INDIA
Higher Education: Kashmir’s Classrooms Go Corporate
The passage of the Jammu and Kashmir Private Universities Bill in April 2026 has been presented as a pragmatic step toward modernising higher education and stemming the steady outflow of students to institutions outside the region. At first glance, the argument appears reasonable. Yet, a closer look suggests that what is being framed as reform is, in fact, a deeper shift in the very idea of education itself. The Bill does not so much solve the crisis of public education as it quietly accepts it, and then builds policy around that acceptance.
For years now, government colleges across Jammu and Kashmir have been witnessing a worrying decline in enrolment. Institutions like GDC Baghi Dilawar Khan and GDC Chattisinghpora reporting negligible admissions are often cited as evidence that students are “choosing” private alternatives. But this reading is misleading. Students are not abandoning public institutions out of preference alone; they are being pushed away by years of neglect.
Poor infrastructure, outdated courses, lack of faculty stability, and bureaucratic inertia have gradually hollowed out public institutions. What we are witnessing is not a natural transition but something closer to a manufactured decline, where public institutions are allowed to weaken until their replacement by private actors begins to appear inevitable.
This pattern is not unique to education. It reflects a broader political economy logic where the State retreats, the public sector deteriorates, and private capital steps in under the promise of efficiency and innovation. In Jammu and Kashmir, however, this shift carries particular weight. Historically, public education has been one of the few reliable avenues of social mobility in the region. To dilute its role is not just a policy decision, it is a restructuring of opportunity itself.
There is also a deeper ideological question that needs to be asked. The political formation currently dominant in Jammu and Kashmir traces its lineage to the “Naya Kashmir” manifesto, a document that placed universal access to education at the heart of its vision for society. Education, in that framework, was not a commodity but a right, something that the State was morally and politically obligated to provide.
The present embrace of privatisation raises an uncomfortable question: has there been a quiet departure from that foundational commitment? Or has the ideological space once shaped by egalitarian and, at times, Left-leaning influences, been gradually eroded, giving way to a policy orientation more aligned with market-driven governance?
The diminishing imprint of Left-oriented thinking in the region’s policy imagination is difficult to ignore. For decades, strands of progressive politics—whether through formal party structures or broader intellectual currents, kept alive the idea that education must remain a public good. Today, that language seems increasingly absent. In its place, we hear the vocabulary of investment, efficiency, and competitiveness. While these terms are not inherently problematic, their dominance often signals a shift in priorities, from equity to profitability, from inclusion to selectivity.
This transformation becomes even more troubling when viewed through the lens of critical pedagogy. Thinkers like Paulo Freire remind us that education is never neutral; it either reproduces existing inequalities or challenges them. When education is shaped by market logic, it tends to become transactional. Knowledge is packaged, priced, and consumed, rather than collectively produced and critically engaged with. The danger here is not merely economic exclusion but intellectual narrowing. Students begin to see education less as a means of understanding and transforming their world, and more as a tool for individual advancement within it.
Freire’s idea of “conscientization”, the development of critical awareness, becomes particularly relevant in this context. Public institutions, despite their many shortcomings, have historically offered spaces where diverse social groups could encounter each other and engage with ideas beyond immediate economic utility. Privatised systems, by contrast, often segment students along class lines. Those who can afford high fees access better facilities and networks, while others are left with shrinking and underfunded public options. The result is not just inequality of access, but inequality of experience, and ultimately, inequality of voice.
Supporters of the Bill argue that private universities will help retain students within the region and reduce the outflow of capital. But this assumption deserves scrutiny. Students do not migrate merely because institutions are unavailable; they leave because they perceive better quality education and, crucially, better employment prospects elsewhere.
Without parallel investments in local industry, research ecosystems, and job creation, the presence of private universities alone is unlikely to reverse this trend. Instead, there is a real possibility that these institutions will produce graduates whose aspirations cannot be fulfilled locally, thereby deepening the crisis of educated unemployment.
Comparisons are often drawn with global models of educational success, but it is worth noting that some of the most equitable and effective systems, such as those in Finland, Norway, and Denmark, are built on strong public investment rather than privatisation. These societies treat education as a social right, not a market commodity. Their experience suggests that quality and equality need not be opposing goals; in fact, they often reinforce each other.
What is perhaps most concerning about the current policy direction is that it shifts attention away from the urgent task of revitalising public institutions. The decline in enrolment should have triggered a serious effort to reform government colleges, upgrading infrastructure, modernizsing curricula, ensuring faculty stability, and fostering a more responsive administrative culture. Instead, the focus has moved toward creating parallel private structures. This is not because reform is impossible, but because it is politically and administratively more demanding.
In this sense, the Private Universities Bill can be read as a quiet acknowledgment of the State’s retreat from its responsibilities. By positioning itself as a regulator rather than a provider, the State redefines its role in a way that has long-term consequences for citizenship itself. When access to education depends increasingly on one’s ability to pay, the promise of equal opportunity becomes difficult to sustain.
The larger question, then, is not simply whether private universities are good or bad. It is about the kind of society Jammu and Kashmir seeks to build. If education is to remain a means of bridging social divides and enabling mobility, it must be anchored in principles of equity and public accountability. A system driven primarily by market considerations risks doing the opposite, deepening existing inequalities and creating new ones.
The legacy of “Naya Kashmir” reminds us that education once stood at the centre of a broader emancipatory vision. Whether that legacy will continue to inform policy, or be gradually replaced by a more market-oriented approach, remains an open question. What is clear, however, is that the choices made today will shape not just the future of education in Jammu and Kashmir, but the nature of its society for generations to come.
The writer is Assistant Professor (Political Science) at Akal University, Talwandi Sabo, Punjab. He can be reached at waseembhat94@gmail.com. The views are personal
Does English-Medium Education Hold Key to Power & Wealth?
Representational image. Image Courtesy: PICRYL
The Telangana Socio, Economic Education, Employment, Political and Caste (SEEEPC) survey report has shown the real picture of the role of English-medium education and upper caste power and wealth control.
The Independent Working Expert Group studied the role of English medium across the spectrum of 56 castes. The left-hand column of the chart below shows that Brahmins, Komatis (Vysyas) Kammas, Velamas, Rajus, Reddys (all General Castes) are in the top layer of English-medium educated people of the state. The only BC community that ranked next to these six castes are BC-C, SC Christians. They all are above 75% English-medium educated and mostly in the private sector school education.
One common character of these seven highly English-medium educated caste groups is that they are small in number and highly urbanised.
LEAST ENGLISH EDUCATION
The least English-medium educated is shown on the right-hand column in the chart. The top 10 castes that never seem to have got into English-medium education are ST Kolam, ST Gond, BC-D Mali, ST Koya, SC Beda, BC-A Valmiki, SC Madasi, BC-A Vadde, SC Mahar, and BC-A Pichakuntla. All other castes have only marginal English-medium education. Their urban migration levels are very much linked to English-medium education of the youth from those castes.
In all other 42 parameters that the IWEG has computed to rank the Comprehensive Backwardness Index (CBI) of the six highly English educated social groups shows that they are in a very good socio-economic position in many other parameters. For example, 0.9% Brahmins of Telangana own 16.4% cars that run on the state roads. In owning three-bedroom houses, refrigerators, less loan from money lending market, employment in government and private sector, the data shows that they are on the top.
Of course, Dalit Christians do not match the Hindu top five upper castes in several other parameters. But they do well in overall living standards when compared to Hindu Dalits and also many other OBC (Other Backward Classes) castes that live in the agrarian economy.
One of the major differences between the Dalit Christians and Hindu English-educated upper castes is that the Hindu upper caste do not take up jobs like nursing, small paramedical operations, safai karamchari (sanitation) work and so on. But Dalit Christian women and men take up any work that pays without bothering about indignity and low social respect consideration. Because they are converts to Christianity from most labouring Dalit castes like Madiga, Mala, Relli, Dekkali and so on, they do not carry the cultural baggage of indignity of labour. Any wage-earning job for them is good enough. Perhaps the church also remains a constant educator to them about the value of work and dignified life.
Many OBC castes that suffer poverty and unemployment would not like to take up nursing jobs in government or private hospitals. We find the other five well-educated English castes prefer to be doctors, engineers, civil servants, teachers and politicians.
In the Hyderabad software and hardware industry, the five English educated castes work as CEOs, other high officials and, in fact, they own many industrial units. But at the same time, though they own a substantial amount of land as family units, their family members are not in the labouring tasks. For example, in MGNREGA (rural job guarantee scheme) work among these five castes is almost non-existent.
Most start-up companies are started by these sections, as they have bureaucratic connections in the government, both Central and state. They also manage bank loans very easily because of their caste and class connections with bank managers. In all these dealings, English language plays a key role. The overall CBI score of these five highly English educated upper castes is Brahmin (22), Velama (19), Komati (25), Kamma (19) Raju (17) Reddy (28) BC-C Christians (23). This CBI score must be seen alongside the last most backward caste CBI score of SC Dakkala at 116.
GOVERNMENT ENGLISH MEDIUM SCHOOLS
Even though the Telangana government has adopted English as a medium of teaching in government school education without undermining Telugu language teaching from class one, the private school system, mostly in the hands of the same highly English educated upper castes, is trying to pressure the state government to push for Telugu medium in government schools. If the Telangana government yields to their pressure, it will be a major setback. Private schools have seen a sharp drop in student intake, particularly in small towns, where they were drawing mostly middle farmer and artisan OBC caste English education aspirants from neighbouring villages.
There is also a concerted campaign by some intellectuals from the very same castes that English-medium education in government schools would not help in acquiring cognitive skills, as teaching in the mother tongue (Telugu in this caste) helps.
The same message comes from the Delhi rulers, such as Home Minister Amit Shah, packaged as nationalism. English-medium education is being projected as colonial but the upper castes get to retain their hegemony over the system through the same English medium education. They know that the SC/ST/OBCs living in rural areas cannot get it.
In the English-medium education chart, we can see just above these seven castes, the OC Kapus and Jains are more English educated. Jains run several English-medium schools. Most of the Jains live in Hyderabad and are very recent migrants.
What the Telangana SEEEPC survey lays bare is that English-medium education is the silk route to prosperity and human quality. The only way to provide every child in the country the opportunity to compete on an equal basis in life is to provide the same medium of education—English- in government schools.
The writer is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest book is ‘The Shudra Rebellion’. The views are personal.
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