Politics in Kashmir and Prejudice against Ladakh

Of recruitment policy, job avenues and discrimination against a region

“The destiny of this nation is now being shaped in class rooms,” flashes the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Department of School Education website under the section, Rehber-e-Taleem (ReT). Whereas, some really disturbing news is coming from the state lately vis-à-vis the education sector.

To begin with, more than 1500 vacant posts in the higher education, notified twice by the J&K Public Service Commission in May 2013 and May 2014 respectively, have been ‘stayed’ for more than once, leaving the state degree colleges languishing without teaching faculties.

The previous government could do nothing about it and hopes were high from the current, rather inconceivable PDP-BJP coalition government, which promised to engage the umpteen numbers of unemployed youths in the state.

However, the new government broke its promise in the second month of its coming into power, when it brought forth the notorious ‘Jammu and Kashmir Special Recruitment Ordinance-2015,’ on April 19th 2015. It was approved by the Cabinet and then submitted to the governor for issuing the ordinance. This New Recruitment Policy (NRP) has been formulated to make all future appointments against gazetted and non-gazetted posts in the state purely on contractual basis for the first seven years and would be regularized provided one puts “satisfactory service”.

The state Education Minister, Naeem Akhtar elucidated that “the decision has been taken keeping in mind the shortage of manpower in some crucial sectors in the remote and far flung areas of the state.” This policy is expected to help the government, the Minister further explained “to fill the vacancies of Assistant Surgeons, Lecturers and Teachers from amongst the local human resource at the district level.” Expectedly, the move was opposed by the opposition parties terming it as “anti-youth” in the state Assembly and met with an excessive resentment outside of it by civil society members and evoked equally great criticism among the educated “unemployed” youth.

This policy is quite dubious; two reasons here would suffice that. Firstly, a similar recruitment policy was approved and implemented by the previous NC-Congress government in last months of 2011, amidst great reluctance and disapproval from the political parties in opposition and triggered protest demonstrations by the unemployed youths throughout the state.

Similar to the recent NRP by the present government, the ‘New Recruitment Policy’ introduced by the previous government outlined that all the non-gazetted posts be appointed and the new recruit would be paid a stipend instead of salary for the first five years (50 percent of the basic pay for the first 2 years at the minimum of the Pay Band, and about 75 percent of the basic pay at minimum of the Pay Band for the next 3 years). However, the then NC-Congress government was forced to revoke it after a severe defeat of the NC candidates in the Lok Sabha election of 2014 in the state. The New Recruitment Policy introduced by the present government may also meet with the same fate.

Secondly, the Government of India introduced a flagship programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), for the achievement of Universalisation of Elementary Education, and formulated a scheme called ‘Rehbar-e-Taleem,’ which is been defined on its website as “promoting decentralized management of elementary education with the community participation and involvement…a genuine effort to involve the local population in a process which would ultimately built up the future citizens of this country”.

Under this scheme the government promises to give an honorarioum per month, a very meagre amount, and ensures to “adjustment in the regular scheme” at a later stage. However, as recently as on April 25th 2015, hundreds of teachers in Kargil protested for a full day, under the banner, SSA Teachers Association Kargil, demanding their salary for last a year and a half and to regularize their service as most of them have had completed their 5 years’ service under the ReT scheme.

The protesters highlighted that favortism and nepotism is quite prevalent in the education department when it comes to the appointment of these ReT teachers and in their process of regularization. Therefore, before implementing anything, the present government needs to ensure that the same will not happen with its new policy.

The posting to Ladakh is considered by the non-local employees as “punishment posting.” Under the Ladakh transfer policy in School Education Department “an employee is supposed to serve in Ladakh for over two years with subsequent choice to have place of posting” a Kashmir based daily reports last year after the protest of non-local teachers in Leh for not getting transferred after finishing two years of service in Ladakh. The All J&K Plus-2 Lecturers Forum also resented several times, including the recent transfer of lecturers to Ladakh, alleging it has been done on “pick and choose basis” rather than “adhering to any transfer norms”.

Recently the Education minister assured them that the “government is contemplating to develop a transfer policy in education sector for Ladakh region to address the issues relating to posting tenures of non-locals in the region.”

The local students in Ladakh are efficient and able to teach in the schools with qualified degrees in hand. The government should promote the local students because the non-locals had to face a lot of difficulties there –environmental, psychological and social and so on. The non-local teachers also could not report on time in Ladakh since the major motorable road from Srinagar to Ladakh is the Zojila pass which closes early in winter and opens late in summer; but the schools usually open in the first week of March every year and ends only in late November.

The non-local teachers also had to go back early in September because most of them cannot cater to the extreme cold climatic condition in Ladakh and the students gets suffered –who are always at the receiving end.

The air service at Leh airport always remains subject to clear weather condition and the fares get sky rocketed during this “peak” seasons of the year. Therefore, the government needs to contemplate on this issue sooner than later.

Hailing from  Kargil (Ladakh) Haider Ali Askary is a Research Student at the University of Delhi and can be reached at haider.ali748@gmail.com