-Essay-
MUMBAI — As the world’s gaze has again shifted to the edges of the India-Pakistan border, those of us who live in the valleys in between don’t need news updates to feel the tension. We feel it in the air. In the slowing down of internet speeds. In the hushed phone calls from relatives. In the sudden withdrawal of laughter from daily life. Conflict is not breaking news for us. It is inherited.
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I write this not as a spokesperson for Kashmir, India or Pakistan. I write as a young woman who wakes up every day under a sky that is breathtaking but burdened. Someone whose dreams have always soared between mountains yet monitored by headlines.
It is impossible to live in Kashmir and not be politicized. Our identities are debated in television studios where people don’t even pronounce our names right. Our grief is condensed into 15-second Youtube shorts. Our aspirations are mistaken for rebellion. And still we survive. We study, we dream, we try to find jobs in a place where urban female unemployment is over 53.6% – the highest in the country.
We speak in whispers, and as another truce is announced, wait for the kind of real peace that feels as mythical as snowfall in July.
In the last two years, a growing number of employment opportunities have been generated through schemes aimed at self reliance. Programs like Mission Youth suggest that someone in New Delhi is listening. But it isn’t enough to create jobs, we need to feel safe enough to show up to them. We need educational institutions that don’t just give us degrees, but safety in this country.
They become collateral in ideological wars.
Kashmiris who live outside the valley study and work in cities across India that pride themselves on diversity but recoil when they hear our surnames. Too often, they become collateral in ideological wars. They face harassment, eviction and open threats on university campuses and in hostels. Their identity becomes a liability, their belonging questioned. They walk hallways not as peers, but as suspects.
We belong to India
Still despite the fear, despite the silence from the very state whose constitution they recite in school, they stand with their country when tragedy strikes. When our land bleeds, they post messages of solidarity, collect donations, and mourn with pride. But what have they received in return? No institutional safety net, no public reassurance. Just the burden of proving, again and again, that they are Indian enough. The children of the conflict, holding both hope and humiliation in the same breath. We need policies that aren’t performative, peace that isn’t procedural.
This is where I wish to speak not as a victim, but as a citizen. We belong to India. That belonging may be complicated, but it is not absent. I am not looking for flags to wave or slogans to chant. I’m asking for a democracy that listens not just during elections, but especially after, and continues to listen. A democracy that understands that Kashmir is not just a land to be claimed but a people to be understood.
Every time conflict escalates on the India-Pakistan front, Kashmir takes the brunt. We become a reason, a bargaining chip, a rallying cry. But what is it like to be the metaphor and never the speaker? To be spoken about and never to?
WORLDCRUNCH EXTRA! 🗞️
Following four days of heavy shelling and aerial incursions, this weekend’s fragile U.S.- brokered truce between India and Pakistan still appeared to be holding Monday.
The “full and immediate ceasefire” of two nuclear-armed rivals embroiled in a decades-long dispute over Kashmir, was announced Saturday by U.S. President Donald Trump on social media. Behind the scenes, U.S. mediators proved critical in quickly pulling the nuclear-armed rivals back from the brink, experts say.
Top military officials from India and Pakistan are due to speak later Monday to discuss finer details. Despite the ceasefire holding overnight, both countries were only hours later trading accusations of fresh violations and remain vigilant, warning that any further violation could rapidly escalate into a broader conflict. — Cecilia Laurent Monpetit (read more about the Worldcrunch method here)
The recent escalation, marked by Operation Sindoor, intensified these wounds. On May 7, 2025, India launched a series of missile and drone strikes targeting nine sites within Pakistan, citing retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack, where 26 civilians, including Indian and foreign tourists, were brutally shot dead.
Off the headlines
Pakistan, however, reported that the strikes resulted in 31 civilian deaths and 57 injuries, including children, and condemned the action as an act of war. In response, Pakistan claimed to have downed five Indian jets and authorized retaliatory “corresponding actions.” Subsequent artillery exchanges along the Line of Control led to additional civilian casualties on both sides.
This outbreak of violence marked the most serious confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbors since 2019..
War promises clarity, but delivers only graves.
But what of the people who never make it to headlines? The farmers whose fields are scarred by shelling? The schoolchildren whose education is interrupted by sirens, not syllabi? The families who lose sons not to ideology, but to geography?
In every escalation, it is the ordinary folks who pay the price. Those who are never asked how they feel but must bury their dead just the same. War promises clarity, but delivers only graves. It redraws borders in blood and leaves no space for healing. In the end, there are no victors. There are only survivors, and even they carry wounds that maps cannot mark.
I don’t want to be ‘rescued’ by Pakistan. I don’t want to be silenced by India. I want to grow in a space that allows me to be both Kashmiri and Indian without splitting my tongue in two. I want the world to know that patriotism can look like criticism, and loyalty can sound like longing.
As another war broke out on our television screens, I sat here in my room, surrounded by books, paused WhatsApp calls, and a curfewed silence. I do not have answers, but I have this pen. And with it, I choose to write, not to resist or rebel, but to remember that we are still here.
Still dreaming. Still waiting. Still speaking.
Ayeesha R Bhat is an English literature graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and an alumna of DPS Srinagar. She currently works in marketing and communications.
