Social Media Helps Kashmiri Youth Share And Fund Music To Fight Depression, Isolation
Music students practice at Mizab in Srinagar, Kashmir, India. Photo by Zaffar Iqbal.
SRINAGAR, Jammu-Kashmir— Young Kashmiris are creating and performing new music as therapy to counter the sense of hopelessness, isolation and depression — along with substance abuse — that has gripped Kashmir.
The Himalayan region of North India that is majority Muslim has endured years of conflict, military presence, frequent lockdowns and unpredictable internet bans under a Hindu-first government.
But despite shaky access to the internet, these young musicians have found mass followings on social media platforms that help them earn an income in a society where making music into a career is taboo. Their songs are also putting Kashmiri culture on the music map of South Asian entertainment.
The region’s first music school, Mizab, in Sringar, has opened its doors to music lovers, waiving tuition for those who cannot afford to pay the fees. This year, more than 70 students enrolled and are learning to play the guitar and rabab — a lute-like instrument played with a bow — mentored by the popular Kashmiri artists Irfan Nabi and Bilal Ahmad.
Nabi and Ahmad have participated in several tours across India and abroad, but it wasn’t easy for the duo — trained outside Kashmir — to break local stereotypes.
Musician Irfan Nabi teaches at Mizab. Photo by Zaffar Iqbal.
“Initially we faced resistance,” Ahmad said. “Our style of music was not accepted in Kashmir. We use pop and Western music genres unlike the popular Sufi music. But we didn’t give up. We held concerts and gave performances in colleges drawing a good response from the youngsters.”
Kashmir was incorporated into India at the time of India’s independence in 1947 rather than Pakistan under an Indian constitutional provision called Article 370, which allowed for semi-autonomous rule in Kashmir. But control of the region has been disputed, often violently, by the two nations since then.
Nearly seven million people live in the Kashmir Valley, and 97% are Muslim, according to Indian census data. About 47,000 people have been killed in conflict — mainly between Indian security forces and Kashmiri militant separatists — in the last three decades, according to government figures. In the 1990s, many Kashmiri Hindus fled for their lives and settled outside Kashmir, in places like Jammu and Delhi.
In August 2019, the Narendra Modi-led government abolished Article 370 and enforced a communications blackout — including phone and Internet — for months.
Overnight, a law that had helped to to prevent demographic change and preserve Kashmir’s identity and Muslim character by barring outsiders from buying land or applying for government jobs in Kashmir had ceased to exist. A new law opened the region for outsiders to settle.
The protracted conflict in Kashmir has already taken a huge toll on the mental health of the people, with health experts calling Kashmiris a traumatized population. Unemployment and a general sense of hopelessness has pushed a big chunk of the valley’s youth into drug addiction. But music is helping them cope in healthier ways.
“Many youngsters who were drug addicts are now turning to music,” Ahmad said. “They are giving performances with us on the stage. Music acts like a therapy for people suffering from depression.”
After the eruption of militancy in the early nineties to curb rebel armed groups, the entertainment venues closed in Kashmir. Cinema halls were shut down, and the music industry took a backseat. Hardly any music albums were released.
Yawar Showkat, 22, a student at Mizrab, trains for hours to perfect his skills. Since childhood, he has dreamed of becoming a professional guitar player, but he is not confident that music will become his career. Still, he said he will give it his best shot.
“I believe everything is in the hands of God,” Showkat said. “If He has chosen this profession for me, I will become a musician.”
Mohamamd Shadab, 20, lost his memory after a motorcycle accident two years ago. He said music is his passion, but he forgot how to play guitar even though he had trained for two years. Now, Shadab is relearning — he said he won’t let societal attitudes deter him.
Jehangir, 18, began to train as a vocalist as small child after a trip to Delhi for an audition in a music contest.
“When I went to participate in a music contest, my family members encouraged me,” he said. “They said you have a good voice but now things are a bit different, sometimes when I get late from my practice, I am asked the question — I am told to focus on my education and prepare for the examination.”
Social media opens new opportunity for careers in music
There are an estimated 60 bands in Kashmir creating names for themselves online currently. For these budding artists, the internet is helping them break barriers and reach larger audiences.
Mehmeet Syed, a young Kashmiri singer, said her family supported her after she decided to make singing her profession a decade ago. Since then, she has performed in India and abroad, gaining 21,000 followers on Instagram. But the back-to-back lockdowns in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 and then the pandemic paused her performances and income.
Still, she decided against moving to Mumbai, where Bollywood and much of the Indian entertainment industry are based, and remains in Kashmir. She is currently planning an online concert.
“When I started a decade back there wasn’t much scope to reach out to audiences, but now you can record a song and become an overnight celebrity,” she said. “Kashmiris around the globe listen to your voice, this has helped a lot. Whenever I share my new composition or a new song, I just post it on social media, people come to know about it, they listen to it, they love it.”
Other young Kashmiri musicians have turned to YouTube. They were out of work during lockdowns, but now they are back to creating funny videos using local themes.
Koshur Kalakar, for example, is a group of YouTubers who make comedic videos to cheer up people in the valley caught in conflict. The aim is not just to entertain Kashmiris through satirical videos but also to convey social messages on issues like reckless driving and drug addiction. Over the last three years, they have generated a lot of traction on social media, with nearly 300,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel.
“We started our YouTube channel late December 2018 after we saw that people were mostly in depression,” said Mudassir, founder of Koshur Kalakar. “We wanted to create a source of entertainment to cheer up people, make them happy and give them some information.”
Mudassir said artists in Kashmir can’t solely rely on social media videos to earn money because of the constant threat of a government-imposed internet blackouts. And there are some in Kashmir who don’t approve of the group’s humor, but they are hopeful that will change.
Likewise, Syed said the lockdowns — when Kashmiris could not use social media — were particularly hard on artists.
“We were kind of in jail,” she said. “We were not able to go out, we were not able to express ourselves, it was a feeling of breathlessness, we didn’t have the freedom to breathe, to talk. COVID halted our lives.”
Zaffar Iqbal is a journalist based in Kashmir, India. He has reported for 18 years on armed encounters, environmental issues, crime, politics, culture and human rights. He’s formerly the bureau chief of Jammu and Kashmir for NDTV.