Divided By Student Politics, United By Cricket. This Is The True Story Of NIT Srinagar

In a lush green playground, next to the Hazratbal mosque, Bihari, Haryanvi and Kashmiri boys are out again. Not protesting over divided national loyalties but jubilantly rooting for their cricket teams, stroking the ball into the clear blue skies at the National Institute of Technology campus.

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The wall of animosity, erected by cricket on the same ground two weeks ago, doesn't seem to exist. But then these are enthusiastic cricketers; scratch a little deeper and one finds, like in all the other arenas in Kashmir, NIT too is a place ridden with deep contradictions.

Sitting under the expansive Chinar trees, several M.Tech students from various parts of the country, including Kashmir tell us, "There's no problem between us and Kashmiri students. See for yourself, we enjoy playing cricket together."

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The playground did exude a sense of tranquility even as outside the campus, normal life is hit due to mob violence and killings in north Kashmir. While there were restrictions on public movement in the summer capital, Kupwara is under curfew since Tuesday. The government has announced schools and colleges in the district would remain closed on Monday as well.

On the campus on Saturday, a south Indian student, who didn't want to be named, said that until March 31, when local and non-local students clashed over India's defeat against the West Indies in the T-20 World Cup, the institute had never seen itself in such divisive terms. Some Kashmiri students had celebrated India's defeat in a communal delirium, provoking non-Kashmiri students to protest against them and hoist the national flag in the campus, he said.

"We've been living harmoniously. What happened wasn't a big issue. It turned ugly because of police action against students inside the campus," an M Tech student from Jharkhand alleged. Teachers gave examples of bonhomie like a physically challenged student from Bihar who lives in Kashmir because of a compassionate Kashmiri assistant who helps him through everything.

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However, it's equally true that the departure of non-local students from the institute in the wake of bitter politics over nationalism and repressive police action, has cast gloom.

On Saturday, only half the students took exams as the rest had left for their homes, or Delhi where they are holding sit-ins for their demand to shift NIT out of Kashmir.

Asked about what he thought of the 1,500-odd students who'd left, a Lucknow scholar into cricket, cheering for a Kashmiri batsman, said, "Sooner or later, they'll return. No student in his right mind would ruin his future. As it is, their departure coincided with vacations that began last week."

NIT director Rajat Gupta said students who missed the minor exams held on Saturday would take the same in May.

In the rundown hostels on the campus, girls first refused to speak to us. After persistence, a group of Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri girls sat and spoke in a poorly furnished TV room and soon the fissures in their inter-personal relationships became apparent .

An eighth semester girl from Jammu said, "Although we've never felt insecure through these years, we've not been out of the campus for the last 15 days. We just want to complete our projects and join the companies awaiting us outside Kashmir."

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A sixth semester Kashmiri girl said, "Since this episode, that feeling of respect and love has disappeared. My non-Kashmiri friends behaved as if we'd done something to them. It was a boys' conflict. We had nothing to do with it. But they behaved so rude."

A Kashmiri girl asked, "How's it that they (non-Kashmiri students) felt suddenly insecure and threatened after four years?"

An eighth semester girl from UP said, "If we're supposed to be considerate towards the political sensitivities of Kashmiris, shouldn't they grant us the same? Why did they abuse India and our national sentiments on the campus? And where is our freedom of speech in Kashmir?"

Kashmiri students and teachers on the campus felt ABVP in Delhi politicised the issue and painted all Kashmiri students and J&K police in poor light. Non-Kashmiri students disagree with the insinuation and claim that the reaction was spontaneous.

Whatever the truth, their disagreements expose the current hysteria over nationalism across India. On the playground though, it's difficult to tell among a myriad ethnicities, who is a Kashmiri and who is not.