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One area of life that was affected harshly was education, especially for women. From the 1950s to the 1970s, women were making huge leaps in terms of schools, colleges, offices, courts, hospitals, hotels, and business establishments. There hadn’t even been an organized women’s rights movement that had to take place; the spontaneity and immenseness of the advancement made it so that women began to take all their opportunity for granted. In schools, girls became incredibly liberal, partaking in activities such as sports and debate, and making huge advancements in their education. This was an incredible cultural movement; before girls had been expected to be chaste, quiet, and spiritual, and their place had been believed to be in the house where they learned to raise a family. The characteristics that they had begun to develop were those expected of men, and no one even spoke up against women’s roles changing in society. However, as suddenly as it had all come, it was all taken away from them. When the crisis began in Kashmir, schools were highly affected. Muslim girls were forced to wear burqas, and Hindu girls were forced to wear bindis in order to save them from harassment. There was no freedom left anymore; instead of holding their heads high and showing their pride for their successes as a gender, women were forced into submission out of fear. The education system that they had worked so hard to fortify began to collapse right in front of them. All that was left was terror; only a mad woman would even consider striving for educational success. The multicultural environment that had thrived through colleges was gone, completely replaced by the oppressive black of the burqa. While many women did try to fight back for their education, they were never able to regain the level that had previously been manifested. Many of the teachers had left Kashmir in order to escape prosecution, so the best education could only be achieved by leaving Kashmir, which was not always an option that people could afford or wanted. (Neerja, 164)