Young influencers chronicle their lives and culture online

On a quiet summer afternoon in 2020, a calendar at a mosque in Indian-administered Kashmir caught Muneer Ahmad Dar’s attention. It featured a poem written in Kashmiri, the language spoken in the region.

To his surprise, he struggled to read it.

It made him wonder how his generation had slowly drifted away from their mother tongue, as other languages like English, Urdu and Hindi became more widespread.

With that realisation, he launched a social media page – called Muneer Speaks – to preserve and promote Kashmiri culture.

Five years on, his profile has garnered over 500 million impressions across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

“I want to tell stories about our places and histories, our proverbs, folklore and poetry,” he says. “It’s about capturing the way we have lived, laughed, cooked and remembered.”

Mr Dar is among an emerging group of young content creators using digital platforms to preserve fragments of Kashmir’s heritage.

The region, divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, has been scarred by decades of conflict, and has lost thousands of lives to insurgency.

In recent years, many young people have left Kashmir – some to escape violence, others in search of better opportunities.

But now, a new generation is changing the narrative – highlighting art, tradition, and daily life, beyond the unrest and violence.

When Mr Dar started his social media page, the focus was on Kashmiri language. But over the past five years, his work has expanded into a mix of content, featuring photographs of old architecture, cultural lore and stories behind local delicacies.

In one of his popular videos, Mr Dar shares surprising facts about the area’s architecture – like how people once used eggs to help hold buildings together.

Meanwhile, the Instagram page, Museum of Kashmir, is taking a broader approach to archiving.

The page is run by 33-year-old journalist Muhammad Faysal, who, with a team of curators and oral historians, documents Kashmir’s overlooked artefacts and traditions.

Videos of vibrant mosque ceilings and poetry recitals feature alongside captions that offer quick, insightful context.

Followers say the page helps them see Kashmir’s history in a new light.

“Heritage isn’t just about grand monuments”, one follower commented, “but about the things people carried when they left their homes, books, shawls and family recipes”.

Experts say content creators must stay accurate, especially with oral histories that can lose detail over time.

The rise in Kashmiri storytelling offers a “vital counter-narrative”, but rushed documentation can blur nuances, according to author and researcher Khalid Bashir Ahmad.

To ensure authenticity, creators say they rely on researchers who cross-check their content with published sources, while preserving the original context.

On Instagram, 31-year-old filmmaker Sheikh Adnan runs ‘Shawlwala’, a page dedicated to Kashmir’s iconic Pashmina scarves (called shawls) – handwoven from the fine wool of Himalayan goats and celebrated as both heritage and luxury.

“Our shawls are not just fabric,” he says, emphasising that most of his subjects are elderly artisans who spin, dye and weave each thread.

His goal is to shift the narrative by “taking the scarves beyond fashion and tourism” and presenting them as “examples of Kashmir’s history and resilience”.

“They are maps of touch, skill and generations. Every thread carries a story.”

One widely shared video shows a woman spinning yarn on a traditional hand spindle as a Kashmiri folk song plays in the background. “I want people to see the story of an unsung Kashmiri woman spinning thread with love,” Mr Adnan says.

Not all preservation work is serious. Some young artists are creating content with a dash of sarcasm.

For 22-year-old Seerat Hafiz, known online as Yikvot or Nun Chai with Jiya, satire and humour are her tools of choice. Her videos are a mix of wordplay and cultural commentary and cover a range of topics from local literature to Kashmiri translations of English classics.

In one post, she uses viral memes to show “why reading native literature helps save the language”. In another, an illustration of a man and woman appears with a Kashmiri translation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights playing in the background.

“In a way, I’m documenting the thoughts and emotions of young Kashmiris,” Ms Hafiz says.

“We are constantly switching languages, identities, platforms but we still carry the grief of our history, even in our humour.”

But preserving a language online is only part of the battle – Mr Dar says platforms still don’t recognise Kashmiri as a regional language, affecting visibility and reach.

“I’m forced to choose the ‘other language’ option because Kashmiri isn’t listed on Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram,” Mr Dar says. ” It treats it like a language that’s been forgotten.” The BBC has reached out to Meta for comment.

Since 2023, literary group Adbi Markaz Kamraz has been campaigning to add Kashmiri to Google Translate.

They’ve sent formal requests and thousands of emails, says its president Mohammed Amin Bhat, who remains hopeful.

The BBC has contacted Google for comment and will update the story when they respond.

Despite the challenges, this young group is determined to keep up their work.

From Mr Dar to Ms Hafiz, they insist their work proves that Kashmiri culture is not fading but fighting to be remembered on its own terms.

“Maybe one day people will forget my name”, says Mr Dar, “but if they remember a single Kashmiri story, I helped keep alive, then my work will have meaning”.

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