Silent migration of Jammu & Kashmir
Tanisha Kohli, IIMC Jammu
On a summer morning in Srinagar, the sound of rolling suitcases has become familiar in many neighbourhoods. At dawn, parents stand silently at bus stops and airport terminals, holding back tears as their children leave for Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, or sometimes far beyond India’s borders.
They are not leaving because they want to abandon home. They are leaving because home no longer seems to have room for their dreams. They wanted to build a future they dream of but there hometown is not supporting the dreams, This story isn’t of just one or two students but of hundreds of student who left their home, to build a home!
In 2026, the migration of young people from Jammu and Kashmir for higher education and jobs is no longer an isolated phenomenon. It is a pattern visible in classrooms, employment offices, and family living rooms across the Union Territory. This trend isn’t about wanderlust or merely chasing metropolitan glamour, it reflects a deep structural challenge in education, employment, and economic opportunity at
home. It shows the dream of students who want to do something for their hometown but don’t get the full resources to pursue their dreams.
Degrees in hand, Uncertainty ahead!
For thousands of young Kashmiris and Dogras, education was supposed to be the bridge to a better life. Families invested their savings in school fees, coaching centres, and university degrees, believing that hard work would be rewarded with stability. Instead, many graduates now find themselves waiting for months or sometimes for years. In order to get better life now it isn’t enough just to get merely marks and hold a top degree. Rather it requires proper sources to utilise the knowledge, it requires quality jobs for the ones with skills in hand and training centres for the learning minds.
If we consider, Official government data it shows that over 3.6 lakh educated youth are registered as unemployed in Jammu and Kashmir. These are not school dropouts or unskilled workers. They include graduates, postgraduates, engineers, and professionally trained and skilled young people. Every number in this statistic represents a story, a young woman refreshing job portals daily, a postgraduate preparing for yet another competitive exam, a family postponing weddings and life plans hoping to get settle first, have a stable sufficient income.
In districts like Srinagar and Anantnag, unemployment figures are especially high. Here, it is common to meet a young man with master’s degrees driving taxis or helping in family shops not because they lack ambition, but because suitable jobs simply do not exist. As a student what can we do? We can study, get hands-on skills, but when it comes to implying those skills we need the government to come ahead and give us quality jobs. As learning skills alone and keeping them in mind won’t fill our stomachs!
Leaving to Learn, Staying away to Earn
For many students, the decision to leave begins with education. While Jammu and Kashmir has universities and colleges with proud histories, students seeking specialised or professional courses often feel limited by outdated curriculum, lack of research exposure, lack of experienced teaching staff and weak placement networks. Engineering, management, medical specialisations, data science, media studies these fields pull students toward institutions outside the UT. Parents sell land, take loans, or exhaust savings so their children can study elsewhere, hoping that quality education will open doors for a better future. But once students graduate outside Jammu and Kashmir, returning home becomes difficult. Careers begin
where networks are strong. Jobs are offered where industries are clustered. Slowly, what started as temporary migration turns permanent. Again with a hope of better placement and jobs students chose to stay away from home, not because they want to but because they had to. Even for those who want to stay back, choices becomes limited. The local economy remains heavily dependent on government jobs, tourism, and small-scale trade. The private sector is thin, and high-growth industries that employ large numbers of graduates are largely absent.
Government recruitment does happen, but the numbers tell a hard truth. Only a small fraction of registered unemployed youth are employed into public sector jobs each year, while lakhs continue to wait. Competitive exams become a continuous cycle preparation, delay, disappointment pushing many to finally look elsewhere. In contrast, cities outside the UT offer not just jobs, but career paths. Promotions, skill upgrades, professional growth these are things young people want, not luxuries. Young minds are ready to learn but just learning without implementing lands youth no where.
The stories of waiting
In the stillness of a Srinagar summer evening, 24-year-old Anzar Ahmad scrolls through apartment listings in Bengaluru on his phone. “I have made up my mind,” he says, his voice calm but resolute. “There is nothing left here for me. No job, No peace, No future.
Ahmad, who completed his engineering and later earned an MBA in 2023, was once full of ideas to launch a tech startup in Kashmir. Now, like many in his circle, he is planning his exit , one more name in the growing list of the Valley’s best and brightest students.
29-year-old Saima, a PhD scholar in Social Sciences, once aspired to stay and teach in Kashmir. Now she is sending out CVs to private universities outside the Valley. “I waited for long,” she says. “But all I got was hopelessness. How do you teach hope when you have stopped feeling it yourself?”
Though there is no official database that captures the scale of this migration, the presence of thousands of students and professionals across cities like Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru is evidence enough. Students, are drawn by relatively affordable education, cosmopolitan culture, and access to jobs. But even outside Kashmir, many say the sense of being ‘othered’ follows them.
The unemployment rate in Jammu and Kashmir remains significantly higher than the national average, a reality that young people understand even if they don’t quote statistics. They feel it when job fairs offer few placements, when interviews lead nowhere, when years of education yield no stability. This uncertainty takes a toll. Mental stress among youth is rising. Families delay marriages. Parents worry not just about income, but about purpose and dignity. The question “What will you do next?” hangs heavily in many homes.
The departure of young people changes the social fabric of Jammu and Kashmir. Villages grow quieter. Towns lose their most educated voices. Local innovation suffers when talent drains away. While remittances may come back, energy and ideas often do not. Yet, despite leaving, many young people carry home with them. They want to return if only there were opportunities worthy of their skills. The story of youth migration from Jammu and Kashmir is not about disloyalty or impatience. It is about aspiration meeting reality. It is about young people choosing dignity over despair, movement over stagnation and stability over emotions.
If the UT is to retain its brightest minds, it must invest not only in infrastructure, but in confidence, the confidence that education will lead to employment, that skills will be valued locally, and that staying back will not mean settling for less. Until then, the morning departures will continue. And with every suitcase that leaves, Jammu and Kashmir quietly asks itself a difficult question: What would it take for our youth to stay?
