Kashmiri youth shunning violence, Pakistan: Survey

Kashmiri youths are increasingly leaning towards non-violence and also moving away from Pakistan. So says a survey by a New Delhi-based research body.

The survey by the Institute for Research on India and International Studies (IRIIS) also holds the "historical baggage" of Jammu and Kashmir and the "presence of security forces" for the disconnect between the Kashmiri youth and the Indian state.

But there is a significant departure from the past when the youths from Kashmir were interested in Pakistan.

Conducted in 2011 on behalf of the Indian home ministry, the survey says the young in Kashmir spend more time listening to music and watching Hindi movies and also watching cricket.

The survey blames three successive governments of the National Conference, Congress-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Congress-National Conference for showing little interest in reopening the cinema halls that got shut in the Kashmir Valley due to separatist violence in the early 1990s.

The youths now prefer visiting coffee shops, parks, playgrounds, shopping centres and social functions.

The survey refers to many recent literary events in Srinagar which the youth attended in good numbers.

The IRIIS was formed in 2008 "with an aim for broadening the understanding of India in a globalizing World in an interdisciplinary framework".