Kashmir’s Magnanimity towards Iran is Magnanimous, but reeks of Selectiveness

• By Junaid Qureshi
• Comments 0
• 11 Apr 2026

Why haven’t we Kashmiris, irrespective of being Shia or Sunnis, ever been able to show such unity, such urgency, such support and such magnanimity to other tragedies and calamities?

CROSS ROADS

There is little doubt that historically speaking, Iranian, or to be exact, Persian influence on Kashmir has been of a tremendous magnitude. While Sayyed Sharfuddin Abdur Rahman from Turkistan, fondly remembered as Hazrat Bulbul Shah, belonging to the Suharwadi order, visited Kashmir earlier, the fourteenth century Iranian Kubrawi Saint, Mir Sayyed Ali Hamadani, popularly known as Shah-i-Hamadan remains the most prominent Sufi who came to Kashmir. 

The Brahmanical social domination coupled with unsteady economic order in the Kashmir Valley after the devastating Mongol invasion led by Dulacha, created room for Sufism. The economy of the Kashmir Valley was on a constant decline, and the socio-political equilibrium was profusely disturbed. The prevailing socio-economic and political situation of the Kashmir Valley worked in favor of Shah-i-Hamadan and he filled the existing void with his ideology that he carried from Iran. 

Shah-i-Hamadan also took a keen interest in the economy of the Kashmir Valley and introduced the arts and craft techniques of Iran, and suggested ways and means to improve upon the irrigation system in the Valley. People of Kashmir benefitted from his strategies, and involvement in socio-economic activities helped the common man to elevate his standard of living and thereby also accepting Islam as his faith.

This historical and emotional connect with Iran was perhaps the foundation of the recent outpouring of support in Kashmir for Iran after the killing of its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, especially from the Shia community while Sunni Muslims too joined in solidarity.  

Massive demonstrations were organized in Kashmir against the killing, and a substantial donation drive was initiated by Kashmiris collecting funds in the shape of cash, gold, silver, copper, vehicles and other valuables to support the war-affected country. According to some estimates, Kashmiris raised hundreds of Crores of Rupees in a matter of days. 

With the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the relationship between Kashmir and Iran, especially among the Shia community in Kashmir cemented itself even more. After all, historically, the Shia community in Kashmir had struggled with persecution, especially in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century. Ten campaigns of terror, collectively called Taraaj-e-Shia, were unleashed against them during which their sacred sites were destroyed, women were raped, books were burned and their neighborhoods destroyed. The Islamic revolution in the 20th century in Iran evoked religious and political consciousness among the Shias in Kashmir and nourished further spiritual, public and educational exchanges between Kashmir and Tehran. 

In essence, in the absence of one at home, Kashmiri Shias found an elder brother in Iran. 

It is, of course, praiseworthy that such a small population got unified and within a matter of days, tangibly succeeded in financially supporting the people of Iran.

However, this piece is not about Shias or Sunnis. Nor is it about our religion. It is also not about Iran, India, Pakistan, Israel or the US. 

It is about us Kashmiris as human beings.   

While I genuinely appreciate us Kashmiris for uniting and aiding our Iranian brethren in their predicament, at the same time, I can’t help being burdened with a simple and perhaps thought-provoking question; Why haven’t we Kashmiris, irrespective of being Shia or Sunnis, ever been able to show such unity, such urgency, such support and such magnanimity to other tragedies and calamities? 

Many of them much closer to home.

When carefully considering this conundrum and trying to conscientiously introspect, I must again, with due respect, refer to the common thread running through my writings. 

Our selective selectiveness. 

It is exactly this selectiveness of ours, which rather embarrassingly, enables us to keep distinguishing between right and wrong on the basis of religion, sect, nationality and political affiliations and has made us believe that injustice and atrociousness have a face, a name, a nationality, a sect and a God. 

Depending on that face, the name, the nationality, the sect and the God, we either remain silent or choose to act.

There are tens of thousands of people who have suffered due to terrorism in Kashmir since the late eighties and early nineties. Decades of violence and economic malaise have produced an ocean of destitutes, orphans, widows, vilomahs, victims of sexual violence, refugees and persons with disabilities in our own home.  

While some of us might intermittently give alms to these victims, mostly on religious festivals or to ward off the evil eye, such actions are individual in nature and more than often rooted in our own self-interest inspired by either our belief that such acts will elevate our status in the afterlife or reduce our possible sufferings in this life.

Never have we, as a society, tried to unite for the well-being of these people. We have never bothered to institutionalize any attempt to tangibly help our own brothers and sisters. 

If Kashmir could collect hundreds of Crores in a few days for Iran, why have we failed for over three decades to come up with a financially viable system to collect funds for these victims of violence which we all collectively created?

Perhaps a gratis school for these orphans, a free of charge hospital for those with disabilities, small concrete houses for the poor living in sheds, monthly stipends for the widows, legal expenses to fight for dignity and justice for the victims of sexual violence? 

If we can raise hundreds of Crores in a few days, try doing the math and imagine what we could have done in over three decades.

Let alone financial support, how many of us adopted an orphan? How many of us married a widow or a victim of sexual violence? Instead, we spend Lakhs on IVF treatments and ironically many of our so-called ‘leaders’ responsible for creating widows and victims of sexual violence in the first place, along with shipping in guns and terrorists from ‘apoor’, also imported their wives from across the border.

Alas. 

No matter how we try to spin it, we were either guilty by our actions or complicit by our silence for the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits. Not to mention assisting them financially, many of us still refuse to acknowledge their plight and our own collective culpability. 

When they were forced out of Kashmir, instead of safeguarding their properties, we looted their household goods, furniture, kitchenware, accessories, electronic gadgets, libraries, papers, files and documents. We pulled out their electricity and sanitary fittings and large number of houses and properties of Kashmiri Pandits went on distress sale. While the situation in Iran over 2,000 kms away somehow felt close, the fate of our Kashmiri Pandit brethren in Jagti township 200 kms away still seems too far away.

While I will grant my readers the benefit of the doubt by conceding that not everyone is a keen student of history this ancient, however, some contemporary events are difficult to ignore. 

Let’s start with one of the biggest tragedies closer to home. Mumbai attacks in 2008. 175 innocent people died and more than 300 were injured. Of course, we all condemned, but wouldn’t our condemnations carry much more weight had we demonstrated against these attacks with the same ardency as we did against the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei? Such actions were necessitated, not only because of humanitarian reasons, but especially as the terrorists claimed to have carried out these attacks in our name. Why couldn’t we initiate a small donation drive in Kashmir which would financially support the injured and the dependents of those who had lost their lives?

Let’s move on to tragedies even closer to home. 

In 2016, 17 soldiers were killed in the attack on an Army base in Uri. In 2017, 8 security force personnel were killed in an attack on the District Police Lines in Pulwama. Six Army personnel were killed in an attack on the Sunjuwan Military Camp in Jammu in 2018. In Pulwama in 2019, 44 people were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle filled with explosives into a CRPF convoy. 

None of these attacks provoked us Kashmiris to start a donation drive for the soldiers and policemen who were killed. None of us thought of collecting some funds for their wives and children. Of course, their families must have received some relief from the Government, but where was our humanity? 

These soldiers and policemen were people among us. People who stand a post and defend us. 

Let’s move on to civilians.  

In 2023, two blasts in Rajouri killed seven civilians including two children while 12 people were injured. In 2024, nine people were killed and an additional 41 were injured in an attack on Hindu pilgrims in Reasi. Also in 2024, seven people were killed, one doctor and six workers, and five people were injured in an attack on a construction site in Gagangir, Ganderbal district. Just a year ago, in 2025, 26 people were murdered at a tourist site in Pahalgam.

Natural disasters and accidents perhaps? 

In July 2021, a cloudburst occurred in in the Dachhan area of Kishtwar district resulting in 26 deaths and 17 injuries. Floods caused by a cloudburst in Amarnath in 2022, killed at least 16 people and left at least 40 of others missing. In 2023, ground collapse in the town of Thathri in Doda district displaced approximately 300 people. Also in 2023, 39 people died and 17 more were injured when the driver of a passenger bus lost control and the vehicle plunged into a deep gorge in Doda district. Flash floods occurred in Chositi in Kishtwar in 2025 as the result of a cloudburst which caused 68 deaths, 300 injuries, and left at least 38 people missing. More recently, in November 2025, an explosion in Nowgam police station in Srinagar, killed nine people and injured around 30. 

While we managed to raise Crores for Iran in a matter of a few days, not a single penny was raised for any of these souls who died, got injured or were displaced. 

People who are no different from us. Our own flesh and blood. 

Humans. Exactly like those living a bit further away in Iran. 

If we did what we did for Iran on humanitarian basis then we must have done the same for all these victims. If not, then we must muster the courage to admit that what we did for Iran was not solely on humanitarian basis but was perhaps provoked by other considerations. 

Religion, sect, political affiliations, emotional attachment, historical and cultural ties or perhaps sheer animosity towards Israel, US, the West, NATO, UN? 

In other words, pure selectiveness. 

There is no use dwelling on the past, however, the present gives us a lot to reflect. 

Now that we have shown that we can unite and bring ourselves to help those in need, we must have the propriety and more importantly, the morality, to implement this at home as well. Our religion, our Prophet (SAW) and Imam Ali (AS), all instruct us that charity and help should begin at home with a special emphasis on orphans and widows. None of our teachings even remotely insinuate that we should distinguish between victims. 

Our first religion is humanity.  

Perhaps, our historical relation and the recent developments in Iran are intertwined and whisper to us through the mighty Chinar which was brought to Kashmir from Iran.

We Kashmiris must try to emulate that grand Irano-Kashmiri Chinar. 

Determined, firm and unwavering. Providing shade to everyone without bias or prejudice.  

It is time to turn over a new leaf of the majestic Chinar and abandon our selective selectiveness. 
 

Author is the Director of Eurpean Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) and can be reached at: j.qureshi@efsas.org