Khurram Parvez defends human rights in war-torn Kashmir, encourages young people to pursue peaceful approaches to change, and advocates for families affected by the violence.

Khurram Parvez, an undaunted champion for peace, works at the forefront of the struggle to defend human rights in conflict-torn Kashmir. While he was a university student in Kashmir, Khurram witnessed the distress and hostility of students accustomed to a lifetime of violence. Since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, the people of Kashmir have endured three wars and ongoing conflict. Both sides of the conflict—the Indian military and militant groups reported to be supported by Pakistan—continue to commit serious human rights violations. Over the past 17 years of armed uprising, an estimated 80,000 people have been killed and more than 8,000 people disappeared in the custody of Indian soldiers.

“I had friends, cousins, and classmates who had taken up arms without realizing the consequences—or even fully understanding why they had picked up the arms in the first place,” Khurram says. “They didn’t consider themselves to be activists, just young, ordinary people fighting for their rights. They knew people were being tortured and killed, and they wanted to retaliate. Some of them were killed; others arrested. I argued that we should fight to live, not to die. Some people thought I was against the political movement of Kashmir, but I supported their struggle for rights, truth and justice.  It was just the violence I was not in favor of. I didn’t want more people dying.”

Khurram responded to his fellow students’ unrest by founding the Students’ Helpline to raise awareness of the responsibilities of the youth in conflict and the dangers of war.  Students’ Helpline is a movement of students which encourages peaceful approaches to ending the conflict.  His own family resisted his activism; not only was it controversial, they pointed out, but it was dangerous as well.

Although his university degree could have permitted him a comfortable life away from conflict-torn Kashmir, Khurram chose to stay to defend human rights, despite risks to his personal safety. He co-founded the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, with the belief that a strong and vibrant civil society is required to ensure a lasting peace. There he uses his journalism training to monitor and report on human rights issues; with his help, the coalition has earned the reputation as a credible and critical source of information. Khurram also works with the Kashmiri Lawyers for Human Rights to provide legal aid for families affected by the conflict, and he continues to be involved in the issue of people who have disappeared.

Khurram has already sacrificed more than his sense of personal safety for his human rights work. In 2004, on an election-monitoring mission, the jeep he and his colleagues were riding in struck a landmine that a militant group had just planted. Khurram lost a leg; another human rights activist and the driver lost their lives. But those losses have failed both to slow Khurram’s work and quash his determination.

“Kashmir is neither a geographic area nor a political entity but the land of more than ten million souls,” he says. “And when the fate of ten million souls is in question, it seems worth sacrificing anything and everything.”