2025, Vol. 7, Issue 8, Part C

Author(s): Farhat Uzair and Zahid Iqbal Shah

Abstract: The youth of Kashmir, positioned at the crossroads of long-standing conflict and abrupt political transformation, are actively rethinking who they are and where they belong. Rather than inheriting static notions of identity, they weave together fragments of tradition, faith, global culture, and everyday struggle. This paper examines how Kashmiri youth navigate the pressures of state surveillance, socio-economic precarity, and community expectations while experimenting with cultural and political expression. Based on field interviews, observations, and digital ethnography (2021-2023), the analysis highlights hybrid forms of belonging, ranging from rap music that mixes Kashmiri idioms with global beats to zines that fuse Sufi imagery with biting political satire. These practices complicate dominant depictions of Kashmiri youth as either radicalized threats or passive victims. Instead, they reveal young people as agents of negotiation who create new vocabularies of belonging under conditions of unfreedom. The study contributes to broader debates on youth, identity, and conflict by foregrounding the lived ambiguities, contradictions, and creative assertions of Kashmir’s younger generation.

DOI: 10.33545/26646021.2025.v7.i8c.647

Pages: 207-213 | Views: 99 | Downloads: 17

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