The Valley of Kashmir is one of the most beautiful spots on earth. It has been described as firdous baroey zamin, paradise on earth. In his famous romance, Lalla Rookh, Thomas Moore has showered love upon Kashmir Valley in these words:

Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere,

With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,

Its temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear

As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave?

Oh! to see at sunset, - when warm over the lake

Its splendour at parting a summer-eve throws,

Like a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to take

A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes! –

Or to see it by moonlight – when mellowly shines

The light over its palaces, gardens, and shrines;

When the water-falls gleam like a quick fall of stars,

And the nightingale’s hymn from the Isle of Chenars

Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet

Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes

A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks,

Hills, cupolas, fountains, call’d forth everyone

Out of darkness, as they were just born of the Sun.

 

Flip side. Being meeting point of three mutually hostile neighbours, India, China, and Pakistan, that are considerably larger in size and nuclear armed besides, and who claim territory of the State of which it (Kashmir Valley) forms only a very small part, it has turned out to be most heavily militarized part of the world. Once a tourist destination, it is now infested by bloody violence.

Once a centre of religious learning, Buddhist, Saivite, and Islamic, and also famous as the garden of saints, it has turned out to be the centre of great game, home to intelligence agents, political thugs, and gun runners.

Once a trading centre on the great Silk Route that connected it to the outer world, it has been reduced into a large prison cut off from the greater world. The only business enterprise that thrive in this prison are the private sector political parties.

This platform has been developed in order to bring to light the events that have brought Kashmir to this position. Our effort would be to do this job as objectively as possible although remaining completely detached may not always be possible because of being in the thick of conflict and directly impacted by it.