I

n conflict zones, some of the most enduring damage is unseen.

Although Kashmir is widely discussed in terms of territorial contestation in conventional political analysis, there is surprisingly little focus on how sustained exposure to conflict, violence, and systemic uncertainty influences everyday experiences, social behavior, and expression. Even after the headlines fade, these effects continue to shape how people live, think, and relate to their surroundings.

Restricted access to data and the risks associated with open communication in a tightly controlled environment severely limit research. The conditions necessary for systematic study are difficult to secure; therefore, empirical research on vital issues in Kashmir remains scarce.

However, it is critical to understand Kashmiris as subjects with agency whose responses reflect adaptive and strategic navigation within a highly constrained and closely monitored environment.

In regions marked by sustained instability, the essential foundations of childhood development are destabilized. Children are deprived of emotional security, access to stable social networks, physical protection, and a sustained sense of safety. Political instability frequently results in prolonged school closures, sometimes lasting entire semesters. Consequently, students have sometimes been promoted en masse despite prolonged interruptions to classroom instruction. During these periods, online education has not consistently served as a viable alternative, largely due to recurring internet shutdowns.

Setbacks and long-term effects

Children who are socialized in contexts of chronic insecurity and surveillance experience learning setbacks and are at risk of enduring behavioral, emotional regulatory, social trust, and political consciousness effects as adults. Hypervigilance and hypersensitivity often develop from an early age. In such conditions, children may remain in a persistent state of alertness or “fight mode,” where anger, irritability, and aggression mask underlying feelings of sadness and social isolation.

For many, silence is internalized early on, leading to self-censorship. Children observe and learn which questions lead to tension, which topics are avoided in gatherings, and which words are never spoken aloud.

This internalization of restraint develops into a broader psychological condition resembling learned helplessness with features of duality. Repeated exposure to uncontrollable loss, surveillance, or instability teaches individuals that their actions rarely alter outcomes. Taking action becomes risky, even futile. In such contexts, avoiding harm, adapting, not drawing attention, and survival become ways of life.

A scarcity mindset

Over the course of many decades of uncertainty and disruption, many Kashmiri households developed what psychologists describe as a scarcity mindset: A survival-oriented approach to resources shaped by prolonged instability. This mindset often manifests in everyday practices, such as stocking essential items for extended periods. In many Kashmiri households, for example, staple foods like rice are purchased in large quantities and stored for years as a rational adaptation to chronic uncertainty.

This mindset also extends into other areas of personal and social life. For example, communal solidarity in Kashmir is most visibly activated during moments of loss. Entire neighborhoods come together in times of grief. However, the same intensity of togetherness is largely absent during moments of joy or personal success. Successes tend to be shared quietly and are often prefaced with accounts of hardship, health concerns, or struggles that bear little direct relation to the joy being expressed.

Overt expression of joy seems discordant in contexts where loss is common. Thus, restraint and self-regulation become adaptive mechanisms of collective survival. This is one of the many unspoken social understandings: Visibility is risky.

Constant negotiation has produced a form of social “conflict correctness,” in which maintaining harmony and avoiding discomfort take precedence over direct expression.

The paradox of hospitality and hunger

Duality is deeply ingrained in Kashmiri social life. People often communicate guardedly, carefully calibrating what they say, to whom, and in what setting. Consequently, it can be challenging to discern sincerity from strategic restraint. However, it is important to understand that this is not due to an absence of honesty; caution is ingrained in Kashmiri society as a survival mechanism. This pattern can be seen extending into intimate spaces, such as the dinner table, if studied.

Kashmiri culture places immense value on hospitality. Yet, accepting food, expressing hunger, or stating personal preferences is often deferred or declined unless repeatedly insisted upon and often accompanied by emotional appeals or promises. If not confronted or engaged, this adaptive caution runs the risk of becoming a permanent psychological trait over the years.

Parents who are raising children while experiencing chronic stress often do so from a place of unresolved fear and grief. In households where loss or disappearance has altered family structures, caregiving roles are often reorganized. Widows and half-widows, in particular, take on a disproportionate amount of emotional and social responsibilities. This places them at the center of the intergenerational transmission of fear, resilience, and restraint.

For young people already living in a state of learned helplessness, the growing infiltration of drugs into Kashmiri society now fills the void left by the absence of meaningful work. Substance use often functions as a form of escapism. Interestingly, this coincides with agendas of weakening collective resistance and social cohesion.

Pakistan entered the ICC T-20 World Cup with a least than ideal preparation, after both the England and New Zealand cricket teams cancelled their respective tours to the country in September, citing “security concerns,” thus depriving the Green Shirts of a much-needed tune up on the eve of the white ball tournament in the United Arab Emirates.

On Sunday evening, however, Pakistan shocked the world by upstaging its perennial foe and tournament favourite – India– in a match played before a packed Dubai International Cricket Stadium and a television audience surpassing one billion people.

If cricket perfection is attainable, then Pakistan came within a whisker of it in securing an impossible to better 10-wicket victory, which was delivered on the back of Shaheen Sha Afridi’s blistering speed and mercurial guile, along with the batting precision, elegance and brutality of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan.

Despite his team’s humiliating defeat, Indian captain Virat Kolhi gave a masterclass in accepting loss with graciousness and humility, heaping praise on his opponents for their professionalism and performance, saying, “They definitely outplayed us. There’s no doubt about that.”

Muslims are secretly plotting to take over the country via Love Jihad (intercommunal marriage), Land Jihad (property acquisition), Economic Jihad (starting businesses,) Corona Jihad (deliberately spreading the virus to Hindus), and now Cricket Jihad, where Indian Muslim cricketers are deliberately underperforming on the field to help Pakistan win games at the ICC T-20 World Cup, according to pro-government supporters.

Cricket Jihad” Conspiracy

While it’s tempting to dismiss the newly minted “Cricket Jihad” conspiracy as the mutterings and ramblings of a nation overflowing with bigoted, sore losers, the reality is far more sinister, with the Indian government using Pakistan’s victory on the cricket pitch to wage yet another violent and anti-democratic crackdown on Muslims in India and Kashmir.

On Wednesday, police in India’s largest state – Uttar Pradesh – charged seven Muslims, but taking four of them into custody, for allegedly “raising Pro-Pak slogans or celebrating Pakistan’s victory over India in the T20 Cricket World Cup match that took place on Oct 24,” according to a brief from Chief Minister’s Office.

The four were detained under an array of local laws and different charges, including, “Posting WhatsApp status in support of Pakistan and its cricket team,” “Uploading Pakistan’s flag as the cover image and profile image on his Facebook account and for uploading posts in support of Pakistan’s win vs India,” and “Posting support for Pakistan” in public domain.

A school teacher in Rajasthan’s Udaipur city was not only arrested for sharing a celebratory post on WhatsApp following Pakistan’s win over India, but also was charged and arrested by police, before being later released on bail.

In Indian administered Kashmir, two medical students from two separate medical colleges were also arrested after being charged under the draconian anti-terror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for causing “insult to the national sentiment during the cricket match.” They now join more than 2,300 other Kashmiri Muslims who have been detained under UAPA law since the Indian government stripped the disputed territory of its semi-autonomous status on August 5, 2019.

Indian Government’s Silence

On Thursday, three Kashmir students in Agra, Uttar Pradesh were physically assaulted by a mob of Hindu nationalist thugs in the company of police as they were being brought before a court to face sedition charges in relation to celebrating Pakistan’s victory over India at T20 World Cup.

On the other side of the sub-continent, Hindu nationalists, led by militant Hindutva organizations Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), carried out their sixth consecutive day of violence against Muslims in the north-eastern state of Tripura on Tuesday, the day Pakistan defeated New Zealand in its second match of the World Cup tournament.

The Indian government has not only refused to condemn violent attacks against Muslims and the destruction of more than a dozen mosques and hundreds of homes in Tripura, but also has done nothing to halt the violence and little to arrest the perpetrators, thus signalling its tacit support for terrorism against the religious minority.

The Indian government’s criminally negligent mishandling of the Coronavirus pandemic has made the country a dystopic COVID19 hell, as mass cremations and burials, along with scenes of COVID19 distressed patients choking to death in the streets washing over our social media timelines like a gigantic tidal wave.

Almost every layer of government has been completely overwhelmed. The health system is on the brink of collapse, but rather than tend to the crisis at hand, the Narendra Modi led regime is waging a war against its critics by ordering Twitter to silence its critics and carrying out property seizures against journalists who report the truth about the country’s rapid descent into the COVID19 abyss.

As new daily cases continue spiking upwards, surpassing 350,000 per day on Monday, the people of Indian Administered Kashmir fear for the worse, knowing they are not only subjected to the brutal rule of an Indian military occupation but also the incompetence and neglect of an Indian central government.

The Kashmiri people are especially concerned for the health and welfare of their loved ones who remain trapped in prisons and dungeons throughout the territory and India for no other crime than speaking out against Indian colonial rule and in favor of self-determination. They are Kashmir’s political prisoners.

“The Republic of India is facing a tsunami of COVID19 with tens of thousands of cases every day including thousands of deaths which has put lives of Kashmiri political prisoners at highest risk,” the Kashmiri advocacy group Legal Forum for Kashmir (LFOVK) urged in a letter to the WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

LVOVK has also pleaded with International Committee Red Cross and other human rights organizations to take concrete steps to pressure India into releasing Kashmiri political prisoners from their jails, saying, “Any danger to their lives will be solely on the shoulders of Republic of India.”

The group has identified the Kashmiri political prisoners as Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, Shabir Ahmad Shah, Masarat Alam Bhat, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah, Raj Mahraj-uddin-Kalwal, Ghulam Muhammad Bhat, Ayaz Akbar, Farooq Ahmad, Shahid-ul-Islam, Syed Shakeel, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Zahoor Ahmad Watali, Shahid ul Islam, Dr. Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, Muhammad Yasin Malik.

When I spoke with the son of Dr. Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, and daughter of Shabir Ahmad Shah this week, they described to me the grave fears and concerns they have for the fate of their respective fathers as the COVID19 virus rips through India and Kashmir at record speed.

Dr. Faktoo, along with his wife, has been held in prison by Indian authorities for nearly all of the past 27 years.

Dr. Faktoo, along with his wife, has been held in prison by Indian authorities for nearly all of the past 27 years. He’s not only one of the disputed territory’s longest jailed political prisoners but also commonly described as “the Nelson Mandela of Kashmir,” having attained his PhD and published more than 20 books in prison.

His youngest son Ahmed Bin Qasim, who is now 22 years of age and has never seen his father “under the open sky,” says his father was arrested for refusing to “join mainstream Indian politics,” and be a puppet politician, one who would endorse “the politics of what India does in Kashmir; the masquerade of democracy India puts up in Kashmir. They wanted him to be a part of that.”

Instead, Dr. Faktoo wrote books about the way in which the Indian government’s rule over Kashmir, including the judiciary and legislature, is set up to help the Indian state buy time in preventing international intervention in resolving the territorial dispute and validate the otherwise illegal detention of political prisoners and human rights violations carried out by Indian security forces.

“Both of my incarcerated parents are old and suffer from multiple chronic ailments,” says Ahmed. “Since the outbreak of COVID19 in India, we have had no communication with them. So while pandemic is difficult for everyone, but we can’t even inquire about or ascertain the well-being of our jailed family members.”

“My mother is 60 and she is jailed in Tihar Jail. Just a few days back, a massive outbreak of COVID19 was reported from the same jail. There are many Kashmiris in that crowded jail. The Indian state deems Kashmiris living outside prisons as killable and dispensable. One can only imagine their treatment of those inside prisons.”

Shahir Ahmed Shah, who was dubbed by Amnesty International as “the prisoner of conscience,” has languished in prison for more than 30 years for speaking out against Indian colonial rule in Kashmir.

When I spoke with his daughter Sehar Shah, she said she’s panic stricken by the deteriorating health of her father and the ever-worsening COVID19 pandemic.

“He has lost tremendous weight living in his 6-foot by 8-foot cell, and has visible dark circles around his eyes, and not able to stand fully because of weakness and aches in his back,” she told me. “He has been diagnosed with a severe heart ailment block in his arteries, and a few weeks ago doctors said he’s in immediate need of spine surgery and is struggling with diabetes and hypertension.”

In other words, Mr. Shah’s pre-existing conditions make him more vulnerable to a more severe infection from the virus, putting him at a high risk of death. There’s no justifiable or reasonable reason why he should have been detained as a young man 30 years ago in the first place and it’s a moral outrage that India has kept him in captivity today.

In the space of a mere three decades hateful and divisive Hindu nationalist slogans have propelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from a fringe political party to a national party to India’s ruling party, a result that has inflicted great harm on the country’s democratic institutions, bilateral relationships, global reputation and religious minorities.

It’s easy to forget today but BJP won just two parliamentary seats in the 1984 election, emerging as a national political force only after whipping up anti-Muslim sentiments leading up to, during and after the destruction of the historic Babri Mosque in 1992 at the hands of 150,000 Hindu nationalists associated with BJP and Hindutva organization Vishva Hindu Parishad, an event that helped put the party into position to form a coalition government in 1998 and then ultimately unilateral power in 2014.

In the six years since Narendra Modi led the party to victory in the 2014 elections, the BJP ruled government has chipped away at the rights of Muslims and cracked down on its critics, including political opponents, journalists, and human rights activists, forcing Amnesty International to cease its operations in the country out of concern its employees were being threatened and intimidated by the government for publishing reports on the Delhi Police Force’s role in the February 2020 violence, which resulted in the murder of more than 50 Muslims, and the use of torture by its security forces in Kashmir.

It’s for these reasons India’s democracy was downgraded from “free” to “partly free” in the most recent Freedom House democracy report, which delivered a scathing indictment on the Modi government, accusing it of “driving India towards authoritarianism” and encouraging the “scapegoating of Muslims” and cracking down on critics.

Worryingly – the worst the economy performs, or the louder critics of the Modi government grow, the more BJP dials up the vilification of religious minorities to divert attention away from its failings or transgressions.

Notably, Freedom House wasn’t alone in its condemnation of the Modi government, with Sweden based V-Dem Institute also downgrading India’s democracy to what it calls “electoral autocracy.”

Worryingly – the worst the economy performs, or the louder critics of the Modi government grow, the more BJP dials up the vilification of religious minorities to divert attention away from its failings or transgressions.

When protesters joined hands across the country to oppose the government’s anti-Muslim citizenship laws, known separately as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), party leaders threatened to shoot, drown or deport Muslim migrants.

When the government mishandled the initial COVID19 outbreak, the government joined online miscreants in falsely accusing Muslims of deliberately spreading the virus, and when farmers from Punjab and Haryana linked arms and marched to the capital Delhi to protest against laws that pave the way for the corporate takeover of the agricultural sector, leaving their farms and communities vulnerable to exploitation and destruction, BJP leaders falsely accused them of being part of foreign funded Sikh separatist plot.

What has become increasingly evident in recent weeks is that Hindutva organizations have expanded their influence and reach throughout the Indian diaspora, as witnessed recently when a mob of right-wing Indian Australians ambushed and attacked a car carrying several Sikh men in Sydney earlier this month, presumably because they had participated in a solidarity march for the Indian farmers protest in Delhi.

“For the first time in Australia we are witnessing tensions within Indian community groups, with one group attacking another because they demanded justice from the Indian government,” Deepak Joshi, an executive with The Humanism Project, a secular Indian expatriate advisory group, told me.

“In the past year or so we have witnessed several instances of online hate and threats of violence against those who criticise the Modi Government and against Muslims in particular in Australia, but this hate has been particularly directed against the Sikhs and social media since the farmers movement began.” 

Hindutva organizations and individuals have also been calling for a boycott of Sikh and Muslim owned businesses, prompting an Australian parliamentarian to warn of a growing threat within the Indian expatriate community, specifically “extremist, right-wing Hindu nationalist part of the community.”

In many respects, border disputes are a feature of the modern nation state. At the end of the colonial period, the formation of international boundaries often cut across historically connected communities with shared heritage and common culture.

The division of natural terrain by cartographers, using a pencil and ruler to draw straight lines on a map for the redistribution of territories led to – at best resentment by the traditional custodians of such lands, and at worst – outright wars over the sovereignty of territories.

In some cases, borders have been created within erstwhile states – as seen with the division of Ireland, Palestine and the case study here – Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).

Furthermore, in discussing contemporary cross border tensions, Rongxing Guo reminds us that many boundaries are in fact “fuzzy”, in other words, lack coordinates or quantifiable demarcations on the ground, leaving room for claims over the rightful ownership of land – and thus conflict. Guo summarizes the main factors contributing to the escalation of border disputes between nation states as; “resource scarcity, locational feature [or characteristics], domestic politics, geopolitical competition and cultural difference”.

Using these factors as reference points, this article adds important context to the long-standing border conflicts between nuclear powers – India and China and India and Pakistan, in the disputed territory of J&K.

Until 1947 J&K was an autonomous state ruled by a monarch, who was instructed by the British to merge with either India or Pakistan. This led to military interventions by India and Pakistan, resulting in both taking control of parts of the state and three subsequent wars. In 1962, India and China also went to war over a portion of the territory.

It was due to the magnitude of the territorial dispute that Bill Clinton referred to J&K as the most dangerous place in the world. The military standoffs between India and Pakistan on one of J&K’s borders or ceasefire lines – known as the Line of Control (LoC), frequently make international headlines reporting deaths of army personnel and civilians.

Whoever controls J&K controls the source of the water so desperately required by both states for consumption, agriculture and more pressingly, the generation of electricity through hydropower projects (or dams).

India and China clashed on J&K’s eastern border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) several times during 2020, with incidents in June resulting in 20 Indian deaths, and in September, firing from both sides reported.

Resources

J&K is resource rich, with minerals, precious gems, forests and, significantly, water. When the snow on its mountains melts, it flows into the rivers providing a lifeline to both neighboring India and Pakistan. Whoever controls J&K controls the source of the water so desperately required by both states for consumption, agriculture and more pressingly, the generation of electricity through hydropower projects (or dams).

Geopolitical competition

Border skirmishes between troops can distract from larger regional issues often hidden behind episodes of aggression, such as geopolitical competition and economic allying. The building of infrastructure in the form of highways and rail tracks along the LAC by India was reported to trigger concerns by China.

Yet China has been engaged in an ambitious project with India’s rival Pakistan for a number of years. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has built roads through Gilgit Baltistan, in Pakistani controlled J&K, which India lays claim to (along with the rest of the divided J&K).

CPEC allows China to access the Arabian Sea to export goods, via Pakistani administered J&K and into mainland Pakistan, where it has built a port in Gwadar. China and Pakistan’s diplomatic relations have been strengthened by the endeavor, with the former becoming an even more important ally for the latter in its own border dispute with India.

In February 2019, a suicide bomb killed 49 police officers in Palwama, Indian Controlled J&K. India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) blamed Pakistan for the attack as an act of state sponsored terrorism and declared threats of war in retaliation. Yet Pakistan fervently denied any involvement, with one media outlet claiming that the “Palwama drama” was “a conspiracy”. As bizarre as it may sound, many within India believed the attack was in fact a way for the BJP to flex its political muscle by standing up to Pakistan in order to boost electoral advantage.

Creating friction with Pakistan, in this view, was merely a political strategy. Theorist such as Ariel Zellman describe how democratic leaders can gain credibility with their electorates through “extreme policy positions” regarding international disputes. This can entail reigniting a dispute and/or emphasising threats to national security. In other words, border disputes can be useful for domestic political gain.

Cultural differences

Guo describes how cultural differences between hostile nations can exacerbate border disputes. He writes, “race, ethnicity, language and religion have divided states into separate political entities as much as physical terrain, political fiat or conquest.”

In the case of Indo-Pak relations, religion is the differentiator, given the partition of British India and creation of Pakistan was to provide a homeland for the Muslim minority. The fact that J&K is a Muslim majority state under Hindu majority control has been the core rationale for Pakistan’s claim over the territory.

In 2014, the aforementioned BJP gained power with their right wing ideology known as Hindutva, which emphasises Hindu superiority. Collective identities like national identities are bolstered against a perceived ‘other’ – in this case, the Muslim minority within the Indian boundaries, as well as the Muslim neighbor with which the country shares a border dispute.

This is of course a trend noted in other parts of the world with the rise of nationalism, which has consequences for state minorities as well as regional and even global relations.