Studying On In India As Taliban Wait At Home

They are a few thousand kilometres away from their motherland, but the hundreds of Afghan women enrolled in India’s universities are not complaining. With the Taliban government back home barring girls and women from schools and universities, these students have been extending their stay by enrolling in different courses. Though they miss the comfort of home and the warm embrace of family, most are not keen to go back.“Two years ago, I was planning to return to Kabul and start working there as I would have easily secured a government job. But not anymore. I do want to support my family, but I do not know when I can see them again,” says 26-year-old Razia Muradi, one of the roughly 14,000 Afghan students enrolled in more than 70 Indian universities.Muradi came to India in 2019 to pursue a master’s in public administration at Veer Narmad South Gujarat University (VNSGU) in Surat. Four years on, she has decided to stay put in Surat by enrolling in a PhD programme.Then there’s Dewa Safi, a 22-year-old student of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi. “The Taliban regime has reversed all the gains our country made in the past few decades,” she says. “All my friends have been locked inside homes, their names have been struck off from universities, employment opportunities have dried up.”Medium108404888 Zainab Sayed, a 26-year-old from Herat who is doing her practical training in nursing and midwifery at Sharda Hospital, Greater Noida, had also planned to return to Afghanistan after her studies, but she has dropped the idea. “The situation back home is very bad. Women are not allowed to study at all. Girls can study till class 6 and after that they are to stay at home,” says Sayed, who has four sisters and three brothers.Sayed does not know what she will do when her visa expires in June. “If I go back I will be homebound. My elder sister, who is married in Afghanistan, cries all the time. She is worried for her children’s future.” Sayed says she might move to the US or Canada like two of her sisters. She is counting on her brother, a US citizen, to move her entire family to the US.Hamida Nasiry, who is also 26 and has four sisters, has enrolled for a PhD in mathematics at VNSGU. “One of my sisters is studying in Bangladesh and another in Russia. All three of us have been extending our stay due to the situation in our home country. These are uncertain times and I worry if our family will ever get together again,” she says, adding that her family supports their choice to stay abroad, knowing they are in countries that promise a better future. “Our parents want us to remain where we are. They miss us but sleep well at night, knowing that we are in safe hands.”When the Taliban overran Afghanistan in 2021, Afghan women had hoped they would maintain people’s freedoms. “On the contrary, they have barred women from universities claiming that the institutions allow boys and girls to mix freely,” says Mohammadi Gulafroz, a PhD candidate at VNSGU. “Over the past 20 years the women have nurtured ambitions and many of them are highly educated. But they cannot work there.”“We are fortunate that we get to study and chase our dreams. It breaks my heart when I think of the bright, young women trapped in Afghanistan,” adds Shukriya Naveed, 24, who is doing her MBA at VNSGU.Ayesha Humaira Ayubi, a student of BA in journalism and mass communication at Sharda University – that had over 25 Afghan students till last year – found this out the hard way when she returned home after her final year. She’s unable to fly to India to get her degree and sees a bleak future. In an email to Nitin Kumar Gupta, international division head at the university, she writes: “Women… are completely banned from stepping out. They cannot go to the park, gym, school or college.”Sariha Sultanzada, 27, narrowly escaped Taliban rule. She had returned home in 2018 after completing BCom from Gujarat University (GU) in Ahmedabad, but returned in 2021 to pursue her master’s in commerce “as there is no scope of higher education in my country”. She says if the situation improves she will go back, otherwise she will enrol for a PhD here.Gupta says India is now denying entry to Afghan students with valid visas, and only US and UK nationals living in Afghanistan can enter the country. However, the country has been supportive of Afghan students who are living here. They have been allowed to extend their stay if they meet the admission criteria for higher courses. India has also granted 1,000 Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholarships to Afghan students to take care of their tuition fees and hostel rent, and put a monthly stipend of up to Rs 20,000 in their hands.Medium108404889 Najida Ahmadi at Vadodara’s Maharaja Sayajirao University’s (MSU) faculty of education and psychology is one of the beneficiaries. She came to India on the scholarship in 2021 after completing her bachelor’s in Afghanistan. “My parents and my 15-year-old sister are in Afghanistan. My sister does not go to school anymore because of the ban on girl students,” she says.Raihana Azizi also has an ICCR scholarship and is using it to do her PhD at MSU’s department of management. She had planned to go back after finishing her MBA from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Andhra Pradesh. “I thought a postgraduate degree would be enough for me to find work in my country,” she says, “but by the time I completed my MBA, the Taliban had taken over. My hopes were dashed when they began imposing restrictions on women.”The students have diverse backgrounds. Kandahar girl Salma Kakar’s father is an engineer and her mother a doctor. “When they sensed that the worst victims of the regime change were going to be women, they ensured their children left the country. My siblings are studying in the US, Sweden, Portugal and Germany. We are all scattered now. I worry for my parents all the time and miss being home.”After finishing her master’s in international relations from GU, Kakar has now enrolled in a PhD programme and her thesis is about Afghan immigration. In contrast to her, Naseema Ibrahimi’s parents were labourers who emigrated to Iran in the 1990s for their children’s education. “They returned after the Taliban were overthrown by US troops in 2001. We are seven sisters. One is a doctor and another an engineer. My other sisters are younger. With the Taliban back, my sisters are deprived of basic education. All the hard work my parents put in to raise us as independent women has come to naught.”Ibrahimi worked as an English instructor at a coaching institute in Herat before moving to India. She is now doing her PhD at GU. While women have borne the brunt of the Taliban government’s regressive policies, male students from Afghanistan say their families also want them to stay put in India.“The situation for men isn’t promising either,” says 22-year-old Najiullah Sarifi, a former student of GD Goenka University in Gurgaon. “Since women have been bound to their homes, several posts of teachers are vacant and colleges have become lifeless. Our past has been washed away and the future is uncertain.”Saifullah Rahimi, 25, who is pursuing PhD in natural language processing at GU, says, “Two of my sisters are teachers and one a doctor. They are jobless because of the new laws. My parents have been telling me to prolong my stay in India as returning home would mean losing my motivation and interest in pursuing a career as a data scientist.”(Yagnesh Mehta, Prashant Rupera, Bharat Yagnik, Meenakshi Sinha and Siddharth Tiwari contributed to this story)Medium108404890 Knitting their lives in Delhi, one thread at a time Priyangi.Agarwal @timesgroup.comWhen Farida Khairkhwa (46), an Afghan refugee in Delhi, was struggling to make ends meet, she decided to bring together other Afghan women to earn a living using their skills of traditional Afghan embroidery. “I am a single mother of four. I was depressed as I was unable to take care of my children due to financial issues. However, I decided to rebuild my life and those of other Afghan women refugees by helping them earn a decent income,” says Khairkhwa, who came to India in 2016.She opened Afghan Women Handicraft Centre in April 2022 with 67 Afghan women refugees. Most women are the sole breadwinners of their families. The centre, which is in a narrow lane in the Bhogal area of south Delhi, is run out of two small rooms. Women knit and crochet beautiful suits, earrings, wall hangings, key rings and other décor items. They are paid by the piece.Across Delhi neighbourhoods like Lajpat Nagar, Bhogal and Malviya Nagar that have become home to Afghan refugees, small centres have sprung up to educate or train Afghan women in stitching and painting. Allama Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan High School, Jesuit Refugee Service and New Mastermind Academy are some examples.Medium108404891 “Most Afghan women have expertise in embroidery since childhood, but we give training to others who don’t have the required skills. We provide our products to Silaiwali, a social enterprise in Delhi that exports handcrafted products to Europe and the United States, and participate in exhibitions,” says Khairkhwa, adding she feels empowered to help other women who are unable to get jobs due to their refugee status or the language barrier.Hafiza Nuriya, a 44-year-old widow who works at the centre, says, “I have been crocheting since I was a child. I am happy to use my expertise to support my mother and five children.”Nagina Hamadzai, 14, who is training at the centre, says, “I feel good that I am able to pursue my dreams in India. However, I feel sad for the women of my family who are living in Afghanistan.”While the Taliban, who took over Afghanistan in 2021, have barred women from secondary and higher education, employment and public interaction, Afghan women who took shelter in Delhi have attained financial independence.Savita Rehmati, who has a cloth shop in Delhi, fled Afghanistan with her family around five years ago. “The Taliban killed my brother-in-law, and as there was a threat to my husband’s life we came to India leaving behind our house and business. When my husband fell ill I started working at this shop,” says the mother of four.Sisters Marina (27) and Lina Mansoori (21) have been running a beauty parlour for nearly two years. “It feels great to run our own business and not sit idle at home,” says Lina, who is a nail and lash art expert. She came to India nine years ago, and says she can understand the plight of women in Afghanistan.“My parents initially said there was no need for me to work. However, when I told them that I wanted to become financially independent, they changed their mind. They are supportive of us,” says Lina while attending to a client.Photos: Anindya Chattopadhyay