Manas Dasgupta
Most of the Indian students welcomed the resumption of online classes. “We are so relieved…At least, we can keep pace with the syllabus. We are just so thankful to our teachers who are taking classes even during the war,” a student from Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University in the city of Lviv, who is now back home in Uttar Pradesh, said. The student said the professor who was taking online classes had been forced to hide in a basement the previous night as air raid sirens blared outside the whole night.
Students said although online classes have resumed, their parents were still worried about their future. They prayed that the teachers stay safe, the war was over and they could return to Ukraine to resume classes physically.
While online classes was started from Monday at universities in western cities, such as Lviv and Ternopil, several teachers in other cities such as Kharkiv could not log in due to Internet disruptions. “The situation is worse in cities directly affected by war, where the Internet is not stable. We do not want our students to lose due to temporary changes in our country. But for how long we will be able to conduct online classes is unknown. According to the university rector’s order, we will study this way till the end of the semester,” a professor said.
“Today, some of our students put up screens on Zoom supporting Ukraine. Our Indian students have expressed their understanding and support for Ukraine. Of course, Zoom classes cannot make up for physical classes but that’s how we managed during the pandemic, too,” the professor said.
The students said several teachers have moved out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries. “They are in Moldova, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and the UK. Nothing was discussed about the war in our class today and everyone just concentrated on the subject,” said a student.
Another professor at the Ternopil National Medical University (TNMU) said “For the past one year, we conducted online classes due to Covid, so we were prepared. Our online study material is available on our website, including material for practical classes such as videos, etc. It is difficult to prepare for a class after listening to sirens all night but we are adults. Even if we sit in shelters the whole night, we have to take classes the next day,” the professor said.
There are around 1,800 Indian students at TNMU and about 1,000 at the Lviv University. According to teachers, universities in the eastern cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, near the Russian border, “are expected to begin classes this week but it looks difficult.”
As per the statement made in Parliament by the external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday, about 22,000 Indian citizens, most of them medical students, have been evacuated from Ukraine but still a large number of Indian students have elected to stay back in the war-ravaged country only to complete their studies.
Answering question about Indian national who may still be stuck in Ukraine, Jaishankar said there were some people in double digits who are in Ukraine and “at this moment we have an operation to get out some students who are stuck in southern Ukraine, though the Russia route.”
Talking about questions raised by MPs about Indian officers not being present in the conflict areas, he said, “I would like to correct you, we went….our officer actually went even into Sumy, there were people outside Sumy, the first people that Indian students saw when they came out of Sumy were our officers.”
About the concerns raised by several members over the future of the Indian students forced out of Ukraine, the minister said, “I can assure you that the government will approach this matter with the fullest sense of responsibility.”
Raising concerns over the future of the students who have returned from Ukraine, many members asked the government to ensure facilities in the Indian Universities for the students to complete their course without imposing a financial burden on them. Addressing their concern, the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in the Lok Sabha: “When we have brought them, you remain assured that government will ponder over making arrangements, whatsoever is required, to enable them to become doctors in future…At present, it is time for getting them out of the shock. We are all engaged in that.”
Jaishankar in his statement said, “As tensions increased, Indian Embassy in Ukraine started a registration drive for Indians in Jan 2022. As a result, around 20,000 Indians registered. Most Indian nationals were students pursuing medical studies in Ukrainian universities dispersed throughout the country,” Jaishankar said in his statement in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Jaishankar said there was a natural reluctance to leave educational institutions. “Some universities actively discouraged & showed reluctance to offer online courses…Despite our efforts, however, a large majority of students elected to continue staying in Ukraine,” he said.
“The root causes (of conflict) are the complex going-around range of issues. We launched the most challenging evacuation exercises amid an ongoing conflict,” he added.
“Students hail from 35 states/UTs of India with over 1000 students each from Kerala, UP, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar and Rajasthan,” Jaishankar added.
The union minister also said more than half the students were in universities in eastern Ukraine that borders Russia and has been epicentre of conflict so far. Jaishankar said under union government’s evacuation mission ‘Operation Ganga’, 90 flights have been operated thus far out of which 76 were civilian flights and 14 were Indian Air Force flights.
Jaishankar said the MEA situation room was ramped up to 100 personnel and strategies were formed to bring back citizens via neighbouring countries of Ukraine. Members of the House should appreciate the work of diplomats who went beyond call of duty to facilitate students and citizens.
On the issues raised about India’s advisories to nationals in Ukraine, Jaishankar said when an embassy tells nationals to go home it is serious. Students didn’t want to leave because universities threatened to cancel their degrees. “I care about the students future, whether you do or not,” the External Affairs Minister adds.
Issue of confusing political being sent by the Ukrainian government, he said the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had himself said there was no need to panic. Leaders in Ukraine were saying at the time that people leaving would contribute to creating a sense of panic. “Sitting here It is very easy to pass judgements saying: we should have done this earlier or faster, but please understand what was the situation of the students…who do they listen to?”
“All that being said,” he added, “let us also recognise that about 4,000 of them (Indian students) actually returned due to our advisories.”