The new generation of voices
Cooks, historians, language teachers, musicians, memoirists, vloggers — the Kashmiri Pandits keeping our culture alive online. Follow them, learn from them, support them.
Twenty years ago, learning about Kashmiri Pandit cuisine, history, or language meant having a relative who could teach you, owning a few rare books, or finding the right offline cultural society in your city. Today, much of it is on Instagram, YouTube, Substack, podcasts, and X — being made by Kashmiri Pandits in their own homes, in their own time, often unpaid and out of pure love for the community.
Iqwat is curating the list of every Kashmiri Pandit content creator worth following. The page below explains the niches we are organising the directory around. The full directory — with handles, links, and 'best post to start with' for each creator — is coming soon. If you create KP content, or follow someone who does — write to us so we don't miss them.
The six niches
Cooks documenting KP recipes — Yakhni, Dum Aloo, Haak, Tahir — for diaspora kitchens. Followed by every KP who left their grandmother's kitchen and is now trying to recreate it abroad.
Typical formats: Reels of step-by-step recipes; long-form recipe blogs; Herath and Navreh cooking specials.
Independent historians, archivists, and cultural commentators bringing Kashmiri Pandit history to social media — Sharada script, Kashmir Shaivism, lost temples, the medieval saints.
Typical formats: Threads on X, deep-dive YouTube channels, Substack newsletters, Instagram explainers.
Native KP speakers teaching the language one phrase, one word, one verse at a time — for diaspora children who might otherwise grow up without it.
Typical formats: Word-of-the-day reels, Koshur learning channels, Lal Ded vakh recitations with subtitles.
KP musicians — both classical and contemporary — performing leelas, bhajans, vatsuns, and the devotional music that has filled our homes for centuries.
Typical formats: Live-streamed Herath performances, devotional music YouTube channels, original compositions.
KP writers, podcasters, and video creators telling the post-1990 story — without bitterness, with specificity. Family stories, mohalla memories, return visits.
Typical formats: Substack memoirs, oral history podcasts, intergenerational interview series.
Kashmiri Pandits documenting return journeys — to Kheer Bhawani, to Amarnath, to ancestral mohallas — and the emotional experience of pilgrimage in a community that has been displaced.
Typical formats: Vlog series, Instagram travel highlights, photo essays.
Be on the list
Iqwat is building the most comprehensive directory of Kashmiri Pandit content creators anywhere — sortable by niche, platform, location, and language. The directory updates quarterly. To be considered, please send us:
hello@iqwat.com — subject line: "Content Creator Nomination".
