Raging Lifeblood

Ancient wisdom, modern technology, and community responsibility could safeguard the valley, but only if we act.

- Saliha Hameed

Kashmir’s Jhelum has always been a storyteller. It flows through Srinagar with an ancient patience, teaching lessons that we have struggled to hear.

In 2014, it spoke in a voice of fury. Floodwaters rose, canals burst, orchards vanished, bridges collapsed, and families clung to rooftops as the valley turned into a sea of despair.

The flood was a mirror, showing how far humans had strayed from the rhythms of this fragile paradise. Yet, a decade later, the warnings remain unheeded.

Rivers are not cruel. They respond to what we do, or fail to do.

Every canal filled, wetland encroached, or house built on a floodplain is an invitation to disaster. In Pulwama, recent floods swallowed orchards that had thrived for generations. The stream that once carried water gracefully now tears through the land because its natural path has been blocked, narrowed, suffocated. It is not vengeance. It is justice.

Kashmir suffers because we destroyed it ourselves.