Opinion | Kashmir: A Home Built on Social Harmony

We often talk about the importance of home, the idea of always returning home because that’s where we truly belong. We talk about how mentally refreshing it is to be able to have a place to back you up, a place that you can defend as your own. But nobody talks about how this home isn’t always a four walled building but an entire sense of community. For me, home is a larger than life concept. Even when I am away from Home , I have deep love and respect for my home. Even if I want to escape the streets of home, I feel the saddest on those streets. That’s what Kashmir is for me and for all of the Kashmiris, home. And not just because we are born there or because our family lives there but because it’s a place which feels our own. Where every stranger walking on the streets feels like a family member.

And when here in Delhi, we hear someone saying ” Theek Chuhez” , we look back a hundred times because we feel comfort knowing that someone is speaking our language, we feel the sense of brotherhood, the sense of belongingness that poets always talk about. I’ve always heard about Kashmiri hospitality a d brotherhood, but never understood it’s significance until I went away. Now, when I am walking late at night on the streets of Delhi, I understand the harmony that we have back there. I understand that if I was back home and someone would start troubling me, a hundred Kashmiris would come to my defense.

And it’s not just about safety, it’s about the quiet assurance that you are never truly alone. Back home, if you walk into a stranger’s courtyard by mistake, you will still be offered tea before you are asked why you came. If you are lost, someone will not only give you directions but might walk half the way with you, making sure you reach where you need to go. That is the kind of harmony we carry in our veins — it is unspoken, but it is understood.

In Kashmir, our sense of community is not built on convenience; it is built on centuries of shared life. We have celebrated together, mourned together, and in times of difficulty, stood as one. This unity is not perfect — no society ever is — but it is powerful. It survives misunderstandings, it outlives conflicts, and it keeps showing itself in the smallest acts of care.

When I think of social harmony in Jammu and Kashmir, I don’t think of it as a theory or an ideal written in books. I think of it as that warm kahwa shared between neighbors on a cold morning, as the familiar greeting from the shopkeeper who knows your family by name, as the way people slow down on the road to ask if you’re okay when your car has stopped. I think of it as that invisible thread that pulls us towards each other, no matter how far we try to go.

Perhaps that’s why, for all of us, “home” is not just where we sleep — it is where our hearts are protected by the people around us. And in Kashmir, that protection doesn’t come from walls or gates, but from the bond we share. It is in the way we hold each other up, the way we carry each other’s burdens without being asked, the way we feel joy in each other’s happiness. That is the harmony that makes Kashmir, Kashmir.

And this bond is not confined to people of one faith or one tradition — it stretches far beyond. In some places in Kashmir, a temple and a mosque share the same lane, their sounds rising together in the morning air. In Trehgam, a temple stands right beside a mosque, as if to remind everyone that faith does not always have to be a dividing line — sometimes, it is simply two paths leading to the same sky. People there move between the two without hesitation, offering respect to both.

I remember hearing about a Kashmiri Pandit who passed away in a village where there were too few from his community to carry out the last rites. Without being asked, the Muslim neighbors gathered the wood, prepared the pyre, and saw the rituals through with the same care they would for one of their own. That day, grief became a bridge — religion faded into the background, and humanity stood at the centre.

There are countless such moments if you look closely — like the Muslim family who lights the lamp in their Pandit neighbor’s temple during a festival because the neighbors had to travel, or the Hindu shopkeeper who closes his shop early on Fridays so his Muslim customers can reach the mosque in time for prayers. These gestures may seem small, but together they create the unshakable foundation of our harmony.

This is what I mean when I say Kashmir is home. It’s not just the mountains and rivers, not just the childhood streets or family houses. It’s this unspoken promise we keep for each other, regardless of our names, our prayers, or our beliefs. It’s knowing that if something ever shakes your world, there will be hands — many hands — ready to hold you steady. That is the true strength of our land.

Because in Kashmir, harmony is not a fragile idea. It is a living, breathing reality, built in our kitchens, our courtyards, our fields, and our markets. It is what makes our home more than just a place — it makes it a feeling that follows you, even when you are far away.

Shafiya Showkat is a renowned columnist currently pursuing her M.A. in English at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi. She can be reached at shafiyawani33@gmail.com