Srinagar, Jan. 27 -- In most classrooms across India-and perhaps more tellingly, in Jammu and Kashmir-the arrival of Artificial Intelligence did not announce itself with spectacle. There were no ceremonies, no banners proclaiming a digital revolution. AI entered education quietly, almost invisibly, through lesson plans prepared late into the night, examination papers reviewed with unexpected speed, and students revising their lessons on borrowed smartphones in dimly lit rooms.

For a long while, public discourse failed to keep pace with this slow transformation. Early debates were shaped largely by anxiety: fears of plagiarism, academic shortcuts, and the erosion of intellectual discipline. Institutions responded instinctively-with bans, ...