The Inheritance of Kashmir
The news came in pieces. A few lines in a WhatsApp group. Then a breaking ticker. Then the numbers.
31 dead in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Punjab. 13 on the Indian side. Another round of artillery fire. Another operation with a name designed to feel like meaning.
Shehbaz Sharif called them martyrs. Narendra Modi called them terrorists. Each side accused the other of starting it. Each side said it was retaliation. Each side insisted it had no choice.
This is what Kashmir has become. Not a place, but a pattern.
Tensions have been rising since April 22, when a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam left dozens dead. India blamed Pakistan. Pakistan denied involvement. From there, it was only a matter of time. The build-up was predictable. The outcome even more so.
The roots of it go back to 1947, when British India was split hastily and bloodily into two.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region ruled by a Hindu Maharaja, was the paradox no one could solve. The Maharaja chose India. Pakistan invaded. India pushed back. A UN line was drawn. And that line, called the Line of Control, is still there, dividing a region, justifying two militaries, and consuming every generation since.
Kashmir is often described as the most militarized zone in the world. But that makes it sound exceptional. It isn’t. It’s ordinary now. A routine headline. A familiar grief.
For Pakistan, Kashmir is a wound that never closed—a piece of the homeland that got away. It serves as the spiritual residue of Partition, proof that the promise of Pakistan remains incomplete. For India, it’s a litmus test for secularism. The argument is that if India can govern a Muslim-majority state within a Hindu-majority country, then the project of Indian democracy still lives. That’s the theory. The practice is bloodier.
Every generation in both countries inherits this conflict like an heirloom, passed down with grand ceremony but devoid of reason. You grow up with it. In textbooks, in slogans, in the quiet ways your parents speak of the other side.
India teaches Kashmir as an integral part. Pakistan teaches it as an occupied territory. The maps are different. The sentiment is the same. Unyielding.
Nationalist fervor ensures political careers thrive as long as Kashmir bleeds. For populist leaders on both sides, Kashmir is the perfect distraction.
It’s the eternal campaign rally. Whenever a government falters on the economy, corruption, or inequality, it can always count on Kashmir to rally support.
This has real costs. On the ground, generations of Kashmiris bear the brunt. They live between two countries, but they belong to neither.
They are policed by India and politicized by Pakistan. India enforces harsh lockdowns, mass detentions, and communication blackouts. Pakistan backs insurgents, sometimes under the guise of freedom fighters. Both call it a strategy. Kashmiris call it life.
Innocents become casualties. Grievances become radicalization. And radicalization becomes the excuse for more security, more checkpoints, more control.
It is a self-fulfilling loop. Each generation finds fresh reasons for rebellion, ensuring the next inherits the same cycle of violence and victimhood.
The world, for the most part, watches silently.
The United Nations issues statements. World powers urge dialogue. But no one pushes too hard. India is a massive market. Pakistan is a nuclear state. And both are too strategically important to offend. The West has learned to tolerate the Kashmir issue like a chronic illness: monitored, managed, but never treated.
The nuclear dimension is not rhetorical. It's not hypothetical. It's policy. Both India and Pakistan possess enough firepower to destroy not just each other, but millions of lives across the region. There have been moments in the past—Kargil in 1999, Balakot in 2019—when war felt only one mistake away from becoming apocalyptic. Yet somehow, the cycle resets. Not because of wisdom, but because of exhaustion.
And still, the mythologies persist.
Pakistan sees Kashmir as proof of India’s moral failure. India sees it as proof of Pakistan’s perpetual interference. Both are partly right and mostly unwilling to admit their failures.
The deeper truth is that both governments have used Kashmir to avoid confronting their internal contradictions.
In Pakistan, the military elite continues to shape foreign policy from the shadows. Civilian leaders are dismissed or discredited the moment they step out of line. The army positions itself as the protector of the national interest, and Kashmir is its most sacred justification.
In India, the shift has been more recent but equally concerning.
The rise of Hindu nationalism has reframed the Kashmir question through a majoritarian lens. The abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, which removed Kashmir's limited autonomy, was celebrated across much of India. But in Kashmir, it felt like occupation turned into annexation.
The region has since been under tight surveillance, with little political representation and almost no international oversight.
Both countries are lying to themselves. Pakistan lies about its control over the insurgency. India lies about normalcy. Neither narrative really stands up to scrutiny.
Kashmir is not at peace, it is not resolved, and it is managed barely through force and fear.
Real peace demands more than ceasefires. It demands honesty. It requires reckoning with history that neither country seems prepared to face. It means recognizing the humanity of the Kashmiri people, not as pawns or symbols but as citizens with the right to dignity, safety, and self-determination.
Dialogue is not weakness. Compromise is not surrender. But to get there, the political cost must be made worth it. That starts with leaders willing to speak to their people truthfully. It begins with media coverage that doesn't just chase the latest body count, but examines why the dying never stops. It starts with education systems that teach more than grievance and glory.
Kashmir deserves more than the fate of an eternal stalemate. It deserves nuance, acknowledgment, and a sincere, sustained effort toward peace, not because it's easy but hard.
Continuing the current cycle betrays not just the resilient people of Kashmir but also the quiet humanity both countries still share beneath decades of constructed animosity.
By recognizing this shared vulnerability, both nations could finally see the path forward—a quieter one free from the deafening echoes of vengeance and bitterness. One where Kashmir is reclaimed as a land of possibilities, not inherited as a conflict.