Kashmiri creators are using poetry, humour and videos of traditional life to bring the language into the feeds of young people and diaspora families. Their work makes Kashmiri easier to hear and share—but online visibility alone cannot secure the reading, writing and everyday use that a language needs to thrive.
Why creators are bringing Kashmiri online
Kashmiri is not simply on the verge of disappearing: it is spoken by millions. The pressure is more specific. In parts of the Valley, Urdu and English can carry greater prestige in schools, workplaces and urban settings, while Kashmiri may be treated as less suited to public or formal life. That can weaken its use between generations even when it remains part of home and community conversation.
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A 2011 Census figure cited in a 2023 report put the number of Kashmiri speakers in Jammu and Kashmir at more than seven million. That is a historical count, not a current estimate; the official Census catalogue identifies the relevant dataset as the 2011 mother-tongue census. Neither figure by itself measures how often people use Kashmiri, or whether they can read and write it. Census of India, C-16: Population by mother tongue, Jammu and Kashmir, 2011.
For Touqeer Ashraf, the social status of the language became hard to ignore after he moved from a village in Pulwama to Srinagar. He noticed that even people who knew Kashmiri increasingly spoke Urdu. The label gaamik—roughly, rustic or from a village—could make Kashmiri seem provincial rather than valuable. His response was to make the language itself the focus of a polished, shareable channel.
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Keashur Praw turns poetry into short-form video
Ashraf launched Keashur Praw in early 2021. Its short videos bring Kashmiri poetry to viewers through recitations and brief literary introductions. The poets featured include Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani, Mahmood Gami, Rasul Mir, Lal Ded and Mehjoor. In the 2023 profile of the channel, its videos were often about 30 seconds long—a format suited to a quick encounter with a poem, though not a substitute for studying it in depth.
Ashraf has described his aim as introducing younger viewers to older vocabulary and what he calls a “purer” form of Kashmiri. That is his artistic and educational preference, not an uncontested linguistic standard. Languages change through contact, and Kashmiri speakers use different registers and varieties. Recovering older words can expand what young people know; presenting one register as the only authentic Kashmiri could also make everyday speakers feel that their own language is inadequate. Scroll.in’s 2023 profile of Kashmiri-language creators reports Ashraf’s approach and the channel’s early reach.
The same report recorded more than 16,000 YouTube subscribers, nearly two million cumulative views and over 100,000 Instagram followers for Keashur Praw. These were figures reported in May 2023, not current totals or evidence that viewers learned the language. Their value is as a snapshot of audience interest at that time.
Muneer Dar documents words alongside the things they name
Muneer Ahmad Dar, a schoolteacher from Budgam, takes a different route. Through Muneer Speaks and Mr Koshur, he documents ox-driven oil mills, traditional furnishings, heritage houses, old occupations, artefacts and Kashmiri idioms. A phrase explained beside an object or place carries context that a word list alone cannot provide: viewers can see what the word refers to and how it belongs to a way of life.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsDar has described the project as a visual archive for future generations. It is language work, but also cultural documentation. Some of the practices and objects in the videos may become unfamiliar even to people who still speak Kashmiri. His videos have also reached diaspora families; the 2023 report includes accounts of parents using them to introduce children to Kashmiri culture. That is useful evidence of a possible role for the content, not a study showing how many children went on to speak the language.
In May 2023, the report said Dar’s Facebook videos about traditional oil mills had been shared by more than 40,000 people and viewed more than 4.4 million times. It also reported more than 325,000 Facebook followers for Muneer Speaks and over 39,000 YouTube followers for Mr Koshur. These are historical figures reported at the time, not independently audited or current counts. A 2025 Kashmir Times feature later described the channel’s coverage of idioms, proverbs, heritage houses and traditional lifestyles, alongside humour, nostalgia and education in younger creators’ work. That feature offers later examples, not a census of Kashmiri-language creators. Kashmir Times feature on young Kashmiri creators.
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Why video can reach people that books do not
Speaking Kashmiri does not necessarily mean being able to read it. In the Kashmir Valley, Kashmiri is commonly written in Perso-Arabic script; Devanagari has also been used in some contexts. The 2023 report describes people who speak the language but cannot read or write it, though it does not establish what proportion of speakers are in that position.
Audio and video lower that particular barrier: a viewer can hear pronunciation, rhythm and expression without first knowing the script. This matters for diaspora children and for speakers who have not learned to read Kashmiri. It does not teach them the script by itself. Captions, transliteration and bilingual explanations can help bridge the gap, but each format makes choices: transliteration may improve access for a beginner while leaving the writing system unfamiliar; script-only captions may be inaccessible to a speaker who cannot read them. The creators profiled in the reports are not assessed against a common captioning or teaching standard.
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Different formats serve different purposes. A short recitation or idiom can invite a first listen and be replayed or shared. Humour and contemporary subjects can make Kashmiri feel like a language for present-day life, not only for heritage. Longer interviews and documentaries can preserve context and allow oral histories to unfold. Instagram can introduce viewers to a clip; YouTube can accommodate longer, searchable material. Neither platform guarantees that a video will remain easy to find or available indefinitely.
Visibility, cultural memory and language learning are different outcomes
A video can make Kashmiri audible without making its audience more fluent. A heritage tour can preserve memories of a house or craft without teaching a viewer to read. Poetry can build interest in literary language, while an everyday-language lesson may be more useful for someone trying to speak with family. These are all worthwhile outcomes, but they should not be collapsed into a single claim that social media is “reviving” Kashmiri.
One way to judge whether a channel is supporting language use is to look beyond its view count:
- Do viewers ask questions about meanings, pronunciation and spelling, or try responding in Kashmiri?
- Do children or diaspora viewers use new words in conversation away from the screen?
- Do creators offer script, transliteration or subtitles that help different kinds of learners?
- Does the work cover modern daily life as well as memories and heritage?
- Are historical details and translations explained and checked, and is longer material preserved somewhere more durable than a social feed?
- Do creators connect their content with families, teachers, writers or archives that can support learning beyond a clip?
These are practical tests, not results established by the profiles. The available reporting shows reach, examples of content and individual accounts of use; it does not measure changes in fluency, literacy or family transmission.
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What social media cannot replace
Writer and language expert Shafi Shauq, quoted in the 2023 report, argues that a language is fundamentally speech: it stays alive when people speak it and adapt it. That view resists declaring Kashmiri dead simply because its written use is under pressure. It also leaves room to value literacy. Speaking, reading, publishing and teaching are related but distinct forms of language life.
Novelist Asif Tariq Bhat illustrates the gap between literary production and readership. Publishers initially told him there was little interest in Kashmiri books. His first novel, Khwaban Khayalan Manz, was eventually published in an edition reportedly of about 450 copies. Because some potential readers cannot read Kashmiri script, he considered an audiobook or spoken adaptation as another way to reach them. Audio can widen access to a story; it cannot, on its own, build the ability to read the original.
Nor can a few creators substitute for Kashmiri-medium teaching, literacy instruction, publishing, libraries, family conversation or publicly supported archives. A creator may preserve a valuable recording, but a platform-hosted channel is not the same as an institutional archive with long-term preservation practices. Attention is also subject to recommendation systems, account access and changing platform rules. Views are not a measure of durable access, and the 2023 audience figures should not be mistaken for current activity.
Income is another constraint, not a proven solution. The 2025 Kashmir Times feature describes monetisation as low for a regional audience and notes the workload carried by small teams or individual creators. YouTube offers several monetisation routes subject to eligibility, policy and country availability, while its rules require original, authentic content and can exclude repetitive or mass-produced material. Instagram also conditions monetisation on its policies and the nature of the content. These rules matter when creators use poems, music or archival footage, but they do not establish that the profiled channels earn meaningful income. YouTube Partner Program and monetisation overview; YouTube channel monetisation policies; Instagram monetisation policies.
What lasting success would look like
The creators’ strongest contribution is to make Kashmiri visible, listenable and connected to lived culture. Whether that visibility becomes language transmission depends on what happens off-screen: whether families use the language with children, whether learners can move from listening to speaking and reading, whether writers can find readers, and whether schools and institutions give Kashmiri sustained support.
Success would therefore be more than a viral poem or a widely shared video of an old mill. It would include young people using Kashmiri for new subjects as well as inherited ones, accessible routes into script and literature, and cultural recordings preserved in ways that will outlast a platform’s feed. Reels can open the door; keeping the language in use requires people and institutions to keep walking through it.
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