Having returned to Kashmir after living in Mumbai and Delhi for a few years, Bashir’s dream is to change the way Kashmir is recognised on the global map.
“Yesterday there was an encounter about 10 kilometers away. The separatists have demanded a shut down,” I am told over a call from about 900 kilometres north of Delhi.
On the other end of the phone is 29-year-old Rauf Bashir, an entrepreneur who runs his edu-tech startup Ladisha in one of the country’s most volatile states – J&K.
Having returned to Kashmir after living in Mumbai and Delhi for a few years, Bashir’s dream is to change the way Kashmir is recognised on the global map, by making it the hub of technological inventions.
While we couldn’t ascertain an official data on the number of internet startups in Kashmir, according to multiple independent estimates there are just a handful of known names such as KartFood and Kashmir Box, among others.
Needless to say this, is a dismal number compared to around 6,000 startups in India.
The major problems for the technology-based startups that want to have Kashmir as their base are internet shutdowns, lack of inclination for technology education besides the incessant cases of violence in the state.
Recently, a Kashmiri startup Czar said that the company was on the verge of being sold out until the founders decided to shift some of the important operations in Uttarakhand and the startup got a new lease of life.
So here’s the story of Bashir and his everyday struggles as he fights with the issue of broken internet connectivity, insurgency, illiteracy and ignorance with an aim to channelise the youth of Kashmir to focus on things that he believes will change their lives for better.
Listed as Ladisha Techlabs Pvt Ltd in 2016, Bashir runs an internet-based education startup that helps students prepare for entrance examinations such as CLAT, JEE and NEET.
According to the Economic Survey report of 2016, the unemployment rate in Jammu and Kashmir is higher than the average national unemployment rate.
Jammu and Kashmir has 24.6 percent population in the age of 18-29 years who are unemployed at a time when the all India unemployment rate is 13.2 percent.
That’s perhaps a result of the deep political unrest that the Valley has been going through all these years. However, many argue that education and inclusion of the youth into the mainstream economy has immense potential in improving the situation.
According to Bashir, through these exam preparations, he wants to give the youth of Kashmir an opportunity to have a stable life and improve their livelihood in the valley.
Usually Bashir’s day begins with a glass of salted tea, khamiri roti and micro blogging site Quora.
“There are a lot of exam related queries on Quora. I try and answer at least 10-15 of them,” says Bashir adding that at the end of the response, he gives a link to his app, requesting people to download it. “That’s a way of ensuring that students come to our app,” he says.
