Every winter, India’s cities witness a quiet, unsettling ritual. A Kashmiri shawlwalla rings a doorbell, opens his bag on a stranger’s sofa or compound, recites the language of heritage, and...

Kashmir is perhaps the only place in India where entire government departments behave like seasonal shops – they open briefly when nature or crisis forces them to, and then quietly...

For decades we have spoken of Jammu and Kashmir as if it were one political soul. The truth – however uncomfortable – is that it has often been two temperaments...

There was a time in Kashmir when spirituality did not announce itself. It did not need microphones, entourages, or a cheering gallery. It arrived quietly – often barefoot, often hungry,...

An MP is not elected merely to comment on events. He is elected to shape outcomes. That requires drafting legislation, pushing policy amendments, building alliances across parties, demanding institutional reforms,...

Kashmir today is ruled less by governance and more by timelines. Its loudest politics unfolds not in secretariats, power stations or employment offices, but on Twitter/X – a space where...

Kashmir is intensely opinionated – about everything except itself. From Nitish Kumar’s political manoeuvres to Gaza’s ruins, from Israel – Palestine to faraway ideological battles, the Valley’s drawing rooms, WhatsApp...

A Kashmiri student fears travelling by air, always apprehensive of being at an airport for “routine questioning.” A young professional is asked – politely, but pointedly – where he stands...

Srinagar, we were repeatedly told, has been transformed into a “smart city.” Ironically, it was never as congested, chaotic, or directionless as it became after that declaration. If “smartness” is...

Here is a peculiar trait in the Indian state’s political psychology – an inconsistency that has persisted from Nehru to Modi, from soft separatism to muscular nationalism. India prides itself...