Why Innocents Deserve Dignity, Not Discrimination
Peerzada Musrat Shah
The footage is painful to watch. Two Kashmiri shawl sellers in Himachal Pradesh—middle-aged men with weathered faces and calloused hands—are surrounded by a small crowd. Their bags are emptied on the roadside, shawls unfurled like evidence at a crime scene, while someone films on a phone. Their “offence”? Selling pashmina in a tourist town after a terror attack hundreds of kilometres away. In the comment sections, some cheer the “vigilance.” Most Indians, however, feel a quiet shame. This is not who we are—or at least, not who we claim to be.
Collective punishment dressed as patriotism is still collective punishment. When two men trying to earn ₹500 a day are stripped of dignity because of their Kashmiri accent, we do not become safer; we become smaller. The Idea of India shrinks every time an innocent person is made to pay for the sins of the guilty.
Let us be clear: the overwhelming majority of Kashmiris living, studying, and working outside the Valley are not fifth-columnists. They are students cramming in Kota coaching centres, doctors saving lives in Delhi hospitals, dry-fruit sellers in Chennai markets, and software engineers writing code in Bengaluru startups. They send money home, learn the local lingo, celebrate Diwali with neighbours, and fast during Ramadan in hostel rooms. They are, in the truest sense, the soft power of Kashmir—the living rebuttal to the stone-pelter and the militant.
Yet suspicion follows them like a shadow. After every attack—be it Pulwama, Pathankot, or Uri—rental brokers suddenly have “no rooms,” cab drivers refuse fares, and college WhatsApp groups circulate “safety tips” that are barely concealed ethnic profiling. Landlords ask for “character certificates” only from Kashmiri students. Hostels that happily rent to everyone else demand extra deposits “just in case.” These are not aberrations; they are patterns.
The irony is bitter. The same government that celebrates record-low terror recruitment in Jammu and Kashmir (down from 133 in 2018 to single digits in recent years) and the near-disappearance of stone-pelting sees its narrative of normalcy undermined by roadside humiliations in the rest of India. Peace is not a statistic sheet presented in Delhi; it is the feeling of a Kashmiri dry-fruit vendor in Kolkata who can bargain without being asked, “Pakistani ho kya?” It is a teenage girl from Baramulla studying in Pune who does not have to explain, for the hundredth time, that her father is a schoolteacher, not a militant.
Terrorism is a crime against humanity, and fighting it requires iron resolve. But the fight is lost the moment we start seeing every Kashmiri as a potential terrorist rather than a potential patriot. When we do that, we hand the extremist a victory he could never achieve with an AK-47: the alienation of an entire generation that was beginning to believe in India again.
The Centre and the Jammu & Kashmir administration have done commendable work in restoring governance, building roads, opening schools, and squeezing terror financing. Tourism is booming, cinema halls are packed, and the Amarnath Yatra sees record pilgrims. These are genuine achievements. But bricks-and-mortar development without emotional integration is a half-built bridge. You can lay optical fibre across the Pir Panjal, but if a Kashmiri student in Jaipur still feels he must hide his identity to rent a room, the connection remains fragile.
What, then, is to be done?
First, state governments must act decisively against vigilante “checks.” Public humiliation of citizens based on ethnicity is not law enforcement; it is hooliganism wearing the mask of nationalism. Police officers who look the other way—or worse, participate—must face departmental action. A clear message from the top—that no one is above the law and no one beneath its protection—will do more to build trust than a hundred outreach programmes.
Second, we need sustained counter-narratives in the media and on social platforms. Every time a Kashmiri doctor saves a life in Mumbai, a Kashmiri cricketer hits a century for India, or a Kashmiri entrepreneur creates jobs in Gurugram, those stories must trend louder than the inevitable outrage after an attack. We amplified “Kashmir ki kali” once; we can amplify Kashmir ki kahani again.
Third, educational institutions and civil society must step up. Orientation programmes for non-Kashmiri students that humanise rather than demonise their Kashmiri peers; inter-community festivals where shawls are sold and kehwa is shared; mentorship networks that pair Kashmiri students with local families—these are not token gestures. They are nation-building at the grassroots.
Finally, Kashmiris themselves have a role. The community must continue to unequivocally condemn terrorism, name and shame the handful who still glorify violence, and celebrate those who choose the hard path of peace. Silence in the face of extremism, however politically convenient, exacts a terrible price on the innocent.
India is not a nation because we share a bloodline; it is a nation because we share a idea—that a boy from Anantnag and a girl from Kanyakumari can dream the same dream under the same flag. When we let that idea be corroded by prejudice, we do the terrorist’s work for him.
Let the shawl seller sell his shawls. Let the student attend her classes. Let the doctor treat his patients. And let every Indian remember: the surest way to defeat those who want Kashmir separated from India is to make sure no Kashmiri ever feels separated from India.
That is not sentimentality. That is strategy. That is patriotism. That is the only Idea of India worth defending.
