DR ZAHID MAQBOOL
As the world navigates rapid technological change and persistent inequalities, building genuine digital literacy, not just screen familiarity, will determine whether its youth can lead in tomorrow’s economy.
For decades, Kashmir has been celebrated for its landscapes, crafts, and culture. Today, another, transformation is underway in homes, classrooms, and offices across the Valley: the steady rise of the digital society. This shift is not only about gadgets and apps; it is about who will participate in the emerging knowledge economy and who will be left out for lack of skills, confidence, or opportunity.
Over the last decade, smartphones and affordable data have become part of daily life. From Kupwara to Qazigund, young people scroll, chat and stream with ease. Yet we often mistake this comfort with screens for digital literacy. It is not. True digital literacy goes far beyond the ability to open an app or forward a message. It is about using technology critically, creatively, and securely—to learn, to work, to build networks, and to share one’s own story with the wider world.
This distinction matters in the Valley, where technology has quickly become central to education, business, and public life. Students now routinely look up lectures, tutorials and exam resources online. Aspiring entrepreneurs explore e‑commerce and digital payments. Journalists, artists and professionals across sectors use online platforms to find audiences and opportunities beyond their immediate neighbourhoods. Yet the benefits of this shift are uneven, shaped by geography, language, income and gender.
Urban, English-educated youth in Srinagar, Baramulla or Anantnag often enjoy a head start over students in remote villages where a shared smartphone and patchy connectivity are still the norm. Private schools experiment with learning apps and smart boards, while many government schools struggle with basic infrastructure and training. Young women, in particular, can face social scrutiny around their online presence, even as the internet increasingly shapes education, employment and public debate. Digital opportunity, in other words, tends to mirror older inequalities.
That is why it is dangerous to reduce digital progress to a technical exercise of distributing devices or installing Wi‑Fi. Digital literacy is a social project that must account for language barriers, local needs, and social norms. A coding boot camp in uptown Srinagar does little for a girl in Bandipora whose family still debates whether she needs a phone at all. A high‑tech smart classroom is of limited use if the teacher herself is anxious about logging into a platform or experimenting with new tools. Without confronting these realities, slogans about a “digital revolution” risk ringing hollow.
At the same time, it would be shortsighted to treat technology as something imposed from outside. For Kashmiri students, digital tools have opened windows that were once tightly shut: access to lectures from leading universities, online test series for competitive exams, information about scholarships, internships and skill‑development courses across the country and abroad. For artisans and traders in downtown Srinagar or rural belts, online marketplaces and social media pages offer the possibility of showcasing shawls, papier‑mâché, saffron or apples directly to customers.
But these possibilities are not automatic. They require careful guidance, critical thinking, and an ethic of responsibility. The Valley, like the rest of the world, is no stranger to misinformation, online harassment and addictive scrolling. Young people who are digitally present but not digitally literate are vulnerable—to scams, to abusive comments, and to echo chambers that entertain but do not enlighten. Teaching them how to question sources, manage screen time, protect their data, and understand how algorithms shape what they see is as important as teaching them algebra or history.
This is where public policy, educational institutions, and civil society must play a more active role. Instead of treating computer education as a side subject, schools in Kashmir should embed digital literacy across the curriculum—from basic device handling and online safety in the early classes to media literacy, coding, and data ethics in higher grades. Teacher training must be central to this shift; a digitally confident teacher can turn even simple infrastructure into a powerful learning environment.
Universities and colleges, meanwhile, need to move beyond routine online attendance and PDF‑sharing. They can nurture student‑led tech clubs, digital journalism labs, and entrepreneurship cells that encourage experimentation rooted in local realities. Why shouldn’t a group of students design an app for orchard management, tourism services, or an online archive of Kashmiri and Urdu literature? Digital literacy, after all, is also about ownership of knowledge and culture, not just consumption of imported content.
Equally vital is the role of government and telecom providers in ensuring affordable, reliable connectivity across the Valley. If access remains fragile or prohibitively expensive for sections of society, digital literacy will remain the privilege of a few. Connectivity today is much more than a convenience; it is an educational, economic and social lifeline. Policy must recognise this and invest accordingly in rural coverage, public access points and community digital centres.
Ultimately, the question before us is not whether Kashmir will be digital. That process is already underway, however unevenly. The real question is who this digital future will serve. Will it deepen existing hierarchies or help level them? Will it produce passive consumers of content, or active creators, coders, researchers and storytellers who are rooted in their own soil yet connected to the wider world?
For a young generation eager to study, work and compete on a larger stage, digital literacy can be more than a skill; it can be a pathway to dignity and mobility. To invest in digital literacy in the Valley is to believe that its future will also be written in code, in online classrooms, in independent media ventures, and in small local innovations that quietly improve everyday life.
That future will not arrive through announcements alone. It will be built through steady, patient work in classrooms, mohallas and homes—where parents encourage informed use of technology, teachers feel supported in trying new methods, and institutions treat digital literacy as a right, not a luxury. If we succeed, the Valley will not merely adapt to a digital world; it will help shape it.
(The Author is an Assistant Professor working in Dubai and a columnist)
