Melodies Across Borders: How Shina Musicians are Reuniting a Divided Community

In the remote Tulail Valley near the Line of Control in Indian-administered Kashmir, 25-year-old singer Aasim Yaseen is discovering the power of music to bridge political divides. While music is often not viewed as a professional career in his village of Buglinder, Yaseen finds motivation when locals play his Shina-language songs on their phones, urging him to persevere despite the challenges.

Across Gurez in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, Drass in Indian-administered Ladakh, and Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan, a new generation of musicians is utilizing social media to share Shina songs. These artists are working to keep their shared language alive and renew ties within a community divided for generations by the Line of Control.

For Yaseen, the separation is personal. His grandfather shared stories of a great-great uncle who remained in Gilgit-Baltistan after Partition, leading to a total loss of contact due to security concerns. Gurez, the homeland of Indigenous Shina-speaking people, once sat on historic routes linking the Kashmir Valley with Central Asia, including the Burzil Pass route to Astore in Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan. Today, there are no local crossings for families to visit relatives in Gilgit.

Due to security restrictions, residents of Gurez and Drass are often wary of direct communication across the border. Sharing music online via Facebook and YouTube has become a safer alternative, allowing the community to reconnect emotionally and culturally without attracting suspicion. A teacher from Purana Tulail village notes that songs have become a powerful medium for conveying messages across the divide.

Life in Buglinder remains rooted in farming, where Yaseen's father, Abdul Rahim Sheikh, manages the family farm and a small grocery shop. The landscape is marked by bunkers, fences, and surveillance cameras, and winter snow often cuts off access to essential services. The region has also seen volatility, such as the April 2025 attack near Pahalgam, which forced residents into bunkers or temporary camps.

Musically, the community is finding unity. Salman Paras, a prominent Shina folk singer from Sheikhpora Kilshay in the Astore district of Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan, uses his fusion of Shina folk and modern pop to reach millions on YouTube. Paras, who also collaborated with singer Ali Zafar on the song Karay Karay, has performed in Dubai and Muscat. Through Instagram live sessions, Paras has connected with listeners like Imtiyaz Samoon from Gurez, expressing a desire to collaborate with musicians on the Indian-administered side if visas and permissions are granted.

Similarly, Iftikhar Uddin Iftikhar, a Gilgit-based singer who studied under Muhammad Amin Shah, views Shina music as a vital part of their identity and a tool for language preservation.

However, the path to musical preservation is fraught with financial and technical hurdles. Yaseen, who studies music at Cluster University in Srinagar, struggles with the high cost of studio time, which can range from 30,000 to 35,000 Indian rupees. To reduce costs, he and other musicians like Zia Ul Alam and Younis Majeed share resources. Majeed, from Izmarg village, blends Shina folk with contemporary beats, reaching thousands of viewers online.

In Drass, Indian-administered Ladakh, 24-year-old Zain Drassi has used local festivals to bring shared musical traditions back into public view, describing it as a recovery of cultural space after years of war and political borders. Like others, Drassi faces challenges in accessing professional production services, often having to travel to Srinagar, Bhaderwah, or Himachal Pradesh.

The foundation of this movement rests on the work of elders. Yousuf Naseem, a 53-year-old singer from Kangan in central Kashmir, has spent three decades preserving Shina music. Having been displaced from Gurez during the 1999 Kargil conflict, Naseem used cassettes like Dardistan to introduce Shina music to the people of Srinagar. Meanwhile, Fareed Ahmed Kaloo, 67, leads the Habba Khatoon Dramatic Club in Gurez, which was founded in 1976 to preserve Shina folklore. Kaloo has spent years traveling between villages to teach folk songs to younger generations.

The linguistic bridge is further strengthened by Masood Samoon, a 78-year-old Shina writer and linguist from Gurez. His poetry, sung by artists like Yaseen and Naseem, allows his words to travel across mountains and borders. While new primary-school textbooks introduced by the Jammu and Kashmir school board aim to formalize the language, linguists emphasize that the continued spoken use of Shina is essential for its survival.

Despite the political borders, Aasim Yaseen continues to record new tracks at Al-Bahr Studio in Srinagar, blending folk tradition with modern beats. He hopes to one day share a stage with musicians in Gilgit, maintaining the belief that while the border remains, the songs will always travel.