By Nusrat Hassan

The idea of peace is both intimate and elusive in Kashmir. You hear it in prayers at dusk, feel it in the hush of snowfall, and see it vanish in the blink of a news headline.

We talk about peace often, but rarely do we ask: what does it take to build a peaceful society in a region like ours—torn between memory, politics, and survival?

There are no shortcuts. The foundations of peace aren’t laid with grand speeches or security deployments.

They begin, instead, with how we think, what we teach, and how we treat one another.

Let’s start with mindset. Too often, we wear labels before names: Shia, Sunni, Pandit, Gujjar, Bakarwal, rich, poor, English-medium, government-school. These categories don’t just define us, they divide us.

In a place where trauma runs deep, such divisions feed mistrust........

© Kashmir Observer