Uprooted Kashmiri Hindus Using Radio To Keep Their Identity Alive
SRINAGAR, India — More than 30 years after a violent insurgency forced their exodus from the Kashmir Valley, the Kashmiri Hindus (also known as Kashmiri Pandits) — once an integral part of Kashmir’s pluralistic fabric — continues to live in exile, dispersed across Indian cities and abroad. In this protracted displacement, the loss of home has also threatened a deeper erosion: That of language, memory and cultural identity.
But in the temple-laden city of Jammu, where thousands of Pandits resettled after the 1990 migration, a modest community radio station is attempting to stitch back some of what was torn apart. Founded in 2013, Radio Sharda has grown into a powerful cultural project — broadcasting Kashmiri-language content to a global diaspora and anchoring displaced people to their roots.
Named after the goddess of learning and the ancient Sharada Peeth temple, Radio Sharda is more than a radio station. It is a living archive of a vanishing language, a meeting point for artists and a shared refuge for memory.
“All of our content is in Kashmiri, made by Pandits, for everyone who understands the language,” said Ramesh Hangloo, the station’s founder.
Hangloo fled Anantnag district in south Kashmir in 1989, just before the full-scale migration began. He credits the idea for the station to an encounter with a Pakistani-origin broadcaster Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari in London in 2007, who had set up a community station for the diaspora.
“If they could do it thousands of miles away,” he saud, “why couldn’t we do it here?”
Today, Radio Sharda streams music, talk shows, poetry recitations, cultural discussions and oral histories. It is available on FM in Jammu and worldwide via the internet.
“I fled Kashmir at four in the morning with my family in a truck. There was an atmosphere of terror. My house was burnt in 1991. What’s left are ruins. I haven’t sold it,” Hangloo said.
Kashmir acceded to India at the time of India’s independence in 1947 rather than merging with a Muslim Pakistan under a constitutional provision called Article 370 that allowed a semi-autonomous rule in Kashmir. Nearly seven million people live in the Kashmir Valley, 97% of them Muslims. According to estimates, about 47,000 people have been killed in conflict, mainly between Indian security forces and Kashmiri militant separatists in the last three decades.
Revoking Article 370 was a longstanding demand of right-wing nationalists in India and a campaign promise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Its revocation in August 2019 was largely applauded by Indians outside Kashmir. Article 370 prevented non-Kashmiris from settling or owning businesses and property in Kashmir.
For Kashmiri Pandits, this is not just a personal memory, but collective trauma. The 1990 migration, triggered by rising militancy and targeted threats, displaced thousands of Pandit families from the Valley primarily to Jammu, Delhi and other parts of Hindu-majority India. Even decades later, the dislocation isn’t just geographical. It’s linguistic, cultural and, very often, emotional. That’s where initiatives like Radio Sharda — the first community radio station started by Kashmiri Hindus in Jammu — step in to stitch the cultural fabric back together.
“We got the licence for our station in 2011,” Hangloo said. “Initially we were unsure about the response, but the endeavour received an overwhelming response.”
Run largely on community contributions, the station broadcasts 24 hoursa a day, seven days a week, and hasn't gone off air even once since its inception. It draws its strength from diaspora engagement and cultural nostalgia.
“Our listeners span 108 countries. The Kashmiri language is our identity and the radio station provides that linguistic connection,” Hangloo said. “Sometimes that connection is even stronger than the religious one. We have to show that our roots are strong.”
He added: “Our dedicated listeners are mostly the elderly. Because of nostalgia, they say just listening to the radio makes them feel 10 or 20 years younger.”
While the radio broadcasts were started to serve displaced Kashmiri Hindus, the station regularly features volunteers and contributors from the Kashmir Valley — including Muslims from the area — who also worry about the dying use of their mother tongue.
“We feared the language would die out after the migration. But we found that even in the Kashmir Valley, the need to revive Kashmiri was being felt. Many people from the Valley now contribute to our programming,” Hangloo said.
To keep the cultural thread alive, they’ve named their programs after the famous gardens of Kashmir symbolizing a rootedness that refuses to wither. Despite the difficult history, this community radio is not about reliving the pain. It’s all about rebuilding identity.
“We run the station professionally, generating revenue through ads. Community contributes to radio, and radio contributes to community. We air health shows, youth and elderly programmes, humour, mythology, history — it’s a shared emotional archive,” Hangloo added. “There was a cultural binding in Kashmir. Our community has now scattered across the world and we have to cater to their emotional and cultural needs. That’s our biggest challenge —and our biggest reason to exist.”
Indeed, the power of this radio station lies in the personal.
“After Radio Sharda received its license, I got involved with the project and became part of its flagship program ‘Wangij Voer,’” said J.K. Raina, a performing artist. “We’ve been promoting Kashmiri language and culture purely out of passion, without seeking any financial gain.”
He added that the initiative is a vital effort to preserve the language among those born and raised outside Kashmir.
“Kashmiri was on the verge of extinction for the diaspora,” he said. “This is our way of reviving the language for our listeners across more than 100 countries.”
Raina also emphasized the social role of their broadcasts.
“Through our programmes, we raise awareness about government schemes and try to build bridges between Hindu and Muslim communities,” he added.
For Pandit families who have raised children outside Kashmir, language retention has become a key concern. In many homes, the mother tongue is fading with the first generation born in exile.
“My grandparents speak in Kashmiri at home,” said Anil Dhar, a high school student. “I understand some of it, but I want to learn properly.”
Retired government employee Rakesh Kaul sees the initiative as nothing less than cultural preservation.
“If we distance ourselves from our language, we will lose our identity,” he said. “It is not just about speech. It’s about continuity.”
The question of identity for Kashmiri Pandits is deeply entangled with politics. Since their forced departure, successive Indian governments have promised resettlement schemes and employment packages to enable their return to the area, but without much success. A plan for resettling Pandits was launched 16 years ago. It was seen as a significant effort for the return of Pandits to Kashmir. As part of the plan, Kashmiri Pandits were given government jobs for settling down in Kashmir with their families in transit accommodations in colonies guarded by the security forces.
Later, in a bid to woo the Kashmiri Pandits, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BJP government revived the plan to resettle Pandits in Kashmir. But the difficulties of Kashmiri Pandits who took the plunge of returning to Kashmir, despite security concerns, didn’t end. Aside from feeling a sense of social isolation in Kashmir, the complicated procedures force them to go to Jammu to the relief commissioner’s office for getting basic things done.
Many Pandit families cite security threats, poor infrastructure and broken trust as reasons for staying away. The 2022 targeted killings of Pandit government employees in Kashmir served as a chilling reminder of the region’s unresolved tensions.
While the political path to return remains uncertain, the cultural one is finding new ground, often on the airwaves. Radio Sharda has become a medium through which scattered fragments of a disrupted community and multiple generartions can come together.
“Radio Sharda is not just for one community,” Hangloo insisted. “It is for anyone who speaks Kashmiri.”
Zaffar Iqbal is a journalist based in Kashmir, India. He has reported on armed encounters, environmental issues, crime, politics, culture and human rights. He’s formerly the bureau chief of Jammu-Kashmir for NDTV.