Pedigree Without Purpose
Every summer the Valley lionises a new cohort of toppers. Marks sheets glitter, profile pictures change, and households exhale in collective relief. The next steps appear pre-programmed: clear a public-service examination, secure a government post, and settle into a predictable pay scale. Yet an awkward question hovers over the festivities:
If our brightest truly trust their intellect, why do so many compete for the safest, least-rewarding corner of the economy?
The Comfort of the Pay Scale
In Kashmir, a government job retains an almost talismanic allure. Regular salary, early promotions, and a pension promise stability in a region schooled in disruption. Parents treat it as insurance; students regard it as validation. The queue is therefore immense: thousands of highly qualified applicants chase clerical posts that pay less than private entry-level salaries in Bengaluru or Gurugram. In 2024, more than 500 PhD holders reportedly applied for positions requiring only a twelfth-class certificate. That is not ambition; it is anxiety masquerading as prudence.
The conditioning begins early. Marks evolve into a moral scorecard. Ninety per cent signals genius, sixty-five triggers alarm, anything lower invites family crisis. Intellect becomes an ornament for examination halls rather than a tool for an open marketplace. No wonder many high achievers flinch at competition beyond the Public Service Commission syllabus. They have been trained to sprint toward a single finish line, not to navigate open terrain.
The pay-scale comfort is reinforced by social narratives. A government employee is considered “set,” regardless of whether the role stretches mind or spirit. For many households, the real currency of that post is community prestige. Meanwhile, the private sector remains an abstraction, spoken of with suspicion or outright dread. The result is a labour market with an abundance of degrees but a scarcity of dynamism.
Vision Beyond Vacancy
Kashmir now needs a broader benchmark. The world’s most vibrant economies flourish because their graduates embrace uncertainty. They join competitive firms, apprentice under demanding mentors, or launch start-ups that solve concrete problems. Knowledge acquires value only when tested outside the comfort of recruitment notices; without that crucible, fresh ideas ossify and talent becomes surplus.
Imagine if even 10% of our annual toppers bypassed the government-job queue. Some would enter high-growth sectors such as renewable energy, health tech, or agro-processing. Others might create lean enterprises that modernise handicrafts, digitise tourism, or convert surplus saffron into global-grade nutraceuticals. A few ventures would certainly fail, yet each failure would seed hard-won expertise and attract capital that never arrives through transfer orders. Success would do even more: it would generate employment rather than capture it and broaden the horizons of every schoolchild watching.
Innovation often comes from friction. The diaspora offers plenty of examples: Kashmiri engineers leading artificial-intelligence teams in California, or entrepreneurs in Dubai exporting Valley-grown walnut oil to European pharmacies. They started with the same textbooks but chose laboratories and boardrooms over ledgers and file stacks. Their stories illuminate a path that is both financially rewarding and socially transformative. We should be inviting such voices back to our colleges, not treating them as curiosities.
Rethinking the Classroom
Turning vision into habit will require more than motivational speeches. Curriculum must loosen its grip on rote learning and pivot toward problem-based inquiry. Students should confront real-world challenges long before they face public-service prelims: designing low-cost solar dryers for fruit growers in Shopian, mapping waste-management gaps in Srinagar, or coding a logistics app that shortens the journey of Kashmiri artisans to the global market.
Universities elsewhere have incubators that pair final-year projects with seed funding and mentorship. Imagine a campus in Baramulla that offers students six-month fellowships to prototype climate-resilient housing, or a polytechnic in Pulwama that partners with local farms to pilot precision-irrigation technology. These projects would not just enrich résumés; they could rewrite livelihood patterns across the Valley.
A Compact Among Parents, Educators, and Graduates
The transition demands courage, first from parents who must recognise that security without growth leads to gradual atrophy, then from educators who must teach students to design solutions rather than memorise them. Above all, it demands resolve from graduates willing to trade the applause of early certainty for the deeper fulfilment of authentic contribution.
Policy can nudge the shift. Tax holidays for start-ups, micro-grants for research applying traditional crafts in new domains, and public-private partnerships that fast-track promising prototypes into state procurement could signal that the administration values innovation as much as inventory control. Meanwhile, civic society must celebrate risk-takers with the same fervour it reserves for exam toppers. Media profiles, alumni awards, and even school assemblies could showcase young Kashmiris who chose the unknown, stumbled, and still pressed on.
A government role will always have its place; efficient administration is a public good. What the Valley cannot afford is a system in which almost every valedictorian retreats behind the smallest possible horizon. Youth unemployment, energy dependence, and environmental stress will not be conquered by clerical competence alone. They require innovators who perceive opportunity where others perceive risk, who calibrate success by impact rather than increments, and who understand that genuine prestige is earned where outcomes are never guaranteed.
The choice confronting each graduate is stark yet liberating: Will you pursue a vacancy, or will you pursue a vision? One will pay the bills; the other may transform your life.
Burhan U Din Abdullah,
Researcher, Author
