Srinagar, Oct. 7 -- I often hear people call it an epidemic. The news says it is spreading. The police say they are cracking down. Hospitals say they are overwhelmed. What no one says aloud is that drug addiction in Kashmir is a story of a society that no longer knows how to care for its young.

When I began studying political science, I learned to see patterns in pain. Addiction, for me, became one such pattern of collective disorientation.

What looks like substance abuse on the surface is, in truth, an outcome of deeper absence of politics that no longer inspires trust, and families and institutions that have lost their sense of connection.

In hospitals, the numbers keep rising. The age of those seeking help keeps falling. Heroin has...