Scholarship was awarded to Mahanshit Uzma
The Wong Family Scholarship was awarded to Mahanshit Uzma, who has won more than 15 tournaments both locally and nationally.
When Mahanshit Uzma, who has won more than 15 competitions at the J&K and national levels, set out to pursue her dream of studying law, she had no idea that one day she would have to compete for admission to more than 15 universities across Europe. I will receive more offers and eventually win the prestigious Wong Family Scholarship to study at one of the best universities in Asia.
The saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day.” She also took time to complete the work. There were ups and downs on Uzma’s part too, but struggle and hard work paid off. Hailing from the Hyderpora area of Srinagar, Uzma chose law as a career to work for gender justice and human rights and improve people’s lives.
She started it early and opted for Political Science and Sociology in the 12th to build a strong foundation for her BA-LLB. Her parents did not want her to move out of her hometown, so she appeared for National Level Entrance Test (CUCET),
I secured a 3rd rank (in law) in it and got admission to the BA-LLB course at the Central University of Kashmir. She completed her degree as a gold medalist.
When she decided to study abroad, she had to face many challenges. She researched universities and scholarships on her own, wrote emails to institutions, joined LinkedIn to find people who could mentor her, and researched how to apply.
Uzma said, “Over time, I understood that the challenges were not as simple as they appeared in books but were far more complex.” It made me a passionate learner and inspired me to pursue my LLM. She researched for a year, applying to 20 institutions, seventeen of which were from the UK, one from Hong Kong, and two from Switzerland.
During the application process, she got her graduate degree and started working for an organization. After obtaining her license, she practiced as an advocate for one year in the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir.
In August 2022, she accepted the University of Hong Kong offer and moved there. Now, she is studying at the 3rd-best university in Asia and the 20th-best university in the world.
In the last year of his undergraduate studies, she also applied for the Rhodes Scholarship. She succeeded in the written test and made it to the interview, but she was ultimately unsuccessful. Uzma said, “I learned about the candidates who successfully got a Rhodes scholarship that year, and in previous years, most of them studied at highly ranked institutions.”
Mahanshit did her schooling at the Mallinson Girls’ School. Right from her childhood, she worked hard to maintain academic excellence throughout her academic career. She completed her higher secondary education at Public School, GHSS, Kothibagh.
She said, “Unlike the normal upbringing in Kashmir, where girls’ education is not encouraged, my parents supported me.” “I think it played an important role.” “It is male-dominated, and you can see bias against women in the legal fraternity everywhere, including universities.”
Against gender bias, Uzma won more than 15 speaking competitions at the J&K and national levels and was specially awarded for her skills by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. She says that lawyers have some essential responsibilities toward society.
Keeping that objective in mind, in 2019, she and her other colleagues laid the foundation of the Young Lawyers Forum (YLF) Kashmir. In YLF, she uses the law as an effective tool to bring about social change for the betterment of society. Huh.
YLF works on three aspects: litigation, legal awareness, and networking. The Legal Awareness Division, which she heads, is working to spread awareness on various topics through awareness campaigns, workshops, socio-legal studies, and legal competitions.
She has conducted awareness campaigns and workshops on sexual harassment, crime against women, the right to information, and health rights. She is currently pursuing socio-legal studies with fieldwork on the inheritance rights of women under Islamic law.
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