The Roots Beneath the Snow
Kashmir’s story doesn’t begin in 1947, or with the Mughals, or even with Emperor Ashoka. It begins much earlier—before borders, before narratives were carved up for political convenience. According to the 6th-century Nilamata Purana, the valley was once a vast lake ruled by a demon named Jalodbhava. It was the sage Kashyapa who drained the waters and made the land habitable. Hence the name: Kashyapamira—the land of Kashyapa.
Kashmir. According to Christopher Snedden, the name Kashmir is a shortened form of “Kashyapa Mira”, or the “lake of the sage Kashyapa”. Alternatively, it may come from a Kashmiri or Sanskrit term that means “to dry up water”.
To the people who once lived here, this wasn’t just myth. It was memory. It explained the sacredness of their land, the foundation of a culture that mixed the spiritual with the scholarly.
Under Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, Buddhism entered the valley. Monasteries, viharas, and learning centers turned Kashmir into a thriving intellectual hub. In 72 AD, the Fourth Buddhist Council was held here under Emperor Kanishka, setting the course for Mahayana Buddhism across Asia.
By the 7th century, the Hindu Karkota dynasty rose to power. King Lalitaditya Muktapida built temples that fused Gandhara, Gupta, and native Kashmiri architecture. The Martand Sun Temple, his most iconic creation, was a symbol of Kashmiri engineering, aesthetics, and devotion.
But temples were not the only institutions of reverence. Kashmir was also home to Sharda Peeth, one of the subcontinent’s most important centers of learning. Scholars traveled from across Bharat to study its texts and script. This wasn’t some peripheral territory—Kashmir was central to the Indian civilizational identity.
The Swords That Came and Went
Invasions came, but rarely succeeded. The Arabs tried in the 8th century and failed. Even Mahmud of Ghazni, the famed temple-raider, suffered defeat in Kashmir. Historian Kalhana noted that Kashmir could not be conquered by force. And so, when the sword failed, ideology crept in.
By the late 14th century, Sufi missionaries fleeing Central Asian upheavals began to arrive. Among them, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani—not just a preacher, but a man with a vision. With over 700 followers, he brought not only Islamic theology but political strategy. His influence helped pave the way for the Islamization of the valley. His son, Mir Muhammad Hamadani, took a more militant turn. Working with Sultan Sikandar, he enforced strict Islamic law, targeted temples, and suppressed non-Islamic practices.
What foreign invaders failed to achieve with weapons, insiders accomplished with religious decrees. Shrines were desecrated. Music was banned. Dress codes were enforced. The majestic Martand Sun Temple was destroyed stone by stone.
By the end of the 15th century, Islam had become the dominant faith—not through a peaceful spiritual transformation, but through centuries of pressure, manipulation, and religious purging. The Rishi-Sufi tradition that once blended local mysticism with Islamic thought began to shrink.
The Rise of the Rishis and Their Eclipse
Figures like Lal Ded (Laleshwari), who bridged Shaivism and Sufism, embodied a fusion that could have defined Kashmir’s future. Her verses are still remembered. Her student, Nund Rishi (Sheikh Noor-ud-Din), led the Rishi order—a uniquely Kashmiri form of spiritual humanism. For a time, this syncretic tradition offered an alternative to hardline dogma. It was inclusive, indigenous, and deeply resonant.
But it didn’t last. In the 18th century, Wahhabism arrived—a more rigid, puritanical form of Islam backed by Gulf funding. The change was stark. Shrines went quiet. Songs stopped. Rituals that once brought communities together were replaced by sermons that drove them apart.
From Coexistence to Cleansing
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the social fabric of Kashmir—already worn thin—began to tear completely. The shift was visible, yet hard to articulate in real time. Cinema halls shut down. Beauty parlors were threatened. Women were attacked with acid or shot in the knees for not wearing veils. Pamphlets listing names of Kashmiri Pandits to be targeted appeared overnight on mosque doors and electric poles.
This was no longer passive cultural drift. This was ideological enforcement at gunpoint. Religious policing entered family gatherings, weddings, even schoolyards. Men were told to grow beards. Women were told to cover up. And anyone who questioned this new orthodoxy risked being labeled a collaborator—a mukhbir.
Amid all this, thousands of Pandit families fled. It was their seventh exodus—a detail barely acknowledged in national memory. The silence from the rest of the world wasn’t just apathy; it was complicity.
Foreign Money, Local Collapse
In some of the poorest districts like Kupwara and Budgam, locals noticed an odd contradiction: dilapidated homes and failing schools stood next to gleaming new mosques. A UN survey on children affected by conflict in the early 2000s confirmed what many suspected—foreign funds, particularly from Gulf nations, were fueling a theological makeover.
With money came control. Local Sufi imams were replaced or silenced. Preachers began warning against contact with Hindus, even fellow Muslims who didn’t conform to the new orthodoxy. The doctrine wasn’t native. It was imported, literalist, and aggressive. The moderate majority fell silent.
The Legal Cage
Article 370 gave Kashmir special status, but it also entrenched inequalities. Women who married outside the state lost inheritance rights. Long-residing communities like the Valmikis and West Pakistan refugees were denied state subject status, government jobs, even voting rights.
Liberal laws that applied elsewhere in India had no bearing in Kashmir. The Ranbir Penal Code, a relic of the Dogra era, governed civil life. Reform was impossible. Change, when it came, came late.
Even today, some call the restoration of temples or a fashion show in Gulmarg “cultural aggression.” The narrative has flipped. The dispossessed are branded as occupiers. Those trying to reclaim heritage are accused of erasing someone else’s.
A Shift in the Valley
And yet, something is changing. In recent years, ordinary Kashmiris have begun to reclaim space—socially, intellectually, and politically. Candlelight marches have appeared in places that once echoed only with fear. Where silence once meant survival, voices are slowly rising.
Some of this shift is generational. Younger Kashmiris are beginning to see beyond the boundaries drawn by separatist leaders. There is growing recognition that Indian Muslims are diverse—in culture, language, even theology. A Tamil Muslim, a Gujarati Muslim, a Kashmiri Muslim—they’re all different, yet connected.
For decades, Kashmiris were cut off not just from India, but from each other. The elite built no bridges. Now, bridges are being built from the ground up—through education, tourism, shared work.
The question is not whether Kashmir will be part of India. It already is, by law and by legacy. The real question is whether it can reconnect with the rest of India not just politically, but culturally, emotionally, and historically.
The Truth That Hurts
History is not always clean. It doesn’t offer easy heroes or tidy timelines. But it does leave clues. In Kashmir’s case, the clues are everywhere: in broken temples, in shuttered shrines, in songs that no longer echo across the Dal Lake.
The past was erased slowly. The present is being rewritten aggressively. And unless the truth is spoken—with all its discomfort and detail—the future will be no better.
To call Hindus returning to their ancestral homes “settlers” is to insult history. To call heritage restoration “colonial” is to weaponize language.
This isn’t about left or right. It’s about what’s right.
Kashmir isn’t just a conflict zone. It is a civilizational wound. And healing begins with truth.
Sources: Nilamata Purana, Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, UN reports on Kashmir conflict, works by Chitralekha Zutshi, Human Rights Watch, Indian Express, and multiple firsthand accounts collected from the Valley.
