Smoke Over Eden

As the world debates politics and progress, Kashmir battles a collapse of memory, values, and belonging.

- Younus Yousuf Ganie

There’s the Kashmir we see in pictures: green valleys, snowy peaks, and calm lakes. Then there’s the Kashmir people carry inside them today, one that feels tired, broken, and lost. The two no longer match.

The story of Kashmir is too often framed through security and geopolitics. News cycles swing between discord and diplomatic statements.

But that lens misses something more personal and unsettling.

What’s happening in Kashmir today isn’t just a power struggle or strife. It’s a slow, deep moral and emotional collapse. Beyond jobs and jibes, we are losing each other.

The numbers tell part of the story.

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Jammu and Kashmir continues to face one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Young people, especially the educated, spend their days waiting for purpose.

Around 12% of the population lives in multidimensional poverty. Half don’t have access to basic sanitation. Over a quarter go without adequate nutrition.

For those who find work in the tourism sector, the situation is increasingly unstable. After the April 2025 attack on tourists in Pahalgam, the valley’s economy suffered another blow.

Bookings dropped, hotels emptied, and families dependent on that income were left without options.

But even those economic hardships don’t fully explain what's happening.