The Baramulla-based St Joseph’s Higher Secondary School, one of the Valley’s oldest missionary schools, had survived the 1947 tribal invasion but is struggling to survive the Centre’s Naya Kashmir campaign.

The school, established in 1905, has asked pupils of Classes VIII to XII and their parents to “eke out from the situation” as it is struggling to get its land lease renewed by the authorities, who have also refused to register its students for board exams in the absence of land lease documents.

St Joseph’s is the latest victim of a drive launched by the Jammu and Kashmir administration in 2022 to close down schools, some of them decades-old, built on government land as part of a purported crackdown on encroachment.

This is among several government initiatives adopted after the 2019 scrapping of the special status of the erstwhile state. Many see it as a part of a larger campaign to dispossess Kashmiris.

The St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Baramulla and the hospital and school run by it are said to have borne the brunt when Pashtun tribes invaded Kashmir to annex the princely state on behalf of Pakistan. The attack claimed the lives of Sister M. Teresalina Joaquina and several other missionaries.

On December 31 last year, the school management issued a notice to parents and students saying the institution stood on land leased to it by the government in 1905.

Before the expiry of the lease in 2018, the school had applied for its renewal but the file remains pending before the Kashmir administration, and repeated appeals have brought no results, the notice said.

The school said lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha’s office had issued a “kind” (favourable) direction to “Principal Secretary Revenue and Principal Secretary Education in December 2023”.

“Even that could not evoke any action to register the students provisionally for the session 2023-24 or to renew the lease period till date,” the notice said.

The government has not reacted to the allegations.

Pupils of some other private schools that faced a similar situation were able to sit their board exams by registering themselves as students of some or other government school.

The Private Schools Association of Jammu and Kashmir has expressed concern and disappointment over the development.

“The news of registration denial to students of the prestigious St Joseph School Baramulla, an institution with a 100-year legacy, has sent shockwaves through the entire education community in Kashmir. If such an established institution can be targeted, then it seems no one is safe,” the association said in a statement.

“We urge the authorities to understand the gravity of this situation.”

The association said the administration’s decision would have a far-reaching impact.

“With every similar step, we may face the ultimate closure of hundreds of private schools,” it said.

“It throws the livelihood of thousands of teachers and school staff into uncertainty and threatens the very existence of numerous private schools in the
valley.”