‘Final warning’ for Afghan students unable to return to India

Afghan students whose Indian visas were revoked say some institutions are imposing deadlines for their return to campus, and threatening to cancel admission if they cannot come back, with the impasse potentially hitting as many as 2,500 students.

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, India annulled thousands of visas previously issued to Afghan nationals. 

A year and a half later, some 2,500 Afghan students who have yet to complete degrees in India are stranded in their home country, according to estimates from the Afghan embassy in India.

They remain in limbo even as Afghanistan’s human rights situation has worsened, with opportunities to pursue education becoming increasingly limited. In late 2022, the Taliban ruled that women could no longer attend universities – a move that has put many private institutions on the brink of closure.

Students waiting for official approval to re-enter India say that time is running out for them to return to their studies overseas. 

Rahmat Badshah, a fourth-year technology student at a private Indian institution, said that he recently received a “last warning” from his programme coordinator.

“He told [me], ‘if you not come till June, in July we will cancel your admission’. So we don’t know now what should we do,” he said.

Mr Badshah, who asked that his university not be named due to potential repercussions, said that he was at a loss for what to do.

“This is so heartbreaking,” he said.

Ahmad Zahid, a final-year student of human resource management at Sharda University, said his institution had also asked students to return in person.

“They’re telling us you should come here from Afghanistan, basically,” he said.

Mr Zahid said that he was among 27 students at Sharda waiting to return – the majority of whom had only to complete their final exam to receive a degree. Although several of them had reapplied for visas, they were unsuccessful.

“I applied twice but got rejected. All of us who applied got rejected,” he said.

While Mr Zahid said that his university had not yet set a date by when students needed to return, he knew of numerous students at other institutions for whom this was the case – and he worried that for him, too, it was only a matter of time.

He said that if his university imposed a deadline for his return to India and cancelled his admission, he would be forced to restart his degree in Pakistan, which would mean beginning anew as a first- or second-year student, repeating courses and having to pay more fees.

He expressed his frustration with the Indian government and his university. “They’re fully aware of our situation…but they are not helping us,” he said.

A researcher in Afghan migration, who asked for anonymity because of safety concerns for colleagues in Afghanistan, said that such ultimatums by universities are unhelpful – and especially devastating for women in the country.

“With the closure of higher education to women in Afghanistan, they will lose not just the opportunity to finish their studies at the university where they have been learning, but likely all opportunities for higher education,” she said.

pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com