Stop Underestimating Kashmir's Gen Z

The generation we thought was lost is showing us the way forward, if we're brave enough to follow.

- Seema Sangra

When a young student told me she wanted to study poetry and programming in the same breath, I hesitated. That shaky response came from my conditioning than confusion.

My own education had been about stability, clarity, and fixed outcomes. Couplets and codes sounded like contradiction.

The student looked at me, half smiling, clearly tired, and said, "Sometimes it's a mystic verse, sometimes it's the metaverse. That's how I make sense of this messy world."

And with that, she taught me the first of many lessons I would learn from Gen Z.

I'm part of a generation that inherited struggle and handed down expectation. Growing up in the tumultuous region of Jammu and Kashmir, we were told that a good life meant a steady job, a stable family, and a name that stayed out of the news.

We didn't ask for more, and didn't risk too much. We didn't, in many ways, know how.

Now I teach Gen Z students from across the globe - South Asians, Africans, Arabs, Uzbeks, Chinese - at a university in Dubai. And I parent one at home.

Between the lecture halls and late-night kitchen table conversations, I've been watching this generation with growing awe.

They have come of age in a collapsing world. Pandemic lockdowns cut through their adolescence like a knife. Screens became their school, therapist, escape, and prison.

They scroll through climate collapse, war footage, influencer tips, and therapy memes before breakfast. They see through performative politics, and they've learned that most institutions, like media, government, and even family, can be fragile facades.

And still, they keep it up.