On June 21st, as the world celebrates music in all its diversity, Kashmir must ask a quieter, more urgent question: Where is our music now?

Not the viral reels or remixed folk beats. But the soul-song of the valley—the one that once echoed from shrines and snowfields, from wedding feasts and radio waves. The music that was not just heard but inhabited.
Kashmiri music has never been a mere art form. It is a cultural bloodstream, pulsing with mysticism, memory, and meaning. It is the sigh of Lal Ded’s vakhs /Shuk, the longing in Habba Khatoon’s lyrics, the fire in Rasul Mir’s ghazals. It is the santoor’s crystalline prayer, the rabab’s dusty lament, the wasool’s heartbeat beneath it all.
And it was carried by giants.
Long before radio waves and reel views, Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (Budshah)—Kashmir’s 15th-century monarch—laid the bedrock of this musical tradition. He summoned musicians from Yunan and Tooran, blending Greco-Central Asian traditions with local roots, transforming his court into a crucible of sound, soul, and synthesis. Under his patronage, music in Kashmir evolved into not just art, but identity.
Centuries later, that flame found form in maestros like Mohan Lal Aima, the architect of modern Kashmiri soundscapes, who fused folk with classical through operas and orchestral ensembles like Saazina / Santoor. His genius lay in making Kashmiri music both rooted and resplendent.
M.A. Tibetbaqal, spiritual scholar and master of Sufiyana maqams, wasn’t merely a performer—he was a transmitter of transcendence. His most illustrious disciple, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, would globalize the santoor. Tibetbaqal didn’t just teach technique; he awakened temperament.
Pandit Bhajan Sopori, the Saint of the Santoor, reshaped the instrument into a meditative force. With innovations like the Sopori Baaj and his healing initiatives through SaMaPa, he made music a tool of both devotion and justice. He composed thousands of works, each a testament to the valley’s composite soul.
Ghulam Hassan Sofi, often called the Melody King of Kashmir, embodied the pain and purity of Kashmiri musical memory. Blind from birth and trained by fate more than faculty, he rendered the verses of Mahjoor, Wahab Khar, and Shamas Faqir in a voice soaked in longing. Songs like Rinde Poosh Maal weren’t performances—they were pilgrimages.
Raj Begum, the nightingale who defied gendered silences, turned lived grief into lyrical gold. Her voice, radiant and rooted, now returns in the biopicSongs of Paradise. Zoon Begum, a lesser-known gem, echoed devotional ache in the shadows, reminding us that obscurity never dims true resonance.
Shamima Dev, with her quiet dignity and vocal strength, lent depth to devotional and folk tunes, while Kailash Mehra, Malika-e-Ghazal, brought bhakti and classical tradition into living rooms across communities. Ghulam Nabi Sheikh, the Mehdi Hassan of Kashmir, sang of misry and belonging in a voice heavy with home.
Ustaad Ghulam Mohammad Saznawaz, last guardian of Saz-e-Kashmir, passed on not just tunes but entire traditions through family and disciples. His legacy is both endangered and eternal.
And the borders blurred through voices like Asha Bhosle, who immortalized, Ha Aeshka Tchuroo, and Runa Laila, whose lone rendition of ,Katyu Chukh Nundbane, still lives in our collective pulse.
Today, a new generation rises. Aabha Hanjura, a daughter of diaspora, revives ,Hukus Bukus, and Nundbane with respectful reinterpretation. Her work is not mimicry—it’s a meditative reclaiming.
But even as these voices echo, the silence grows louder.
In the 1990s, when militancy and migration silenced stages, Ghulam Nabi Sheikh and I refused to let music die. We mentored a generation—Kaiser Nizami, Rahmat Ullah Khan, Waheed Jeelani, Munir Ahmad Mir—artists who sang through the silence. Nasrullah Khan and Mohammad Ashraf, brilliant composers, soldiered on under immense pressure. Ashraf collapsed mid-performance at Radio Kashmir—a collapse symbolic of a system that didn’t hold its guardians.
Later came voices like Shaista Ahamad ,Shahi Mumtaz and her husband Raja Billal, who injected fresh energy into traditional frameworks.
And Ghulam Nabi Dolwal (Janbaaz Kishtwari), poet-philosopher and composer, gave Kashmiri music a luminous linguistic soul. His daughter, Jehan Ara Janbaz, now resurrects that legacy through JAJ Records, her voice turning forgotten verses into living memory.
Some names survived only in memory. Like ,Gupa Bacha (Pandit Gopi Nath Bhat), a master of ,Bacha Nagma ,and ,Hafiz Nagma, whose artistry I recorded in his rented Nagrota quarters after migration. He sang quietly, from a place beyond applause. Had we not documented his voice, it would’ve vanished like mist at sunrise.
And still, institutions slumber. Santoors gather dust. Rababs lie silent. The songs of Gujjars and Bakarwals fade with each season. No pension for the masters, no digitization for the treasure chests.
World Music Day must not be a hashtag in Kashmir. It must be a mirror. Not for fame—but for forgetting.
Revival is not nostalgia—it is necessity. Let music return to shrines and schools. Let the santoor play again in classrooms. Let government archives breathe again. Let young singers study ,Vakhs/ Shuk and maqams. Let awards be named after Ghulam Hassan Sofi, and fellowships after Zoon Begum. Let mourning become movement.
Because to forget music is to forget memory. And to lose memory is to unmake a people.
Kashmiri music does not seek pity—it seeks presence. It doesn’t ask for applause—it asks for engagement. It needs young custodians who carry the fire of Lal Ded ,love of Shaikh Ul Aalam and the fragrance of Habba Khatoon in their breath.
So today, let the santoor sing again. Let the rabab whisper at dusk. Let the silence of apathy be replaced by the sound of reverence.
Because some songs may sleep. But they do not die. All they need is for someone to sing them again.

Email:----------------------------------shamshadkralwari@gmail.co