It was the seventh day of unrest at the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar. The presence of five paramilitary companies had turned the campus into a fortress. Journalists — most of whom have parachuted themselves in from Delhi — were busy doing the usual: giving piece-to-camera outside the closed gates of NIT since they’re not allowed in and hoping to somehow get a byte from students on the other side of the boundary.

Around 6 pm, as dusk fell, I smuggled myself into campus as a guest of one of the employees of NIT. The campus appeared more like a military camp than an educational institute — men in Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) uniforms were stationed at every five steps.

We were walking towards Indus Hostel for boys when we crossed a group of students. A tall, thin boy — I later found out he was from Rajouri in Jammu — was addressing students on a mic: “If you guys have no interest in taking our demands forward, why are a handful of us students then wasting our time?” He ordered the gathering to assemble at 8:30am, the next day, at the same place. Then everyone walked away to have dinner.

There was no camouflaging myself in NIT. Aside from the fact that mine was an unfamiliar face on campus, I was the only woman standing there. The students now turned their attention to me. They asked what I was doing here and who I was. “I am a guest of a faculty member here and am just having a look at the campus,” I told them, deciding to stick to the truth. Two young men— the one who had been talking on the mic and another wearing a black jacket — asked two other students to follow me.

It was an unnerving feeling, to have handlers. Feeling very uncomfortable at the reaction I was getting to being on campus and the eerie sense of menace all around me, I decided to leave. As I was walking through the lawn to make my way out, the students who were following me stopped me and demanded my identity card. “Madam, it is a security issue,” said one of the young men. I refused, saying somewhat irritatedly, “What do you think? I’d carry a handgun in my bag?”

That was all it took to make the boys appear visibly sorry. One went on to say that they were concerned about being misrepresented. “Various rumours and wrong news are being spreading about NIT, like we are demanding the demolishment of a mosque and construction of a temple,” he said. “The media is selling and spreading lies about the campus. We have issues with the administration. We don’t have issues with local students.”

All of these boys were non-local students, I found out. They and others like them insist that rather than Kashmiri students, it’s the attitude of NIT’s admin that they’re protesting, but these voices somehow haven’t made it to the mainstream discourse.

Anjali*, a non-local student from Uttar Pradesh in her fourth year, told me that the students were all primarily protesting against police brutality. She added that Kashmiri students appear to be accustomed to “unprovoked” police brutality, but non-local students aren’t. “The protest wasn’t against Kashmiri students the way some media reports have portrayed it to be,” she insisted. “Some of the Kashmiri students stood with us, though not openly, against police brutality.”

This isn’t to suggest the Kashmiri and non-local students stand side by side all the time. Anjali said, “They don’t support India the way we do, their idea of patriotism is not the same as ours and we have arguments. It is natural for us to argue. But it never escalated like this. This was a fight gone wrong.”

Karan, a student from the Civil Branch of Engineering, pointed out that the reason these protests had broken out was being obscured. “We don’t want misunderstandings and problems between local and non-local students,” he said. “Our issues and demands are different. The demand of NIT to be shifted is because recently an encounter in Pulwama called off our campus placement. Why should we allow the security situation of Kashmir to affect our careers?”

A campus in a conflict zone

Unrest is nothing new in NIT, Srinagar, which was earlier known as Regional Engineering College. But this recent incident is the first time that the Jammu and Kashmir Police and CRPF entered the campus. “A similar situation like the present one had occurred in the campus in 1968, when Pakistan won Gold medal in Hockey Olympics and India won Bronze,” said Farooq Papa, a REC alumnus and a Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front member living in Canada.

This time, too, the problem started after a sporting event.

The immediate provocation was Kashmiri students celebrating India’s T-20 World Cup defeat at Wankhede Stadium against the West Indies on Thursday, March 31, 2016. Some non-local students also said that people from neighbouring houses pelted stones at NIT’s Tawi Hostel because the They had celebrated India’s win in previous matches. This time, the non-Kashmiri students retaliated by raising the tricolour and shouting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.

On Friday, April 1, non-Kashmiri students (who form a majority because of the institute’s enrolment policy) lodged a complaint against local students for celebrating India’s defeat with the office of the NIT director, Rajat Gupta. They demanded some students be booked under sedition charges. Next, they took out a rally in the campus with a tricolour in hand, leading to a confrontation with local students in the afternoon. At this point, the police was called in and it “seized” the tricolour. Kashmiri students allege that non-local students forced a Kashmiri courier boy to chant, “Bharat Mata ki Jai” on the same day.

With tensions escalating, the police remained stationed at the campus gates on the administration’s request over the weekend to ensure calm. On Monday, April 4, non-local students boycotted classes and took to sloganeering, sitting on the varsity ground with a makeshift tricolour in hand, demanding that the police return their tricolour. Again, the J&K police was called in and non-local students were targeted. The police even entered hostel rooms to beat up students. While justifying the baton-charging on non-local students, Abdul Majid, station house officer of Nigeen police station, said that the police had to use force against students because they “misbehaved” with police officials.

Politicians didn’t take long to jump into the fray, one of the first politicians being none other than Union home minister Rajnath Singh, who ordered the beefing up of paramilitary forces in the campus for the “security of non-local students” on April 5. In no time, the CRPF was called into the campus.

After Singh, Delhi’s Aam Aadmi party chief minister Arvind Kejriwal chimed in. “In Kashmir, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is beating those saying ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, and in the rest of the country those who don’t say it” he tweeted. Kejriwal was, perhaps, no different from sections of the media that picked up the issue and went overboard, framing the campus unrest in the national-anti-national context. In the din of these voices, mainly emanating from Delhi, the mood in NIT Srinagar got vitiated further.

When the non-local students wanted to take out a public march, they were refused permission. “Students were adamant to move out on road despite repeated requests,” said SHO Majid. “That is why we tried to push them back and used mild force.” The officer said due to the prevailing situation of Kashmir, a spill-over of the protest from the campus on to the street was fraught with danger and couldn’t be permitted. To the students, however, it seemed as though they were under siege.

Amid the heavy deployment of force in the campus, the media swelled at the closed gates. A three-member HRD team arrived at NIT on April 6 to investigate what had happened. Inside a packed auditorium, non-local students put up their demands, including “permanent central security, 50 percent non-local staff and shifting of the NIT campus to Jammu.” In response, local students came up with their own memorandum, in which they stated that the demand for “armed security upon the grounds of educational institute” is not acceptable anywhere in the world.

Playing politics

As the mismanagement of the situation widened the rift between students, many non-locals of NIT maintain that their fight isn’t with the Kashmiri students, but with the administration that treats them differently. “They have been biased against us. For example, if we have to conduct a job fest, they won’t allow it easily,” said Rajeshwari, a student. “They don’t listen to our problems. We are not allowed to raise the tricolour flag on Independence Day and Republic Day. They are running the institution in their own way. This is not the first time the administration has forced us to sit on hunger strike. That is why we want 50 per cent of the administration to consist of people from outside Kashmir and full security. That, or shift NIT to Jammu.”

Finding himself at the centre of the storm, the NIT Srinagar Registrar, FA Mir said the allegations levelled by students against the campus administration are baseless. “The fact of the matter is we are here only to conduct exams,” said Mir. “The campus is directly being run by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and Home Ministry. So, how are we responsible for the present crisis?”

A latest notice from the MHRD has allowed non-local students to leave the campus for the time being and return to give their exams.

Tensions are finally lowering on campus and for some, hindsight is making them see the events of early April in a different light. “We regret the manner in which we expressed our rage,” said Aakash, a non-local student. “But now, at least media should act in responsible manner to show the real picture of the campus without playing unnecessary politics over it.” One aspect of the reality is that NIT is back to normal, according to Director Rajat Gupta. “The activities are happening as per routine and schedule,” he said.

However, below the surface, this incident has changed many in NIT. Anjali, who is on her way home, said the media and the nation will move on from this, but those who were in NIT are scarred. “Maybe the students will get justice, maybe,” she said. “But the gruesome images of police brutality will remain etched deep in our minds and the fear will never leave our guts.”

*Names of all students have been changed.