Who is Kashmir being built for?

Srinagar is changing fast, too fast, some say. Tiled walkways appear overnight, cycling tracks glide alongside the Jhelum, murals bloom on the backs of crumbling buildings. There are smart traffic lights, digital kiosks, and lakeside fences with QR codes. On the surface, it all looks like progress. But scratch that surface, and a quiet question lingers: who is this being built for?

Because while the city transforms, the people remain distant from the decisions shaping it.

Yes, Jammu & Kashmir now has an elected government again, but only in form  not in full power. After being downgraded to a Union Territory, the region’s autonomy has been significantly reduced. The Chief Minister holds office, but let’s be honest — governance does not feel returned, only represented. Since the region was downgraded to a Union Territory, the fundamental levers of governance have shifted. While Omar Abdullah took oath on 16th October and we as people of Jammu and Kashmir have seen him doing only  hospital visits and engaged mildly in the education sector, while mostly appears active on twitter and other social media platforms his role feels more symbolic than sovereign. Major decisions are routed through the LG office, advised by bureaucrats appointed by the Centre. The Chief Minister does not legislate policy in a full-fledged assembly like before. He reacts. He does not govern like before — he navigates a framework not made by him.

What we’re witnessing is not a government of the people but governance in the people’s name. And the tragedy of it all? We are not resisting development — we are watching it happen without us.

Smart projects, distant people

The idea behind Smart Cities is powerful — to make urban life more efficient, connected, and sustainable. But in Kashmir, it feels imported rather than evolved. The Smart City blueprint in Srinagar often reads like a wish-list from a place with entirely different needs: cycling tracks in a city where people don’t cycle, tourist squares while downtown drains overflow, beautified lakefronts while the inner city chokes on traffic.

It feels like Kashmir is being developed for visitors, not for Kashmiris.

Locals aren’t consulted before roads are narrowed to make space for tiles. Markets are displaced in the name of “streamlining” traffic, but vendors return the next morning, because they have nowhere else to go. Public transport remains chaotic, but smart bus stops are installed with digital screens — more useful for photos than for people. Development is no longer about listening; it’s about projecting. And projection, as every Kashmiri knows, is the oldest form of political distraction.

The smart city paradox

Take a quiet walk along Srinagar’s newly constructed cycling track  a project under the much-celebrated Smart City mission. The pathway, lined with carefully chosen tiles and lampposts, looks modern and Instagrammable. It mirrors the kind of urban planning seen in Delhi or Chandigarh. But look beyond the symmetry, and a deeper paradox unfolds.

Who asked for this cycling track? Who even cycles here?

In a city where traffic congestion is chronic, where ambulances get stuck between unregulated auto stands and pothole-ridden roads, where public transport is informal and poorly regulated — a cycling track feels less like a necessity and more like an indulgence. It’s not that cycling is bad. It’s that priorities are worse.

The average Kashmiri doesn’t want to pedal on glossy paths — they want the road to their home to be motorable. They don’t want beautified fences around lakes — they want clean water in their taps. They don’t want smart kiosks — they want reliable electricity. But instead of listening to people, governance seems to be obsessed with optics.

This is the heart of the Smart City paradox: We are being given the aesthetics of a city without the substance of citizenship. It’s a city designed for tourists, not for locals. For headlines, not for households.

Development is no longer demand-driven — it’s display-driven.

This mismatch isn’t just poor planning — it is a reflection of a deeper governance design. In a truly empowered state assembly, misplaced priorities would be challenged, debated, reshaped. Ward meetings, city councils, elected voices — all could steer development towards what people actually need. But in a UT structure where major decisions flow from above, development often bypasses those who live beneath it.

In a democracy, development is shaped by need. In Kashmir today, it is shaped by narrative.

And that is why even the most well-funded projects feel hollow — because they are not rooted in what people actually need. A cycling track without traffic reform. A lakefront park while sewage still flows into the water. Smart bins while garbage rots in the peripheries.What Kashmir needs is not cosmetic surgery — it needs structural healing.
Not cycling tracks, but a system where the people set the direction, and the state pedals accordingly.

The crisis of misplaced priorities

This is not just a debate about urban planning — it is about the very soul of governance. The tragedy is not that the state is doing nothing, but that it is doing everything except what is truly needed. The money flows, the projects bloom, the banners go up — but the lived reality of people remains unchanged. And sometimes worsens.

Imagine spending crores on beautifying footpaths while children in Kupwara still walk miles to reach a crumbling school. Imagine installing digital kiosks in Lal Chowk when many villages still wait for mobile towers. Imagine celebrating “smart waste bins” while garbage trucks don’t reach half the alleys in the Old City. These are not isolated gaps — they are signs of a governance model that is looking past the people it claims to serve.

Misplaced priorities are not harmless mistakes. They are policy betrayals.

They come at the cost of what could have been: better healthcare, better roads, better wages, better recruitment processes, and most importantly, a better sense of belonging. Because when people see development that reflects their voice, they feel seen. When they see structures imposed without their consent, they feel replaced.

And this sense of replacement is not metaphorical — it’s felt in every act of exclusion. When you build a lakefront for photos and not for fishermen, a cycling track where people need buses, or malls while local businesses die — you’re not just ignoring people. You’re quietly writing them out of their own city.

That is the real cost of misplaced priorities. Not just the waste of money — but the erosion of trust.

Who gets to dream for Kashmir?

In the end, development is not just about buildings — it’s about belonging. You can modernise a place, but if the people feel alienated from the process, it will always feel like someone else’s dream. Kashmiris don’t oppose roads or renovation. They oppose disconnection. They want jobs before jazz. They want clean governance before clean tiles. They want their children to stay, not cycle on pretty paths before flying away to Delhi or Dubai.

The deepest tragedy is that decisions about Kashmir are made by those who do not walk its streets in the morning, who do not wait in line for ration, who do not live the uncertainty of a cancelled exam or a delayed recruitment list. They build with concrete, but never consult those who carry the weight of history here.

Kashmir doesn’t want to be a showroom. It wants to be a home.

And homes are not designed with blueprints alone. They are built with trust, consent, and conversation. Until governance shifts from control to connection from symbols to substance — the smartest city will still feel like a stranger to its people.

Meer Shahzaib, BA Honours student of Economics and Political Science at Amar Singh college.