By Sindhiya Gupta
Walk into a third-grade classroom in Kupwara on a cold mountain morning and the first thing you notice is not the weather. It is the noise. Children are arguing over crayons. Someone is struggling to remember a multiplication table. A teacher is trying to restore order while a boy in the back row whispers something that sends his friends into laughter. It is an entirely ordinary school morning, and perhaps that is precisely what makes it remarkable.
In parts of Jammu and Kashmir where generations have lived with memories of uncertainty, difficult terrain and disrupted schooling, the simple routine of children going to school carries a significance that is easy to overlook. Many of these children study in Army Goodwill Schools, institutions established under Operation Sadbhavana, the Indian Army’s long-running civic outreach initiative in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. For more than two decades, these schools have quietly occupied a space far removed from the conventional image of the Army. Inside their classrooms there are blackboards, notebooks, school bags, computer labs, morning assemblies and the everyday ambitions of children who want to become doctors, engineers, teachers, officers, sportspersons and entrepreneurs.
The story of these schools is ultimately less about the uniform and more about what becomes possible when a classroom reaches a place where opportunity once struggled to arrive. In the mountain and border districts of Jammu and Kashmir, geography has always shaped everyday life. A village may appear only a few kilometres away on a map, yet reaching the nearest town can mean negotiating winding roads, snowfall, landslides and long stretches of difficult terrain. In areas close to the Line of Control, security conditions historically added another layer of uncertainty. For families living in such places, education was often among the first things to suffer during periods of disruption. Schools could function irregularly, teachers faced difficulties reaching remote settlements and children from economically weaker families sometimes had to balance schooling with the demands of household life.
It was against this background that Operation Sadbhavana began supporting education as part of a wider effort to assist communities in remote areas. What started on a relatively modest scale gradually developed into a network of Army Goodwill Schools across the region. The idea was straightforward. If children in isolated communities could not easily reach educational opportunities, those opportunities had to be brought closer to them.
The most important figure inside an Army Goodwill School, however, is usually not a soldier. It is the teacher standing in front of the blackboard. Many of the teachers are local civilians who come from the same districts and communities as their students. They understand the languages spoken at home, the economic pressures families face and the realities of life in the mountains. That local connection matters. A teacher is not merely explaining fractions, grammar or science. In many cases, the teacher is helping a child become the first person in a family to imagine a professional career far beyond the village.
Sometimes that change begins with something as simple as a computer. For a child growing up in a remote settlement, typing a sentence on a screen, entering a science laboratory or taking part in a structured classroom activity can open a window to a much larger world. The moment may appear small to an outsider, but for the child it can be the beginning of something important. A new possibility enters the imagination.
The value of these schools becomes even more visible among communities for whom continuous schooling can be difficult. Families belonging to Gujjar and Bakarwal communities, for instance, have traditionally lived lives shaped in varying degrees by migration and pastoral livelihoods. Children in such circumstances can face practical difficulties in remaining connected to formal education. Accessible schooling, scholarships, hostels and educational support can therefore provide something larger than academic instruction. They create continuity.
That continuity matters enormously during childhood. Children need routine. They need classrooms where the same teacher appears every morning, friends occupy familiar benches and examinations arrive according to a predictable calendar. For adults, routine can sometimes feel mundane. For children growing up in places that have known uncertainty, routine can provide a powerful sense of stability.
The impact of Operation Sadbhavana has also extended beyond school classrooms through educational coaching, exposure visits and programmes intended to connect young people from remote areas with opportunities elsewhere in India. Initiatives such as Kashmir Super-50 have helped students prepare for competitive examinations, particularly in engineering and medical education. Their importance lies not only in examination results. A student from a modest household in a distant mountain village suddenly finds herself preparing for the same national entrance examination as students in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru or Chandigarh. The message is simple but powerful. Geography may shape where a journey begins, but it does not have to decide where it ends.
For some students, educational and national integration tours have provided another kind of exposure. A child who has rarely travelled beyond his district may suddenly find himself inside a science museum, a university campus or a major city. He sees trains, laboratories, monuments and institutions that previously existed only in textbooks or television. The country becomes something experienced rather than imagined. When the child returns home, he carries with him a wider sense of possibility.
Discussions about Jammu and Kashmir are often dominated by politics, security and geopolitics, but parents usually speak a much simpler language. Their aspirations are familiar. They want good teachers. They want safe schools. They want their children to learn computers. They want daughters to continue their education and sons to find respectable careers. They want their children to have choices that perhaps they themselves never had.
Stand outside an Army Goodwill School when classes end and those aspirations become visible. Children spill onto the road carrying oversized backpacks. Parents wait nearby. Someone has forgotten a lunch box. Someone is proudly showing a drawing to a friend. Someone is complaining about homework. Nothing about the scene appears extraordinary, and that may be its greatest achievement.
Peace is often measured through statistics, reports and security assessments. It is measured through incidents prevented, roads completed, tourists arriving and businesses opening. Yet there is another measure of peace that rarely appears in official documents. It can be found inside classrooms. Peace is a school timetable that runs uninterrupted. It is a teacher planning next month’s examinations with confidence. It is a parent worrying about mathematics marks instead of wondering whether classes will take place tomorrow. It is a teenage girl discussing college admissions. It is a young boy announcing with complete confidence that he will become a doctor one day.
These may appear to be small things, but societies are rebuilt through small things repeated consistently over many years. The enduring significance of the Army Goodwill Schools lies in this everyday normalcy. They demonstrate that security and human development cannot exist in separate worlds. A road can connect a village. A hospital can protect its health. A school, however, can change what the next generation believes is possible.
The soldiers associated with Operation Sadbhavana will eventually move to different postings. Commanders will change and units will rotate. The children will grow up. Some may become teachers themselves. Others may become engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs, civil servants or professionals in fields that they are only beginning to discover today. Many will build their lives quietly, far away from public attention.
Years from now, they may remember very little about the programme under which their schools were established. They are more likely to remember a favourite teacher, the friend who shared a desk, the first book they loved, the first computer they used, the first examination they passed and perhaps the first moment when someone told them that a child from a distant mountain village could dream as ambitiously as anyone else.
That may ultimately be the most meaningful legacy of these schools. Sometimes the strongest bridge between a difficult past and a more hopeful future does not begin with concrete, steel or grand policy announcements. It begins with a classroom, a teacher and a child opening a book.
