have played with the future of the medical students of [Kashmir]. If ruining the future of students brings you happiness, then celebrate it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tanvir Sadiq, a regional legislator belonging to Abdullah\u2019s National Conference party, said that the university that the medical college is part of received more than $13m in government aid since 2017 \u2013 making all Kashmiris, and not donors to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine \u2013 stakeholders. \u201cThis means that anyone who is lawfully domiciled in [Indian-administered Kashmir] can go and study there. In a few decades, the college would have churned out thousands of fresh medical graduates. If a lot of them are Muslims today, tomorrow they would have been Hindus as well,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Nasir Khuehami, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir Students\u2019 Association, told Al Jazeera the Hindu versus Muslim narrative threatened to \u201ccommunalise\u201d the region\u2019s education sector. \u201cThe narrative that because the college is run by one particular community, only students from that community alone will study there, is dangerous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He pointed out that Muslim-run universities, not just in Kashmir but across India, that were recognised as minority institutions did not \u201chave an official policy of excluding Hindus\u201d.<\/p>\n Back at her home in Baramulla, Saniya is worried about her future. \u201cI appeared for a competitive exam, which is one of the hardest in India, and was able to get a seat at a medical college,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cNow everything seems to have crashed. I came back home waiting for what decision the government will take for our future. All this happened because of our identity. They turned our merit into religion.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n India has shut down a medical college in Indian-administered Kashmir in an apparent capitulation to protests by right-wing Hindu groups over the admission of an overwhelming number of Muslim students into the prestigious course. The National Medical Commission (NMC), a federal regulatory authority for medical education and practices, on January 6 revoked the recognition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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