When people speak about Kashmir’s economic challenges today, they often focus on investment, unemployment, entrepreneurship and startups.

I often find myself thinking instead about a marble processing plant imported from Italy more than three decades ago.

The machinery arrived.

The factory never opened.

Parts of that investment remain in their original boxes to this day.

For me, those unopened crates have come to symbolize a wider story—the story of a generation of Kashmiri entrepreneurs whose ambitions were interrupted by events far beyond their control.

It is also my story.

From Medicine to Business

I did not intend to become a businessman.

I studied medicine and expected to pursue a medical career. My father, who had built our family business from scratch, had encouraged my studies although to go towards medical the influence of my uncle who is a doctor in United States was primary . He hoped that one day the family might establish a nursing home or medical centre, drawing on the expertise of several distinguished doctors within our extended family, including the renowned Dr. Ali Jan.

Yet circumstances intervened.

First Dr Ali jan got involved with SKIMS a primary tertiary medical centre in kashmir and due to family circumstances I had to join business or go to United States where my uncle was there who had encouraged me to take up medicine .

By the late 1970s, the family enterprise was expanding rapidly. My father had four sons. Had I remained in medicine, two of my younger brothers would likely have had to abandon their own studies completely although one younger brother was involved in the business much more when I was in medical school to help manage the business.

The choice was not between medicine and business.

It was between personal ambition and family responsibility.

I chose the latter.

Building an Enterprise

When my brothers and I joined the business, we inherited not wealth but opportunity.

Our father had begun from scratch.

Together, we expanded from automobile retailing and wholesaling into multiple sectors.

We added new automobile brands, expanded into electronics distribution and gradually entered manufacturing.

In an era when industrial investment in Kashmir remained limited, we established facilities involved in the manufacture of HDPE and polypropylene cement bags, marble processing and silk processing.

Our vision was straightforward.

If Kashmir possessed the raw materials, we should process them locally.

If Kashmir had a market, we should produce for it.

By 1989, our group had become one of the largest private enterprises in Kashmir and, by revenue, was widely regarded as the second-largest private business group in the Valley.

At a time when the Valley’s economy was overwhelmingly dependent on trade, agriculture and government employment, we believed industrialisation offered a different path.

Yet we believed we were only beginning.

The Future We Imagined

The next phase of expansion was already underway.

A large marble and granite processing plant had been ordered from Italy.

Plans were being developed to modernise silk production through automated weaving technology from Japan .

I had initiated discussions with YTONG in Sweden regarding the manufacture of advanced construction materials using locally available resources.

We were exploring opportunities in leather processing with technology from Sweden besides making corrugated boxes with technology from japan to expand in the manufacturing sectors.

Our belief was simple.

Kashmir could become more than a trading economy.

It could become a manufacturing economy.

When 1990 Arrived

Then history intervened.

The armed resistance movement transformed every aspect of life in Kashmir.

Much has been written about the political and human consequences of that period.

Less has been written about its economic consequences.

Factories closed.

Investments stalled.

Markets contracted.

Entrepreneurs postponed decisions.

Capital fled.

The Italian machinery arrived, but the circumstances required for installation disappeared.

The future we had imagined vanished almost overnight.

The Costs Nobody Measures

The destruction caused by prolonged instability is not limited to balance sheets.

It affects relationships.

It creates mistrust.

It tests families.

In our own case, the upheavals of the early 1990s coincided with disagreements over the future direction of the business and intervention by bad elements who had infiltrated in the family with help from bad elements of the movement.

Like many family enterprises facing extraordinary circumstances, we experienced internal divisions over strategy, control and adaptation to a rapidly changing environment and the factor of bad elements of the movement which had unfortunately infiltrated in our family also .

Relationships that had once been strengthened by shared enterprise came under strain. Certain business segments became separated from the broader group and what had once been a unified family project gradually fragmented.

Looking back, I do not view this primarily as a personal story.

Rather, it reflects another hidden consequence of conflict.

When uncertainty becomes permanent, even strong institutions—whether businesses, partnerships or families—can come under strain.

Some survive.

Others do not.

Beginning Again

Starting over is one of the least understood aspects of the Kashmiri experience.

Outside observers often imagine migration as a continuation of previous success.

The reality is usually very different.

In Singapore, and later in Dubai and Malaysia, we three brothers and I entered a completely different line of business.

The irony was that we entered a sector in which we had no prior experience. Before 1990 our expertise lay in automobiles, manufacturing and industrial development. Now we found ourselves learning the global trade in Kashmiri carpets and handicrafts. We were no longer expanding an established enterprise. We were building a new one.

Before 1990, we had never been involved in carpets or handicrafts.

Now we had to learn an entirely new trade.

We experienced successes and setbacks, growth and disappointment.

But we rebuilt.

Returning Home

In 2003, I returned to Kashmir with renewed optimism.

I hoped to revive some of the projects that conflict had interrupted.

I explored opportunities in small hydropower generation, tourism infrastructure, healthcare and manufacturing besides the previous projects including the marble unit .

Investors were interested.Discussions progressed.Committees were established.Meetings were held.Yet little moved beyond the planning stage.

The obstacles had changed.

Where conflict had once been the principal barrier, bureaucracy and policy uncertainty now became equally formidable challenges.

A Different Path

My involvement in public affairs gradually deepened.

Through my work with the Chamber of Commerce, I became increasingly engaged in the wider economic and political issues affecting Kashmir.

As President of the Chamber of Commerce, I increasingly found myself advocating not merely for individual businesses but for the economic rights and aspirations of Kashmir itself.

By 2008, that engagement had evolved into a much larger public role.

The businessman was gradually giving way to the activist.

Then came 2019.

My arrest effectively marked the end of my active business career.

Today, my energies are devoted primarily to advocacy and public engagement.

The Question That Remains

When discussions arise about startups, innovation ecosystems and entrepreneurial development, I often think back to those unopened crates from Italy.

The question is not why Kashmir has failed to produce a unicorn.

The question is what happened to the generation that was preparing to build industries before the conflict interrupted their journey.

How many factories were never completed?

How many investments were abandoned?

How many entrepreneurs migrated?

How many dreams remained packed away, waiting for a future that never arrived?

The marble plant still in boxes is only one example.

Across Kashmir, there are countless others.

Their stories are also part of our history.

The loss was not only financial. Kashmir lost engineers, industrialists, manufacturers, exporters and risk-takers. Many migrated. Many adapted elsewhere. Others abandoned entrepreneurship altogether.

And until they are acknowledged, our understanding of Kashmir’s economic future will remain incomplete.

The purpose of recounting this story is not nostalgia.

It is to remind younger Kashmiris that there was a generation that believed Kashmir could become more than a trading economy. We believed it could manufacture, process its own resources, export value-added products and build industries capable of competing beyond its borders.

Yet the story should not end with loss.

The marble plant still in boxes is not merely a symbol of what was interrupted. It is also a reminder of what remains possible. The resources that inspired those investments still exist. The entrepreneurial spirit that built those businesses has not disappeared.

The real question for the next generation is whether it can succeed where ours was prevented from doing so.

Kashmir’s future will not be built by government schemes alone. It will be built by entrepreneurs willing to take risks, create value and transform local resources into global opportunities.

The marble plant still in boxes belongs to the past.

Whether Kashmir’s next industrial chapter remains boxed away is a question for the future.