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Kashmir and Kashmiris need some inward looking

There is a strange contradiction playing out in Kashmir today – so visible, so loud, and yet so rarely questioned. It has been so, say most grandfathers and grandmothers, always like that. The Valley that struggles daily with its own decay suddenly finds its voice when the crisis is thousands of miles away.

Streets fill up, slogans rise, donations flow, and leaders compete in expressions of solidarity. Recent events have shown exactly this – rallies, aid collections, and even disruptions inside the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly over developments in Iran.

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Delegations meet foreign envoys, condolences are offered, and emotional alignment is displayed with remarkable urgency. For a moment, Kashmir appears united, mobilized, and deeply conscious.

But then, one uncomfortable question emerges – and refuses to go away. Where is this Kashmir when the crisis is its own?

Because back home, the same Valley is drowning quietly in problems that are neither distant nor abstract. Springs are drying, garbage is piling up, cities are choking, and systems are eroding. Yet, there are no comparable rallies. No mass mobilizations. No emotional outpouring. No urgency. It is as if Kashmir has developed a peculiar instinct – to feel deeply about causes where its voice carries no consequence, and to remain detached from problems where its voice is the only one that matters.

This is not empathy. This is displacement.

And nowhere is this contradiction more sharply visible than........

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