Why We Keep Misreading Kashmir's Festival Economy

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
Eid scene in Kashmir. KO Photo by Faisal Khan.

By Zahid Sultan

Every year, like clockwork, someone says it: Kashmir didn't spend much this Eid.

It's said in newsrooms, shop counters, WhatsApp forwards, and expert panels. The logic is simple: fewer fireworks, fewer shopping bags, fewer sales receipts must mean less celebration, less life.

But what if that reading says more about the expectations of the observer than the choices of the people?

I spent this Eid in Pulwama, and what I saw didn't match the headlines. There was no loud extravaganza, no flood of shoppers choking the roads. But there was movement, warmth, and intention. People bought what they could, and what they needed. A little meat. A pair of sandals for the youngest daughter. Biscuits from the baker, who sold out before noon. There were greetings exchanged, prayers said, homes cleaned, and food shared.

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It didn't look like a spectacle. But it looked like life.

In Kashmir, where trauma has bent the shape of daily routine for decades, ordinary days are never entirely ordinary. And special days like Eid carry even more weight. The idea that Kashmiris didn't spend enough this time isn't just wrong, it's lazy. It reduces the complex moral choices of a people to a ledger sheet.

What exactly does“not spending” mean? Are we talking about retail figures? Card transactions? Or is it a vague sense, picked up from a few malls and media bytes, that things weren't“bustling enough”? Most of the time, it's that last one, a kind of soft disappointment that Kashmir didn't put on a show.

But why should it? What rulebook says joy must be loud to be real? That dignity must wear designer labels?

There's a quieter kind of celebration that's easy to miss if you're not looking closely. In Pulwama's markets, I saw men weighing mutton in back lanes, teenagers laughing over plastic bangles, and women bargaining for embroidered scarves. These weren't big-ticket purchases. But they weren't nothing. They were what people could afford, what they chose with care.

And in those choices was something deeply human: an economy not of noise, but of meaning.

This isn't about glorifying scarcity. Kashmiris, like anyone else, want to live well. They want to provide for their families, enjoy their holidays, feel secure. But when money is tight, and dignity is even tighter, people make trade-offs. They celebrate within limits. They make space for others to do the same. That's not failure. That's wisdom.

There's a popular idea in economics that well-being is best measured by how much people consume. It's a convenient yardstick: neat, countable, visible. But it's not the only one. And it misses something essential, especially in places like Kashmir.

Kashmir's economy, especially during festivals, often follows a different script. It's shaped by things that are harder to quantify: responsibility, memory, restraint. One father told me he bought only one pair of new clothes this year. Not for himself, but for his daughter.“That's enough,” he said.“She'll remember the day, not the price.”

Some might call that a small gesture. I think it's a powerful one.

In academic terms, this might be called a“moral economy” - one where spending choices are tied to values, not just prices. But you don't need jargon to understand what that means. It's the decision to skip a new outfit so a neighbour can afford meat. It's the refusal to show off when someone else is barely getting by.

That kind of thinking runs deep in Kashmir. It comes from generations of living under curfews, shocks, and shutdowns. It comes from remembering what it feels like to have nothing. And from knowing that the measure of a good Eid isn't how much you spent, but whether everyone had something.

This year, that spirit was alive. You just had to know where to look.

The idea that Kashmir's celebration was“muted” isn't just wrong, it's also telling. It reveals how quickly we confuse visibility with vitality. If it's not on Instagram, did it really happen? If the shops weren't overflowing, was there even joy?

But many Kashmiri households marked Eid without posting a single photo. That doesn't mean they weren't celebrating. It means they were too busy living.

And maybe that's the point we keep missing. In a world that pushes us to consume more, show more, and feel more, all at once, choosing less is sometimes the most radical act.

This year, Kashmiris chose less. But they also chose wisely. They chose deliberately. They chose each other. And in doing so, they reminded us of something we've forgotten: that the economy of dignity doesn't always come with receipts.

So the next time someone says Kashmir didn't spend much this Eid, ask them this: what kind of spending are you looking for? And what kind of economy do you think really matters?

Because from where I stood, among the dust and the chai and the lively exchanges, it didn't look like absence. It looked like endurance. It looked like care. It looked like home.

• The author is a freelance researcher with a PhD in Political Science from the Central University of Kashmir. He can be reached at [email protected]

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