New Year Reality Check – Militancy Loses Appeal, Rozgar Is The Buzzword for Kashmiri Youths
As the year ended, headlines in Kashmir media said local recruitment in militancy dropped to less than ten in 2024. Only seven Kashmiri youths joined militant ranks last year.
The figure reflects what drives the youths in Kashmir today. It is the quest to seek a meaningful life and career, and secure roti, kapda aur makaan.
Local recruitment in militancy has been steadily declining since 2021, when 125 youths joined militant ranks. In 2022, the number of new Kashmiri recruits taking up arms dropped to 100. In 2023, the number further declined, with only 22 local youths joining terror groups.
The threat to peace and stability in Jammu and Kashmir is currently posed by foreign terrorists who have infiltrated from Pakistan and are carrying out terror attacks in the region.
Within Kashmir, Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban, the new reality is that youths are working hard to secure government jobs. Entrepreneurship is taking roots, but its pace is slow.
Decline in number of Kashmiri youths joining militancy 2021-2024
Sarkari Jobs Most Highly Rated
In Kashmir, government jobs are the most coveted socially and in the marriage market. Coaching academies have mushroomed by dozens in Srinagar and in all major towns of Kashmir, offering targeted coaching for JKSSB and JKPSC jobs.
Thousands of Kashmiri youths live in rented accommodation in capital Srinagar, away from home, slogging to join a government department at a good position. Kashmiri youths now associate wisdom and contentment with living a fulfilled life, looking after their family and loved ones. Militancy is not favoured any more.
Militants Killed in Kashmir 2019-2024
Decisive Shift In Kashmir Society
The decline in the number of local militants is indicative of the shift in Kashmir society. Violence has lost social sanction. The change also speaks of the realisation of the futility of taking arms and choosing the path of militancy.
Among youth groups, it is a point of common discussion that armed struggle has not fetched any tangible results. Hence the choice for Kashmiri youths is now the path of peace and development.
The politicians of the valley still create noise about Article 370. But among the youths, Article 370 is not a major talking point anymore. What the youths seek is sustainable peace with adequate job opportunities.
The year 2024 witnessed a surge in militant attacks, but the larger Kashmir society now shuns those who choose the path of violence. The youth icons celebrated by Kashmir today are youngsters who carve their path and seek glory in affirmative and constructive life choices.
‘Our society has found its centre of balance again’
A Kashmir University scholar said that unfortunately, the small faction of youths that had chosen the path of violence got disproportionate visibility for more than three decades.
“Kashmir is a part of India, and this has been the majority realisation in Kashmir. Only a faction took to the path of violence, and now our society has found its centre of balance again,” the KU scholar remarked.
Militancy in Kashmir was connected to a complex matrix which included a feeling of injustice caused by rampant corruption, nepotism and favouritism in appointment to government jobs. The emphasis on merit-based appointments to government jobs in the last five years after the abrogation of Article 370 has restored the faith of the youths in the system.
Today, the youth icons of Kashmir are youngsters who carve their path and seek glory in affirmative and constructive life choices
With peace measures and the tourism boom, there is also greater faith in entrepreneurship. Kashmir’s news media and the valley’s robust social media is full of stories of local men and women who have become job creators in diverse fields like bee keeping, dairy, animal husbandry, and in activities related to handicrafts or other skills.
Indeed, the greatest achievement of Kashmir today is that more and more youths are part of the national mainstream. They have shunned separatism and have chosen to live a happy and fulfilled life and contribute to society.
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