Kashmir’s ‘Used Future’ Trap

Thinking

Kashmir’s dream of development has been entwined in the paradoxical embrace of a ‘Used Future’, a term coined by futurist Sohail Inayatullah. The term highlights the way a community or organisation’s sense of possible, probable, and preferable is occupied unthinkingly, inappropriately, and in all likelihood damagingly, by concepts developed in another context altogether.

Sohail Inayatullah is the UNESCO Chair in Future Studies at the Sejahtera Centre for Sustainability and Humanity, IIUM, Malaysia. He is also a member of the World Future Society and a Fellow of the World Future Studies Federation.

The term ‘Used Future’ brings sharply into focus Kashmir’s futile struggle to navigate with somebody else’s map the uncharted waters of progress. Kashmir is a model that follows the urban development that Western cities did generations ago. This development is coming at the cost of our environment. It is converting our cities and towns into concrete jungles facing overpopulation, water depletion, and climate change. In the process, we have also given up on our traditions where community was central and living with nature was important.

Umar Shgeraz in his academic paper ‘Used Futures as Stumbling Blocks to Sustainable Development’ writes, “The future is a moving frontier and it is equally important to shift images with shifting times.”

To understand the concept of ‘Used Future’ imagine a society driving a secondhand car of progress: a gleaming vehicle, full of the promise of modernity, which sputters and stalls on winding roads in its new home. Perhaps the best way to conceptualise this is through a metaphor: that of the ‘Used Future’, a preconceived conception of tomorrow which refuses to harmonise with the contours of the present and the aspirations of those who seek to inhabit it.

At the heart of Kashmir, ‘Used Future’ manifests as a chain of faded developmental dreams. Take, for instance, the grand Smart City initiative for Srinagar. From claiming to be the biggest developmental project that Srinagar has ever witnessed, this now sticks in the quagmire of red tape, its grandeur reduced to an echo of modernity. The vision for the transformation of the city into a 21st-century innovation wears like a garment, ill-suited and tailored for another cityscape and spirit.

What was touted as Srinagar’s Semi Ring Road, an infrastructural project that would unshackle the city from the chains of congestion and propel it into efficient connectivity, has turned into an apparition haunted by delays, land disputes, and fiscal spectres. It was to be a potent symbol of the ‘Used Future’: a development model transplanted from afar without nuance to flourish in Kashmir’s unique terrain.

This borrowed destiny also shows up in the field of education. Good intentions and hefty investments notwithstanding, the region’s academics is tattered with an outdated curriculum and incongruence between classroom wisdom and the practical demands of modernism. It is like arming our youth with weapons from a bygone era to conquer challenges that have, by far, advanced to new battlefronts.

The ‘Used Future’ casts its shadow on the very fabric of governance in Kashmir. That bureaucratic machinery, left over from the fashions past, keeps ticking – ever more intransigently to the 20th century’s lingering nostalgia – its labyrinthine corridors seemingly designed against, not for, change. It is to steer a ship with a compass that points to a world that no longer exists. Yet in that shadow of the ‘Used Future’, there also lies the seed of redemption.

Sohail Inayatullah’s concept forces us to anatomise these futures that have been bequeathed to us, to interrogate the assumptions underlying them, and to create a narrative that would reach deep into the soul of Kashmir.

Kashmir needs to tread with determination and foresight. It requires an institutional framework overhaul where the stranglehold of red tape gives a place to breathe innovation and adaptability. Governance has to deliver on people’s needs and aspirations. Stakeholder engagement has to be the lifeblood of any development activity carried out in a region like Kashmir. Whispers of Sopore’s apple orchards and the rhythmic beat of Srinagar downtown’s loom must reverberate within the halls of decision-making. Only by weaving together diverse threads of experiences can something that reflects the spirit of Kashmir be created.

At the core of it all lies capacity building. How to survive through the intricacies of modern development – these are some of the things the leadership should inculcate in the youth so that they can thrive in the global arena, not just exist. A culture wherein innovation is celebrated should be inculcated, and the unknown should be embraced and not feared.

The last piece in this intricate jigsaw puzzle would be policy coherence, wherein the different developmental efforts would knit shared goals, each resonating with the other to create harmonious growth and prosperity. This journey is long and arduous but it is the one Kashmir has to take if it is to claim its rightful place in the sun. It takes courage to confront the entrenched dogmas and the audacity to chart a new course.

Kashmir stands at the precipice of a choice. Should it succumb to the dark shadows of borrowed dreams and forever strive to pace with the fleeing future, or should it take up the reins of destiny and cut out for itself a tomorrow as extraordinary in its uniqueness as Kashmir is? The future is being woven from threads of our collective imagination like the Chinar leaves kissing the summer sky, so vibrant and eternal.

The time has come for Kashmir to look beyond the horizon of the ‘Used Future’. The choice is ours – let us drink in hope as finely woven and resilient as the shawls which warm us through the bitter winters. Let us strive for a tomorrow that is not a projection of yesterday’s promises but an epitome of the unyielding spirits of a people who still dare to dream.