MUSHTAQ BALA
In recent years, the government’s cultural policy in Jammu and Kashmir has increasingly been defined by optics rather than outcomes. High-profile, well-publicised events—ranging from Pheran shows and curated festivals to TEDx-style platforms—are routinely projected as evidence of a cultural renaissance. Yet behind this carefully constructed image lies a stark and uncomfortable truth: Kashmir’s own creative community has been left out of the picture.
For more than ten years, hundreds of freelance artists, producers, directors, writers and music composers associated with Doordarshan and All India Radio have been without regular assignments. These are professionals who once formed the backbone of public broadcasting in the region, creating serials, documentaries, radio plays and music programmes that reflected Kashmir’s lived realities and preserved its storytelling traditions.
Many among them represented the Valley at national and international platforms, earning recognition for their craft and commitment. Today, however, there is no comprehensive government policy to rehabilitate, re-engage or financially secure these cultural contributors. Their repeated pleas and representations have largely been met with silence.
What has further fuelled resentment within the artistic fraternity is the government’s spending pattern. While local artists struggle for survival, crores of rupees are being channelled into cultural extravaganzas that frequently rely on imported talent from outside the region. Event managers, designers, speakers and performers are hired at high cost, while experienced local professionals remain ignored.
The contradiction is glaring. Culture is celebrated on stage but neglected at its roots. Instead of strengthening local creative ecosystems, policy has reduced culture to spectacle—designed for optics, tourism brochures and social media visibility.
Artists associated with Doordarshan and Radio recall a time when public broadcasting served as a genuine platform for local voices. That ecosystem has gradually dismantled,leaving freelancers in an unregulated market with no social security, pension or institutional backing. Many have been forced to abandon their art altogether.
Ironically, official discourse frequently invokes “local culture” and “heritage.” Yet those who sustained this culture during years of uncertainty and conflict are absent from policy planning. Cultural revival, critics argue, cannot be episodic or cosmetic; it must be rooted in continuity, people and participation.
The importation of talent has also raised concerns about authenticity. When external voices dominate platforms meant to represent
Kashmir, narratives lose nuance and depth. Culture becomes generic, disconnected from the soil it claims to represent.
For ageing artists, the neglect is not merely professional—it is existential. With no structured welfare mechanism, many face economic hardship despite decades of contribution to public life. Their demand is simple: recognition, fair opportunity and inclusion in government-funded cultural programmes.
Unless the government moves beyond tokenism and formulates a clear, inclusive cultural policy, the much-publicised revival will remain hollow—loud in display, but empty at its core.
Mushtaq Bala is Editor-in-Chief of Kashmir Pen, an award-winning filmmaker, cultural commentator, and advocate for peace through narrative media.
