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ISLAMABAD, Jan 15 (APP):India has withdrawn recognition of a medical college in Indian-Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIoJK) after protests by right-wing Hindu groups over Muslim students securing most admissions, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera, The National Medical Commission (NMC), the federal regulator for medical education, on January 6 cancelled accreditation of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI) in Reasi district near the Pir Panjal range. The move followed objections to the overwhelming presence of Muslim candidates in the programme. Hindu groups insisted that Muslims shouldn’t benefit from institutions funded by Hindu charity.
Al Jazeera reported that of the 50 students admitted to the inaugural MBBS programme at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute in November, 42 were Muslims, mostly from Kashmir, while seven were Hindus and one a Sikh. The private college was established by a Hindu religious trust with partial government funding.
Admissions to medical colleges in India are based on the National Entrance Examination Test (NEET), conducted by the federal Ministry of Education’s National Testing Agency (NTA). Each year, more than two million students compete for about 120,000 MBBS seats. Public colleges, with lower fees but higher cutoffs, are most sought after, while those meeting only the minimum NTA threshold usually enroll in private institutions.
Eighteen-year-old Saniya Jan from Baramulla, Kashmir, said she was overwhelmed with joy after clearing the NEET exam, which made her eligible to study medicine. She opted for Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI) during counselling, as the college 316km from her home was relatively accessible compared to other options for Kashmiri students.
Her parents accompanied her to Reasi when classes began in November. “My daughter has been a topper since childhood… she worked hard to earn a medical seat,” her father, Gazanfar Ahmad, told Al Jazeera.
But things did not go as planned. Local Hindu groups staged demonstrations after learning that most students in the inaugural MBBS batch at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute were Muslims. Protesters argued that, as the college was funded largely through offerings at the Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, Muslim students had “no business being there.” The agitation continued for weeks, with crowds gathering daily outside the college gates and raising slogans.
Al Jazeera reported that legislators from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party petitioned Kashmir’s lieutenant governor to reserve admissions at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute exclusively for Hindu students. In the following days, their demands escalated to calling for the college’s closure.
On January 6, the National Medical Commission announced it had revoked the authorisation of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute, citing failure to meet government standards for medical education.
The regulator pointed to deficiencies in faculty strength, hospital bed occupancy, patient flow, libraries and operating theatres. A day later, the college’s “letter of permission” allowing it to operate was also withdrawn.
‘The college was good’
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. “I don’t think the college lacked resources,” Jahan, a student who only gave her second name, said. “We 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.”
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 IIoJK. “Even they don’t have the kind of facilities that we had here,” he said.
Saniya’s father, Ahmad, also told Al Jazeera that when he dropped her off at the college, “everything seemed normal”.
“The college was good. The faculty was supportive. It looked like no one cared about religion inside the campus,” he said.
Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst based in Jammu, questioned how the medical regulatory body had sanctioned the college’s authorisation if there was an infrastructural deficit. “Logic dictates that their infrastructure would have only improved since the classes started. So we don’t know how these deficiencies arose all of a sudden,” he told Al Jazeera.
Choudhary said the demand of the Hindu groups was “absurd” given that selections into medical colleges in India are based on religion-neutral terms. “There 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?” he asked.
Al Jazeera reached out to SMVDMI’s 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.
‘They turned merit into religion’
Meanwhile, students at SMVDMI have packed their belongings and returned home.
The BJP insists it never claimed that Muslim students were unwelcome at SMVDMI, but encouraged people to recognise the “legitimate sentiments” that millions of Hindu devotees felt towards the temple trust that founded it. “This college is named after Mata Vaishno Devi, and there are millions of devotees whose religious emotions are strongly attached to this shrine,” BJP’s spokesman in Kashmir, Altaf Thakur, told Al Jazeera. “The college recognition was withdrawn because NMC found several shortcomings.
Last week, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of IIOJK, announced that SMVDMI students would not be made to “suffer due to NMC’s decision” and they would be offered admissions in other colleges in the region. “These children cleared the National Entrance Examination Test, and it is our legal responsibility to adjust them.
Abdullah condemned the BJP and its allied Hindu groups for their campaign against Muslims joining the college.
Tanvir Sadiq, a regional legislator belonging to Abdullah’s National Conference party, said that the university that the medical college is part of received more than $13m in government aid since 2017 – making all Kashmiris, and not donors to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine – stakeholders. “This means that anyone who is lawfully domiciled in [Indian-Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir] can go and study there.
Nasir Khuehami, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, told Al Jazeera the Hindu versus Muslim narrative threatened to “communalise” the region’s education sector. “The narrative that because the college is run by one particular community, only students from that community alone will study there, is dangerous,” he said.