This Isn’t Just Global Warming

Forget climate change for a moment. Kashmir is hurting because we've erased our past, and with it, our chance at survival.

- Fiza Masoodi

The air outside isn’t just hot, it’s hostile. May in Kashmir has gone from mild to merciless. People are saying it's global warming, and yes, the world is heating. But I believe something more local is happening too. Something we don't talk about enough.

We've been brutal to our own land. And now it’s turning on us.

Let me explain.

Where I live, there used to be a cool stream running past the old graveyard. My grandfather called it “Shehej Kul.” He said the water never stopped, even in droughts.

That stream isn't there anymore. It was filled in, concreted over, and replaced with a row of shops. Now, most of those shops sell bottled water.

And that's not the only story like it.

Across the Valley, we've buried our water bodies under roads and markets. In old neighborhoods, people still talk about the fountains that once sprayed up from stone slabs in courtyards and public squares. Some were built centuries ago, part of a delicate system of springs and aqueducts.

Today, most of them lie beneath parking lots or asphalt highways. We covered them up like they were trash, not treasure,

The Jhelum, our main river, is supposed to be the lifeline of Kashmir. But as one local farmer near Anantnag told me last month, “This is not a river anymore. It's just a slow-moving drain.”