Jobless and adrift, Jammu and Kashmir’s youth are struggling to keep the faith

Every morning, 33-year-old Sarfaraz Ahmad leaves his home for “office”, even though he has no job.

The Srinagar resident has hidden this fact from his family for the last six months.

“I leave home but stay at a friend’s office or wander around to kill time,” said Ahmad, whose name has been changed to protect his privacy. “I am living on my savings which are steadily depleting.”

This is not the first time Ahmad, who has a Master’s degree in business administration from the University of Kashmir, has found himself without work. The many ups and downs in his career reflect the precariousness of working life in the Valley, especially in the last decade of unrest.

Particularly since 2019, when New Delhi scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and brought it under its direct rule, unemployment levels have skyrocketed.

Until then, Jammu and Kashmir’s unemployment levels were lower than the national average. But since 2019, it has consistently remained above the national level, especially among the educated unemployed, like Ahmad.

In his brief working life, Ahmad has taken many knocks.

In 2016, not even one year into his job at a small event management company in Srinagar, a deadly public uprising broke out across the Valley following the killing of popular Hizbul Mujahideen militant...

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