✒️:. Ehsan Malik
There are few identities in the modern world as heavy to carry as that of being Kashmiri. We are a people born into history,every stone, every river, every silence here carries the weight of unfinished promises. And yet, despite this deep inheritance, our future seems endlessly suspended, like a page left unread in a book everyone claims to own.
When Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession with India in 1947, it was presented as a grand moment of unification,a decisive act that “sealed” Kashmir’s destiny. But behind the celebrated narrative of national integration lay a forgotten conversation.
That conversation was quietly buried beneath speeches, slogans, and selective chapters of history. What remained was a version of truth crafted to fit a political design,where dissent was demonised, and silence was mistaken for consent.
Over the decades, this version became the official history. It entered textbooks, echoed in parliaments, and defined how the rest of the country looked at Kashmir. And in that process, generations of Kashmiris have paid the price, with their blood, their dignity, and their right to be understood.
The RSS-BJP narrative has often laid the blame at Pandit Nehru’s feet, suggesting that if Sardar Patel had been the first Prime Minister, the Kashmir issue would have been “resolved.” But irony cuts deep here, because no matter who Delhi blames, it is always the Kashmiri who bears the burden. Whether Nehru or Patel, Congress or BJP, the punishment lands the same: humiliation at airports, suspicion at checkpoints, alienation even in one’s own homeland.
And yet, through all this, Kashmiris have never stopped showing heart. Whenever tragedy strikes, whether it’s the Pahalgam attack or a disaster in any corner of the land, it is often the Kashmiri who is first to condemn, first to comfort, first to help. Despite decades of broken promises and unending conflict, the ordinary Kashmiri has not stopped believing in the idea of peace, nor given up the quiet dignity of humanity.
But some wounds cut beyond politics. They are found in the silent humiliations of everyday life.
Like that one of our young Kashmiri girl, bright, ambitious, full of dreams, who walks into an auditorium to attend an event in her institute. A minister is expected to arrive. At the gate, she presents her Aadhaar card as every one does. The guard’s expression changes. She is asked to step aside. Her only “fault”? Her place of birth, South Kashmir.
Hours later, she sits at home, still trying to understand what went wrong. Her father sighs and says softly, “You did nothing wrong, my child. It’s just that your grandfather was once part of a banned organisation, JEI.”
This is the tragedy of being Kashmiri. Carrying the burden of history you never wrote, and paying the price for choices you never made.
It’s time we begin to reflect, not just on the political questions that divide us, but on the moral ones that define us. What kind of society do we become when we judge people by their place of birth? When an entire generation grows up believing they must prove their innocence before they can dream?
The world has long defined Kashmir through headlines, reports, and television debates. But the time has come for Kashmiris to reclaim their own story,to write it not with bitterness, but with dignity; not with despair, but with resilience.
I feel it’s our duty to the youth: to let them dream freely, study without fear, travel without suspicion, and live as individuals, not merely as symbols of a conflict that both defines us and confines us.
Patience, wisdom, and unity are no longer options; they are necessities.
Because the world has already judged Kashmir by its past,
now it is upon Kashmiris to shape their own future, with grace, courage, and unbreakable hope.
Disclaimer :.idea’s Expressed by the Writer are his own,The NQ News Dosnt Necessarily Agree with him)
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