At CUK, students study democratic theory while being systematically excluded from decision-making processes that shape their education and lives. The mainstream parties and civil society groups can no longer ignore this systemic denial of student rights, especially in a region where youth engagement thrives elsewhere.
There is something inherently dignified about the quiet yearning for representation. What do you call a university that teaches democracy but silences student voices? At the Central University of Kashmir (CUK), students are graded on civic theory but denied the chance to practice it. The desire to be heard—off paper, off podium—has grown louder in silence, deeper in restraint. It isn’t punctuated by speeches or rallies, but by murmurs in classrooms, passing conversations on campus, and desperate approaches to the university administration that ask for little more than a voice.
In a region long shaped by political complexity and historic youth engagement, the complete absence of a student body in one of its key central universities is more than an administrative gap; it is a microcosm of the democratic deficit shadowing higher education in Jammu & Kashmir. Student politics across India has long been a launchpad for leadership, with national parties nurturing youth wings and universities having student unions in their structure—from SFI to ABVP, NSUI, AMUSU, and AISA. In Jammu & Kashmir, mainstream parties like the National Conference, PDP, and Apni Party operate active youth units. Even recent civic initiatives such as the Mehdi Foundation, helmed by Member of Parliament (MP) Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, have carved space for dialogue and mobilization. And yet, at CUK, students are denied even an audience with the administration to discuss, let alone demand the right to representation. That isn’t just ironic; it’s unjust.
Since its inception, CUK has never entertained the idea of forming a student union. The administration hasn’t even instituted the most basic consultative mechanisms to involve students in decisions that directly affect their academic, financial, and residential lives. Repeated representations, especially over the last two years, have been met with administrative silence that borders on deliberate indifference. The ghost of the dismantled Kashmir University Students Union (KUSU) in 2009 still looms over the region’s student politics, casting a long, chilling shadow on every attempt at collective voice. The result has been a dangerous pattern: unilateral decision-making without transparency, feedback, or accountability.
The most glaring example came in July 2024, when the university abruptly hiked tuition fees mid-course, offering neither rationale nor notice. Hundreds of students protested peacefully, intelligently, and with a clear articulation of their demands. Yet even then, the university offered nothing but tokenistic gestures and cosmetic rollbacks—and on-paper schemes such as the student aid fund, which no student has availed.
Even before the concept of a student body was discussed, issues like a near non-existent hostel facility, crumbling infrastructure, and the near-total absence of functioning career support persisted. Each time, the university has chosen to ignore, delay, deflect, or even blur the issue with a sugar-coated on-paper solution rather than dialogue.
Meanwhile, CUK continues to charge significantly more than the University of Kashmir, its closest peer institution, despite offering fewer services, poorer infrastructure, and more erratic support systems. The fee structure itself is a tangle of ambiguity, padded with “miscellaneous charges” that routinely exceed UGC guidelines under the Choice-Based Credit System. The university claims a 35% additional fee levy is permissible, yet the final sums extracted often overshoot even this generous ceiling, with no accounting for the unjustified charges being levied.
At the heart of this institutional opacity lies the most critical absence: an elected student union. Without a union, every problem is atomised, rendered personal, isolating, and ultimately easier to ignore. A protest becomes a nuisance, not a mandate. A grievance becomes a whisper, not a resolution. Students are forced to fend for themselves, individually navigating problems that require collective negotiation. It’s a system designed for silence, not reform. CUK’s stagnant enrollment figures and rising dropout rates speak volumes about the hostility and disillusionment that characterise student life, and also serve as a testament to the unrelenting and non-accommodating attitude towards student convenience.
The institution appears more focused on managing dissent than addressing it, and so further cultivates the fundamental question: how can a university that claims to promote critical thinking and civic engagement fear the very tools that build them? Why is a collective student voice viewed with suspicion, especially in a state where youth dialogue flourishes in nearly every other civic space, from political youth wings to grassroots forums? Who benefits from this vacuum of accountability and enforced silence? And most urgently, how long can this institutional bullying be accommodated and masqueraded as normal?
There is now an echoing call for intervention—not from ceremonial corners of power far away, but from those who understand the region’s pulse and from those grounded in the region’s lived realities. If youth empowerment is truly a shared agenda, then the mainstream political parties of Jammu & Kashmir must speak clearly and act collectively. Their youth wings—of NC, PDP, Apni Party, and others—must support student democracy within universities with the same fervour they show outside them. Civil society platforms that advocate governance and accountability must push for student representation as a democratic minimum. Functional unions like the JK Employees Joint Action Committee, Teachers’ Forum, JK Students’ Association, Mehdi Foundation, etc., must seek common ground with this cause and demand a fair, transparent, and participatory model of student representation.
CUK, at its core, must return to the principle that universities are built for students, not around them. The demand for a student union is not a rebellion. It is a request for recognition. It is not about disruption. It is about dialogue. And most importantly, it is not a threat to order—it is an expression of commitment to the democratic promise of education. Leadership at all platforms must take cognisance of the matter and break their silence and seek an end to the passive and concealed exploitation of the academic, financial, and democratic rights of the students, and enable an accommodating and collaborative structure.
The writer is an M.Com student at Central University of Kashmir, Executive Member, CUK Unofficial Student Union and a member of Civil Society Hajin
Towseef Bashir Mir
mi***********@***il.com