Kashmir’s Next Literacy Challenge

Credit By: DR ZUBAIR ASGAR SHAH

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• 02 May 2026

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In the age of artificial intelligence, knowing how to read, verify, think and create online is becoming as essential as traditional education itself

Kashmir today stands at a critical intersection of aspiration, technology and social change. The conversation is no longer only about roads, power, tourism or conventional education. It is increasingly about who can access the digital world, who can understand it, and who can shape it. In that sense, digital literacy is no longer a luxury or a supplementary skill; it is becoming a civic necessity. And with artificial intelligence rapidly entering classrooms, workplaces, media, governance and healthcare, Kashmir must decide whether it will merely consume technology or build the capacity to use it wisely, ethically and productively.

The question before us is not whether AI will influence Kashmir. It already is. The real question is whether society, institutions and policymakers are prepared to ensure that this influence deepens opportunity rather than inequality.

The first reality to acknowledge is that Kashmir has made visible progress in digital access, especially among the young. Recent ASER-linked reporting on Jammu and Kashmir indicates that around 93–94 percent of adolescents in the 14–16 age group have a smartphone available at home, while nearly 84 percent know how to use one. This is a remarkable shift for a region that, not very long ago, was battling limited connectivity, infrastructural bottlenecks and educational disruptions. It tells us that the device barrier is reducing, at least in many households.

Yet access alone is not literacy. Owning or borrowing a smartphone is not the same as understanding the digital ecosystem. A child may know how to open an app, record a reel, forward a message or join a chat group, but remain digitally vulnerable, educationally underprepared and economically excluded. This gap between access and meaningful capability is where Kashmir’s policy attention must now focus.

The same reporting suggests that nearly 79 percent of adolescents who can use smartphones use them for social media, while only about 64 percent use them for educational purposes. This should not be read as a moral complaint against young people. It is instead a structural warning. If the digital ecosystem available to our youth is driven more by distraction than discovery, more by passive scrolling than active learning, then the promise of digital empowerment will remain shallow.

This is precisely where digital literacy becomes central. True digital literacy means the ability to search intelligently, verify information, understand online risks, create useful content, communicate responsibly, learn independently and solve problems using digital tools. In the age of AI, it also means knowing when to trust technology, when to question it, and how to use it without surrendering one’s own judgment.

Kashmir needs this form of literacy not only in schools but across society. Students need it for education and employment. Journalists need it for verification and ethical reporting. Farmers need it for accessing schemes, weather updates and market information. Small entrepreneurs need it for digital payments, online visibility and customer outreach. Women, especially in underserved areas, need it for autonomy, safety and participation in the public sphere. Senior citizens need it to navigate services that are increasingly moving online. In short, digital literacy is now deeply tied to social inclusion.

The good news is that institutional groundwork is being laid. Government data reported in the local press show that more than 9,000 digital learning units have been established across Jammu and Kashmir’s schools, including 3,008 Computer-Aided Learning Centres, 1,588 ICT labs and 4,047 smart classrooms. This is a significant educational asset. It suggests that the infrastructure for digital learning is expanding beyond urban elite spaces and entering the broader public education system.

But infrastructure, while necessary, is not sufficient. A smart classroom is only as smart as its usage. A digital lab is only as transformative as the teachers who can integrate it into learning. Devices without pedagogy become showpieces. Screens without critical thinking can even weaken learning by encouraging mechanical dependence. Therefore, the next phase of reform in Kashmir must move from installation to integration.

Teachers must be at the heart of this transformation. If educators are not trained, confident and continuously supported, digital education will remain performative. The task is not to replace teachers with technology. It is to equip teachers so that technology can enrich human teaching. AI can help in lesson planning, translation, assessment support and personalised practice. But it cannot replace the emotional, moral and contextual intelligence of a good teacher—particularly in a region like Kashmir, where the classroom often carries social and psychological weight beyond academics.

This brings us to artificial intelligence. Across the world, AI is beginning to reshape how students write, how offices function, how customer services operate, how data is analysed and how public systems are managed. Jammu and Kashmir, too, has started thinking in these terms. The official Artificial Intelligence Framework, 2023, identifies skilling and education as a key pillar and calls for collaboration with educational institutions and capacity-building in applied AI. More recently, proposals reviewed with IIT Jammu included AI-driven interventions in government schools and the introduction of AI literacy in the curriculum in age-appropriate ways.

These are encouraging signs. They indicate that Kashmir is not absent from the future-facing policy conversation. But policy language must now become a public movement. AI should not remain a conference term used by bureaucrats, consultants and tech enthusiasts. It must be translated into accessible social understanding.

There is a temptation in many places, including our own, to treat AI either as a miracle or as a menace. Both views are simplistic. AI is neither magic nor destiny. It is a tool—powerful, fast, imperfect and deeply shaped by the people who design and deploy it. Used wisely, it can support language learning, automate repetitive work, assist in diagnostics, improve public service delivery and create new economic pathways. Used carelessly, it can spread misinformation, intensify surveillance, replace low-skill jobs, erode originality and amplify existing inequalities.

For Kashmir, this duality matters profoundly. The region has a young population, a strong educational aspiration, a growing familiarity with smartphones, and an expanding ecosystem of institutions and startups. These conditions create opportunity. But Kashmir also faces challenges of uneven connectivity, variable school quality, unemployment, rural-urban gaps and a history of disruptions that have repeatedly interrupted educational continuity. In such a context, AI can either become a ladder or a divider.

The digital divide remains real. Even where smartphones are present, reliable broadband, quality devices, uninterrupted electricity and conducive learning environments are not equally distributed. Reports from the region have highlighted that many schools still struggle with digital libraries, robust connectivity and adequate ICT support, especially in rural or remote areas. Therefore, any triumphalist narrative about digital transformation must be tempered with realism. Kashmir is connected, yes—but unevenly. It is digitising, yes—but not uniformly.

This unevenness should shape policy. The objective should not simply be to produce a thin layer of AI-savvy urban youth while leaving the rest of society behind. The goal should be broad-based digital citizenship. That means beginning with foundational literacy: safe browsing, online verification, cyber hygiene, responsible communication, digital applications for daily life, and the ability to learn from digital platforms in English, Urdu and local languages. Only on that foundation can AI literacy become meaningful.

Equally important is the question of language and culture. Much of the digital and AI world still operates primarily in English. This creates a barrier for many students and ordinary citizens in Kashmir. If AI is to become genuinely democratising, it must work across linguistic and cultural contexts. Tools and training modules should be designed to include local realities, local examples and accessible vocabulary. Otherwise, technology will continue to privilege those who are already advantaged.

There is also a special relevance here for journalism and public discourse. In the era of AI, false images, fabricated quotations, manipulated audio and synthetic narratives can travel faster than corrections. Kashmir, with its politically sensitive information environment, cannot afford widespread digital gullibility. News consumers need media literacy as much as digital literacy. Readers must learn to pause before sharing, verify before believing, and distinguish reportage from propaganda. Educational institutions, civil society and media houses should collaborate on this front. The defence against the misinformation age is not censorship alone; it is an informed citizenry.

At the same time, AI offers powerful possibilities for local media and knowledge production. It can assist with translation, archiving, transcription, summarisation and audience analysis. It can help regional journalism reach wider audiences and preserve local voices. But this requires ethical guardrails. Human editors, reporters and subject experts must remain central. If AI is used merely to mass-produce shallow content, then public reasoning will weaken. If used to augment serious journalism, it can strengthen the information ecosystem.

Kashmir must also think of digital literacy and AI in relation to employability. A generation that is digitally present but not digitally skilled will remain frustrated. The market increasingly rewards those who can write clearly, analyse information, use digital tools, collaborate online and adapt to AI-enabled workflows. The future will not belong only to coders. It will belong to those who combine domain knowledge with technological fluency. That includes teachers, designers, journalists, translators, researchers, healthcare workers, administrators and entrepreneurs.

For that reason, the conversation should move beyond elite coding camps and occasional workshops. We need a layered ecosystem: digital literacy in schools, AI awareness in colleges, vocational digital training in communities, support for women and rural learners, and continuous reskilling for workers. Adult literacy efforts, too can be linked with digital inclusion. Jammu and Kashmir’s plan under the New India Literacy Programme to literate 3.5 lakh adults in 2024–25 offers an important opportunity to integrate functional digital learning with basic literacy.

The central principle should be simple: technology must widen dignity, not dependence. If AI makes students stop thinking, it harms education. If it helps them explore better, it serves education. If digital systems exclude people who lack confidence or language fluency, they deepen inequality. If they make public services easier to access, they improve citizenship. If AI replaces human empathy in sensitive sectors, it fails. If it frees human beings from repetitive tasks so they can focus on judgment and care, it succeeds.

Kashmir does not need to imitate every technological trend. Nor should it approach AI with fear. What it needs is balance, seriousness and social imagination. The real benchmark of progress will not be how many devices are distributed or how many buzzwords enter policy notes. It will be whether a student in Kupwara, a teacher in Shopian, a woman entrepreneur in Anantnag, a job seeker in Srinagar and an adult learner in a far-flung village can all use the digital world with confidence, safety and purpose.

The future of Kashmir will be shaped not only by how much technology reaches us, but by how intelligently society learns to use it. Digital literacy is the bridge. AI is the next test. If we invest in both with wisdom and equity, Kashmir can become not just a consumer of technological change, but a thoughtful participant in it.

(The Author is a lecturer in HED and a columnist)