Kashmir’s public discourse often swings between selective memory and political convenience. Few issues illustrate this more sharply than the migration of Kashmiri Pandits in the early 1990s and the alarming rise of drug addiction in the Valley today.
Both are deeply painful realities. Both deserve seriousness, honesty, and compassion. Yet both are increasingly reduced to simplified political narratives that fail to capture the complexity of Kashmir’s lived experience.
Recent remarks attributed to political leaders, including Farooq Abdullah and Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, have once again revived debate around these subjects. But instead of encouraging deeper reflection, much of the conversation continues to move toward narrow explanations and political positioning.
The migration of Kashmiri Pandits remains one of the greatest tragedies in Kashmir’s modern history. It shattered centuries of coexistence and altered the social and cultural character of the Valley forever. Entire families were uprooted. Communities that once formed an integral part of Kashmir’s intellectual, cultural, and administrative life disappeared from the Valley almost overnight. The emotional scars of that rupture remain visible even today.
However, history becomes distorted when complex events are forced into a single narrative.
The early 1990s were marked not only by militancy but also by institutional collapse, political uncertainty, fear, and rapidly deteriorating trust between citizens and the state. V. P. Singh headed the government at the Centre, while Mufti Mohammad Sayeed held the crucial Home portfolio. Yet, during that period, Kashmir was not being shaped solely by formal institutions. Multiple political and security power centres influenced decision-making, often through unofficial channels and opaque processes.
Within this volatile environment, reports and political conversations, never formally acknowledged but widely discussed, suggested the possibility of extreme state action in Kashmir’s densely populated urban centres, particularly Srinagar’s Share-i-Khas. Among the fears circulating at the time was the possibility of large-scale military action, even the carpet bombing of old Srinagar, comparable to devastation later witnessed in places like Gaza or South Lebanon.
Whether such measures were formally contemplated or not, their circulation had a profound psychological impact across society.
For many Kashmiri families, this was not an abstract geopolitical discussion. It was a question of survival.
Fear, Flight, and Collapsing Trust
During that period, there was also a widespread perception among sections of society that many Kashmiri Pandits living in urban centres were being facilitated out through official channels during prolonged curfews and heightened security restrictions. Stories spread of military vehicles and government-arranged transport being used to move families out of Srinagar localities where normal civilian movement itself had become nearly impossible.
In several institutions, businesses and offices, Pandit colleagues who had been part of everyday life disappeared almost overnight. In many cases, neighbours and co-workers only realised later that entire families had quietly left during curfew-bound nights.
The village Pandits, however, often left later and under much harsher circumstances. Many among them suffered immensely in camps and temporary settlements after displacement. Their suffering remains one of the darkest humanitarian consequences of that period.
Recognising these realities does not diminish the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits. Nor does it deny the targeted threats, killings, and fear that many among them experienced. Their pain, dispossession and prolonged exile cannot and should never be erased.
But reducing the migration entirely to a singular political explanation prevents a fuller understanding of the climate in which decisions were made.
Conflict zones are shaped not only by direct violence but also by the anticipation of violence. Rumour, uncertainty, and collapsing institutional trust often become as powerful as actual events. Decisions are taken under fear, not historical hindsight.
Some families migrated within Jammu and Kashmir. Others left India altogether, not as refugees in the conventional sense, but as part of a preventive strategy against a feared worst-case scenario.
This broader and often unacknowledged dimension of Kashmir’s diaspora was shaped not only by direct violence but by the anticipation of what people feared might happen next.
For many Kashmiri Muslim families, too, the period produced deep anxieties about survival and the future. Conversations within households increasingly revolved around contingency planning. Parents advised children to create economic and professional footholds outside Kashmir or outside India itself because confidence in political stability and state protection had weakened dramatically.
In some circles, these fears were reinforced by political conversations involving senior figures of the time. It was widely believed among certain families that late Congress leader and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mir Qasim had privately conveyed concerns regarding contemplated military action in Srinagar if the situation escalated further. According to such accounts, international pressure, particularly from the United States, may have helped avert a catastrophic scenario after warnings that any such action could provoke wider regional conflict, including possible military intervention by Pakistan.
Whether fully documented or not, these discussions formed part of the psychological reality of that era. The point is not to validate every rumour or retrospective claim. The point is to understand how ordinary societies behave under conditions of extreme uncertainty and collapsing trust.
History becomes dangerous when only one set of fears is considered legitimate while others are erased from memory.
Addiction and Burden of Conflict
Unfortunately, political discourse often prefers simplified versions of history because they are easier to weaponise.
A similar simplification is now visible in discussions around Kashmir’s growing drug crisis.
The tendency to attribute rising substance abuse primarily to militancy may sound politically convenient, but it ignores the deeper social and psychological realities confronting Kashmiri society.
From the perspective of psychiatry and public health, addiction in conflict regions rarely emerges from a single source. It is usually the outcome of prolonged psychological distress combined with economic stagnation, social breakdown, and lack of institutional support.
Kashmir today reflects all these conditions.
For decades, the region has witnessed recurring cycles of uncertainty, violence, shutdowns, disruption, and political instability. Young people have grown up amid unemployment, anxiety, interrupted education, and shrinking opportunities. Community structures that once provided emotional and social stability have weakened considerably.
At the same time, mental health distress has risen sharply. Local psychiatrists and medical professionals have repeatedly pointed to increasing levels of depression, anxiety and trauma-related disorders. Thousands of people now seek psychiatric assistance, something that was far less common several decades ago.
Drug abuse must therefore be understood as a symptom of deeper social distress rather than merely a law-and-order problem.
Reducing addiction solely to militancy risks ignoring the structural realities producing despair among large sections of the youth. A generation raised amid unresolved political conflict, uncertainty, and economic frustration inevitably becomes more vulnerable to substance abuse.
This does not mean security concerns should be ignored. Drug trafficking networks certainly need to be dismantled. Criminal syndicates exploiting vulnerable youth must face strict action.
But policing alone cannot solve a public health emergency rooted in long-term political uncertainty, social fragmentation, and psychological trauma.
Treating the crisis only through a security lens may produce arrests and headlines, but it will not heal a wounded society.
The larger danger lies in how politics approaches both these issues.
Whether discussing the migration of Pandits or the rise of addiction, there is an increasing tendency to fit complex realities into politically convenient frameworks. Such narratives may produce immediate political gains, but they come at a serious long-term cost. They obscure truth, deepen social divisions, and prevent meaningful solutions from emerging.
Towards Honest Engagement
Kashmir does not need competing victimhood narratives. It needs an honest reckoning.
This requires:
• Acknowledging the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits and enabling conditions for their dignified return
• Recognising the broader climate of fear and insecurity that shaped decisions across communities during the 1990s
• Treating the drug crisis as a public health emergency rooted in structural realities, particularly the non-settlement of Kashmir, not merely a byproduct of militancy
Societies heal only when they are willing to confront uncomfortable truths in their full complexity. Selective memory may serve politics, but it rarely serves justice, reconciliation, or long-term peace.
Until such an approach is adopted, Kashmir will remain trapped, not only in conflict, but in the politics of selective memory.
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