Shri Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti, a conglomerate of Hindutva organisations, has succeeded in forcing the shutdown of the MBBS programme at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence in Katra merely because 42 of the 50 admitted students, selected on the basis of their NEET scores, happened to be Muslims. Hindutva interference in academic institutions has been steadily growing since the Modi government came to power, but this is the crudest and most alarming example yet.
The argument propagated by these groups—that donations from pilgrims and devotees were used to build the institution and therefore it betrays donor sentiment if Muslim students benefit—is at best a half-truth. Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has pointed out that the J&K government allocated around 80 kanals of land to the institute and has been providing substantial annual grants for its operation. Last year, it received ₹24 crore, and this year ₹28 crore has been allotted by the Union Territory government.
The National Medical Commission, which approved the MBBS programme just four months ago, suddenly conducted a surprise inspection on January 2 with only 15 minutes’ notice and revoked its own approval. This decision appears driven more by pressure from street protests than by any rational assessment. Students were told to return home and will be relocated to supernumerary seats elsewhere, while faculty members are now left scrambling for jobs.
As if to rationalise this capitulation, BJP Leader of Opposition in J&K Assembly Sunil Kumar Sharma stated that devotees wished their donations to be used for the promotion of Sanatana Dharma. If this claim is genuine, donors should be asked whether they prefer their contributions to support a medical institute that produces doctors—including their own children—or to set up a gurukul or Vedic research centre.
The logic deployed here sets a dangerous precedent. If Muslim students cannot study in an institution partially funded by Hindu devotees, should Muslim patients also be barred from hospitals established by Hindus? Will Hindu doctors be allowed to treat only Hindu patients? If one of these protesters needs a blood transfusion, will they insist on ‘Hindu blood’? The absurdity of such thinking exposes the bigotry underlying it.
In a society as interconnected and economically intertwined as India’s, it is impossible to segregate funds or opportunities along religious lines. Consider the lone Hindu family in Manjakote tehsil of Rajouri district, which runs a general store whose entire customer base comprises Muslims. Should their income be labelled Hindu or Muslim?
Pilgrims at Vaishno Devi depend heavily on Muslim porters, pony owners and palanquin bearers. If non-Hindus were barred from the pilgrimage route, as some are demanding at Haridwar’s Kumbh area, devotees simply would not reach the shrine. The spiritual and physical labour that sustains pilgrimage is irreversibly shared.
The psychological cost of this episode for the 42 Muslim students is incalculable. Though they will complete their medical degrees elsewhere, they will always remember that their education was disrupted solely because of their faith. They will have to rise above this scar in a profession that already demands compassion and neutrality.
This is not an isolated incident. In 2019, protests erupted at Banaras Hindu University demanding that a Muslim scholar, Dr Feroze Khan, should not teach Sanskrit. Although he was eventually accommodated in another department, the university ceded ground it never should have. In 2024, after a police lathi-charge during an ABVP-backed protest in Barabanki over admissions at Shri Ramswaroop University, the Yogi Adityanath government suspended policemen and bulldozed a structure on campus—another instance of institutional authority bending to street power. But what has happened in Jammu is far worse: a mob has decided the fate of an entire academic institution. With the tacit blessing of the ruling dispensation, street veto may now become standard.
If this trajectory continues, recognition of institutions, appointments, admissions, curricula, and vice-chancellor selections may soon be settled through intimidation rather than constitutionally authorised processes. India risks sliding toward a Taliban-style paradigm, where education is policed by ideology and exclusion.
Religion will not be the final frontier. The RSS routinely mocks affirmative action by sneering that no one wants treatment from a doctor who got into medical school through reservation. It requires little imagination to see where this leads—SC, ST and OBC students excluded from institutions under mob pressure, their protests crushed, and courts looking away. Women may find specific professions or positions informally barred, as in Iran where a woman cannot become president. Students and citizens from the Northeast or Kashmir may be denied housing or hostel accommodation. Once constitutional norms are replaced by street diktat, every minority is vulnerable.
In such a scenario, merit, scholarship and institutional autonomy become irrelevant. Examinations, interviews, selection committees and regulatory bodies will be rendered pointless. Decisions will be taken in RSS offices and implemented by Bajrang Dal cadres and ABVP foot soldiers. The rest of society will be expected to comply.
This is not governance, nor democracy—it is mobocracy masquerading as cultural correction.
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*Sandeep Pandey is Secretary General and Mir Shahid Saleem is Vice President of Socialist Party (India)
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