New Delhi: In the late 1980s, Kashmir stood at the edge of a storm it did not summon. The air was thick with uncertainty, but no one could have imagined how swiftly the Valley’s silence would be shattered; not just by bullets, but by ballads. Songs began to seep across the border, not of love or longing, but of Kalashnikovs and conquest.

“Sarhad paar jaayengay, Kalashnikov layangay… phir se lal kilay par sabz alam lehrayangay”. These weren’t mere lyrics. They were psychological landmines, crafted in Pakistan’s propaganda studios, designed to turn grief into rage and rage into recruitment.

What Kashmiris saw in those years was not a revolution rather it was an invasion of the mind. Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex, emboldened by Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation drive, launched a proxy w

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