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Something beautiful, but increasingly unnecessary. Something our grandparents had time

for. Something associated with libraries, handwritten letters, old novels, worn-out poetry

collections and people sitting quietly beside windows with books in their hands. The modern

world has little patience for such images.

We live in an age of artificial intelligence, algorithms, instant communication, digital

currencies, genetic engineering, space exploration and machines capable of producing

information within seconds. A question that once required hours of research can now be

answered almost immediately. A message can cross continents before a person has finished

drinking a cup of tea. A camera can fit inside a pocket. And yet, beneath all this

technological acceleration lies an uncomfortable question:

If technology can give us almost everything instantly, what is literature still for?

The answer begins much earlier than the invention of the printed book. It begins with the

human desire to tell a story. Long before libraries existed, human beings gathered around

fire. They spoke about animals they had hunted, storms they had survived, ancestors they

remembered, places they feared and worlds they imagined. Stories allowed one generation

to pass something of itself to another. Before history was written, it was spoken; before

novels, there were epics; before newspapers, there were storytellers; before political

manifesto, there was spoken word. Literature emerged as humanity’s earliest means of

preserving memory, transmitting ideas, and making sense of existence. That is why some of

humanity's oldest surviving works are not instruction manuals or commercial records, but

stories, poems, myths, epics and philosophical dialogues.

Literature gave human beings a vocabulary for thinking about themselves. It offered words to

emotions that existed long before people knew how to express them, allowing individuals to

recognise their fears, desires, contradictions and aspirations. Through poetry, human beings

learned to articulate love, grief, longing and loss; through novels, they encountered the

complexities of identity, morality, ambition and belonging. By giving language to the

otherwise inexpressible, literature enables human beings to move beyond merely

experiencing life towards examining its meaning. It becomes both a mirror of the self and a

means of discovering who we are, what we value and what we might become.

History remembers those who held power; literature remembers those who lived beneath its

shadow. Kings leave monuments, and empires inscribe their triumphs into the record of time.

Yet beyond these grand narratives exist lives that history rarely pauses to acknowledge: the

mother waiting for a son who never returns, the migrant carrying the ache of a lost home, the

worker whose exhaustion goes unnoticed, the child whose earliest memories are shaped by

war, the woman whose existence never earns a line in a history textbook, the prisoner

erased from official records, and the refugee carrying an entire homeland within the fragile

borders of memory. These lives may leave no monuments, their suffering may find no place

in official archives, and their names may eventually disappear from public remembrance. But

literature gathers what history leaves scattered. It gives permanence to lives that power has

rendered invisible.

Sometimes a novel can teach us something about a society that statistics cannot. A statistic

can tell us how many people migrated. A novel can make us feel what it means to leavehome. A report can tell us how many people died in a war. A poem can make one death

unforgettable. A history book can tell us that an empire collapsed. A story can show us what

that collapse looked like inside a household. Literature turns information into experience.

And experience is much harder to forget.

Literature is also a training ground for empathy. It teaches us to step beyond the narrow

boundaries of our own experience and enter the inner worlds of others—to inhabit lives we

have never lived, sufferings we have never endured, and realities we may otherwise never

understand. Through literature, we learn to see the world not only from where we stand, but

from where others have been forced to stand. We encounter the hunger of the poor, the

humiliation of the oppressed, the loneliness of the displaced, the silent endurance of women,

and the moral struggles of individuals whose circumstances differ profoundly from our own.

A novel cannot make us experience another person's suffering in its entirety, but it can make

that suffering impossible to dismiss as an abstraction. It gives a voice to the voiceless, and

emotional depth to realities we might otherwise observe from a distance. Literature invites us

to understand before we judge, it cultivates the moral imagination necessary for living with

others. Its greatest achievement may not be that it makes us feel for fictional characters, but

that it changes how we perceive real human beings long after the book is closed.

The most dangerous person to power is not always the loudest, but the one who

understands. The politically informed citizen questions policy; the historically informed

recognises recurring patterns; the philosophically trained challenges hidden assumptions;

and the literate mind sees through the manipulation of language. This is why intellectual

education and literature have always shared a complicated relationship with power. What

threatens authority is not the book itself, but the questions it awakens. History reveals that

the present is not inevitable. Political philosophy teaches that authority must justify itself.

Literature cultivates empathy beyond the boundaries of one’s own social group, while the

memoir of a prisoner can unsettle accepted notions of justice. Encounters with other

civilizations remind us that our customs are neither universal nor inevitable. Literature does

not merely inform; it unsettles the certainties through which power sustains itself. And

certainty, when left unquestioned, can become a convenient instrument of control.

Attention has become an economic resource. The longer we remain on a platform, the more

opportunities it creates to display advertisements, collect behavioural data, and keep us

engaged. Our attention is no longer merely given; it is constantly pursued, measured, and

monetised. A notification interrupts a paragraph. A video fragments a thought. A headline

replaces reflection. One controversy gives way to another. We scroll, react, forget, and begin

again. The problem is not technology itself, but an economy designed to capture attention at

the expense of concentration. When distraction becomes habitual, sustained thought begins

to feel uncomfortable.

Literature demands precisely what the attention economy discourages: patience, silence,

and intellectual endurance. A novel cannot always be understood in seconds, a poem may

require rereading, and a philosophical argument resists reduction to a slogan. To read

deeply is to reclaim the ability to think without interruption, question without haste, and

remain with uncertainty without demanding an immediate answer.

The future is not a battle between books and technology. The real struggle is between

attention and distraction, reflection and reaction, memory and endless novelty, the desire to

understand and the temptation to consume without thinking. A person may possess the mostsophisticated devices and have access to limitless information, yet remain unable to think

beyond what they are repeatedly shown. Access to information is not the same as

understanding, just as constant exposure to ideas is not the same as independent thought.

This is why literature remains indispensable: it teaches us not merely to encounter ideas, but

to examine them, question them, and discover what they demand of us.

The future may need literature more than the past did. This is perhaps the greatest irony of

technological progress: the more efficiently we produce information, the more urgently we

need the wisdom to question it. Artificial intelligence can generate text, machines can

summarise books, algorithms can anticipate our preferences, and search engines can

retrieve answers in seconds. Yet none can relieve us of the responsibility to decide what is

worth knowing, what deserves belief, and what kind of world is worth building.

The greatest danger facing the technological generation is not that it will stop reading books,

but that it will lose the patience to question, the courage to doubt, and the imagination to

envision a world beyond the one presented to it.

In a world increasingly capable of producing answers, literature may be most vital for

preserving our capacity to ask the right questions.

— By: Asma Khurshid

Zainab Showkat, from Seer Sopore, Kashmir, is a published author and psychology graduate whose writing explores the complexities of human emotions, relationships, and social realities. Her literary journey is rooted in a simple belief: every emotion carries a story, and every story deserves to be heard.

With a bachelor's degree in Psychology, Zainab brings an interest in human behaviour, emotional experiences, and interpersonal relationships to her writing. She is the author of Born Unwanted and Echoes of a Broken Bond and has contributed as a co-author to more than 30 books, reflecting her continued engagement with literary collaboration and creative expression.

Her debut book, Born Unwanted, addresses gender inequality in Kashmir, examining the experiences and consequences of gender-based discrimination. Through this work, she draws attention to an issue that deserves greater awareness and meaningful discussion.

Her second book, Echoes of a Broken Bond, focusing on emotional loss, broken connections, and the memories that remain long after people leave our lives. Through this book, she explores the lasting impact of relationships and the emotions associated with separation and loss.

Beyond her individual publications, Zainab's contributions to more than 30 books as a co-author have connected her with a wider community of writers and diverse creative perspectives. These collaborations form an important part of her literary journey, offering opportunities to engage with different ideas, voices, and approaches to storytelling.

Coming from Seer, Sopore, Zainab takes pride in her roots. Her journey reflects the idea that a meaningful literary voice can emerge from anywhere. A person’s background or location does not determine the value of their stories; what matters is the courage to express them and the determination to keep writing.

As she continues to write, Zainab remains interested in stories that encourage reflection, deepen empathy, and bring overlooked experiences into focus. With many more stories waiting to be told, she looks forward to expanding her literary journey and connecting with readers through her work.

Through her books and collaborative projects, Zainab Showkat continues to explore the power of words to express emotions, highlight social issues, and bring human experiences to the forefront. Her continuing journey as an author is shaped by an interest in human complexity and the possibilities of storytelling as a means of expression, reflection, and connection.

Madiha Manzoor is a young writer and creative individual from Ushkara, Baramulla, whose journey reflects a growing passion for literature, emotions, and storytelling. Alongside her academic pursuits, she has been steadily developing her identity as a writer and contributing to a growing body of literary work.

Madiha is currently pursuing her Honours in Anthropology at Government Degree College Baramulla (GDC BLA). While her academic journey has introduced her to the study of people, cultures, and societies, writing has given her a different way to understand and express human experiences.

For Madiha, writing is more than simply putting words together. It is a way of expressing emotions, sharing experiences, and connecting with people. Her journey has been shaped by learning, creativity, and the courage to turn thoughts and feelings into meaningful words.

She is the compiler of three books: Mother: The Meaning of Real Love, Tapestry of Emotions, and Scars of Life. These works represent different aspects of her interest in emotions, relationships, experiences, and the stories that connect people. Through these projects, she has continued to explore her creative abilities and develop her voice as a writer.

Beyond her own work as a compiler, Madiha has also contributed as a co-author to more than 50 books. Her collaborative work includes titles such as Father: The Backbone, Dreams Are Better Than Reality, The Value of Patience, My Heart Goes Out to You, and Together Forever, among others.

Being part of numerous collaborative publications has provided Madiha with opportunities to work with different writers and explore a variety of themes. It has also helped her understand different perspectives and strengthened her interest in storytelling.

One of the memorable milestones in Madiha’s writing journey was the opportunity to give an interview at Radio Kashmir Baramulla. The experience became a significant moment for her and encouraged her to continue pursuing her passion for writing. Having the opportunity to speak about her work and journey gave her further confidence to explore her creative interests.

Madiha’s journey as a writer has also been one of continuous learning. Every writing project has offered her an opportunity to discover new ideas, understand different emotions, and improve her ability to communicate through words. Her approach to writing is closely connected with her belief that stories can help people feel understood and connected.

Alongside her academic journey, she hopes to continue developing as a writer and create work that can inspire and connect with readers. For Madiha, books are not only about written words; they can also become a way of giving emotions a voice and sharing experiences that might otherwise remain unspoken.

She believes that every writer has a story to tell and that meaningful words can reach people in unexpected ways. This belief continues to motivate her to write, collaborate, and explore new creative possibilities.

With three books as a compiler and contributions to more than 50 books as a co-author, Madiha Manzoor is gradually building her place in the literary space. Her journey reflects the efforts of a young writer who is balancing academics with creativity while continuing to learn and grow.

As she looks ahead, Madiha hopes to explore new horizons in writing, take on new creative opportunities, and continue creating stories that carry emotion and meaning. For her, the journey is still beginning and there are many more stories yet to be written.

The question is deceptively simple: if you could travel back in time and kill Adolf Hitler as an infant,

knowing with certainty that doing so would prevent the Holocaust and the Second World War, would you

choose to do it?

Most people encounter the question as a moral thought experiment. It appears to offer an obvious

mathematical calculation: one innocent life weighed against millions of lives, from a utilitarian

perspective. Yet the question becomes considerably more difficult once the language of morality is taken

seriously. The infant has committed no crime. He possesses none of the political power, ideological

convictions, or intentions that would later define “Hitler”

. Killing him would therefore not be a

punishment since no crime has happened. It would be an act of preventive violence, justified entirely by

knowledge of what he is expected to become later in future.

That distinction transforms the problem. Now the question is not simply whether one may kill one person

to save millions. It is whether a person can justly be deprived of life for an act that he has not yet

committed.

To answer that question, one must examine not only Hitler and the Holocaust, but also the nature of

responsibility, the limits of consequentialism, the meaning of justice, and the extent to which individuals

can be held responsible for historical events that emerge from wider social and political structures.

The thought experiment therefore presents a conflict between two powerful moral intuitions: the

obligation to prevent catastrophic harm and the principle that individuals should not be punished for

crimes they have not committed.

I. The consequentialist case

The strongest argument for killing the infant is consequentialist.

Consequentialist ethics evaluates an action primarily according to its consequences. If killing one person

with certainty prevents the deaths of millions, the numerical disparity is morally overwhelming. The

refusal to act begins to appear not like moral restraint but like moral negligence.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the hypothetical provides complete certainty. Hitler will

unquestionably become the dictator responsible for the Holocaust. His death as an infant will

unquestionably prevent the Holocaust, the war, and the millions of deaths associated with them. No

alternative dictator will emerge, and no other catastrophe will replace them.

Under those conditions, refusing to kill him would have extraordinary consequences. The decision-maker

would knowingly permit millions to die in order to preserve the life of one person who, although innocent

at that moment, is known to be the future cause of that catastrophe.The consequentialist argument is therefore difficult to dismiss. If morality includes an obligation to

prevent suffering when doing so is possible, then preventing genocide at the cost of one life may not

merely be permissible; it may be morally required.

Yet this conclusion depends upon a demanding assumption: “certainty

”

The historical Hitler was not produced by an isolated chain of events leading inevitably from infancy to

dictatorship. His rise depended upon Germany's defeat in the First World War, the political instability of

the Weimar Republic, economic crises, antisemitism, nationalism, propaganda, institutional weakness,

political calculation and the actions of countless other individuals.

The Holocaust itself was not the product of one person's decisions alone. It required a state apparatus,

bureaucratic cooperation, military participation, ideological indoctrination and widespread social and

institutional compliance.

Consequently, killing Hitler cannot automatically be equated with preventing the Holocaust.

The thought experiment becomes morally straightforward only after it has artificially removed one of the

central uncertainties of history: contingency.

II. Hitler was not born a criminal

The second problem concerns responsibility.

A fundamental principle of justice is that individuals should be judged according to what they have done

and, in many traditions, what they intended to do. A criminal court does not sentence a person because of

a crime he may commit twenty years from now. Punishment without an offence is generally regarded as

arbitrary. Baby Hitler therefore presents a profound difficulty.

He has no criminal record. He has no political programme. He has not ordered an invasion. He has not

persecuted Jews. He has not established concentration camps. He has not even developed the ideological

beliefs that will later define him. The future does not retroactively transform the moral status of the

present. Knowing that a person will commit a crime does not mean that the crime has already been

committed.

This distinction is particularly important because the word justice is often used with less significance in

discussions of this thought experiment. Killing Hitler as an adult after the Holocaust could be described as

punishment or retribution, however controversial such punishment might be, however, killing him as an

infant cannot be so, in any case.

There is nothing to punish. The infant is innocent. The justification, therefore, must be preventive rather

than retributive. This is not a semantic distinction. It changes the moral structure of the act.Justice traditionally asks whether someone deserves a particular response because of something they have

done. Prevention asks whether harming someone now is justified by the danger they are expected to pose

later. The former looks backward. The latter looks forward.

And once justice becomes entirely future-oriented, its boundaries become considerably harder to define.

III. The danger of preventive justice

If foreknowledge is sufficient to justify killing, then the moral principle extends far beyond the case of

Hitler.

Suppose a government possesses convincing evidence that a child will become a terrorist. Suppose it

knows that another will become a dictator. Suppose a third will eventually lead a violent revolution.

At what point would preventive killing become permissible? Would probability be sufficient? If there

were a 90 percent certainty? Seventy percent? Fifty-one percent? And who would be entitled to make

such judgments?

The danger is not merely hypothetical. Throughout history, political authorities have justified violence not

only by what individuals have done, but by what they allegedly represent or may become. Political

enemies have been portrayed as “future” threats, subversives, traitors and existential dangers.

The category of the "potential criminal" is therefore politically dangerous.

Once future conduct becomes sufficient grounds for present punishment, innocence becomes dependent

upon prediction rather than the action.

This is particularly troubling because predictions are made by human beings, and human beings are

capable of prejudice, error and self-interest.

The baby Hitler thought experiment is safe from these problems only because history has already supplied

the answer. We know what Hitler eventually did. But societies do not possess that kind of retrospective

certainty.

The thought experiment therefore gives us a morally convenient form of knowledge that no ordinary

political institution possesses.

IV. But does innocence matter when the consequences are known?

Nevertheless, the deontological objection cannot simply end the discussion.

Imagine that all uncertainty is removed. You know, beyond any possibility of error, that killing the infant

will prevent the Holocaust and that refusing to act will result in millions of deaths. Does the child's

innocence still make killing him impermissible?

This is where consequentialism becomes difficult to reject. There is something morally uncomfortable

about preserving the life of one person when doing so guarantees the deaths of millions. If moralityrequires us to take other people's lives seriously, then the decision-maker cannot simply say,

"I refuse to

kill an innocent person,

" and consider the matter settled. The refusal itself has consequences.

Inaction is not always morally neutral. A doctor who could easily prevent a patient's death but

deliberately refuses to do so cannot necessarily defend himself by saying that he never actively caused the

death. A government that knowingly allows preventable mass violence may be responsible even if it

never directly kills anyone. Thus the question becomes a conflict between two principles:

‘People should not be killed for crimes they have not committed’

and ‘preventable mass suffering should

not be knowingly permitted.

’

Neither principle is trivial. The difficulty lies precisely in determining which one should prevail when

they conflict.

V. The problem of moral luck

The thought experiment also exposes the role of moral luck in human judgment.

Hitler's birth was not a moral achievement. Neither was his childhood. Had circumstances been different,

his life might have taken another course. This raises a broader philosophical problem: to what extent are

people morally responsible for outcomes shaped by circumstances beyond their control?

Hitler certainly made choices. His responsibility for his actions cannot simply be dissolved into social

circumstances. But the existence of those circumstances complicates the simplistic idea that historical evil

originates entirely within individual character.

The same society that produced Hitler also produced people who resisted him. The same historical period

contained perpetrators, bystanders, collaborators, rescuers and victims.

This suggests that history cannot be understood solely through the character of extraordinary individuals.

Institutions and societies create the conditions within which individual choices become historically

consequential. Consequently, even if killing Hitler could prevent the Holocaust, it would not necessarily

answer the deeper historical question: why did a society become capable of producing and accepting

such violence in the first place?

Removing one individual may alter history. It does not necessarily correct the conditions that made his

rise possible.

VI. What, then, is justice?

The deepest problem with the question may therefore lie in the word justice itself.

Justice is not simply the maximisation of desirable outcomes.

If it were, almost any violation of individual rights could theoretically be justified whenever the expected

benefits were sufficiently large. Justice instead imposes constraints upon how individuals may be treated.A person cannot ordinarily be reduced to the value of his consequences. We recognise certain limits

precisely because human beings are not merely units in a moral calculation.

Yet justice cannot be completely indifferent to consequences either. A conception of justice that refuses to

prevent catastrophic harm simply because prevention is morally uncomfortable would become detached

from the very human beings it claims to protect.

The baby Hitler thought experiment therefore reveals a tension at the heart of ethical reasoning.

Justice asks us to respect the individual. Morality also asks us to protect the many.

Neither obligation can simply be erased. Perhaps the most defensible conclusion is therefore a

deliberately uncomfortable one.

If the hypothetical grants absolute certainty that killing the infant would prevent the Holocaust, I believe

there is a powerful moral argument for doing so. The magnitude of the lives saved cannot be dismissed

merely because the means are morally disturbing.

But I would not call the act justice.

It would be an act of preventive violence undertaken in an extraordinary moral emergency. That

distinction matters because justice should not be defined by hindsight.

We know Hitler because we know what he became. A person standing before an ordinary infant does not

possess that knowledge. If we transform historical certainty into a general principle of justice, we create a

moral system in which people may be condemned not for what they have done, but for what others predict

they will do.

In my opinion, perhaps the most revealing feature of the baby Hitler question is that it tempts us to

believe that history has clear moral answers. However, as we dwell deeper, it becomes clear that it does

not. The Holocaust is so horrifying yet it makes the hypothetical seem easy: surely one life should be

sacrificed to prevent millions of deaths. However, when the problem is stripped of hindsight, the moral

certainty begins to disappear. The child is innocent. The future is contingent. The consequences are

enormous. The responsibility is uncertain. And justice stands uneasily between them.

If I knew with absolute certainty that killing the infant would prevent the Holocaust, I might choose to do

it. But I would not pretend that I had administered justice. I would recognise the act for what it was: a

tragic decision to violate one person's life in order to prevent an incomparably greater catastrophe.

The most dangerous moral decisions are not those in which good and evil stand neatly opposed. They are

those in which two genuine moral obligations collide.

We want a world in which innocent people are never killed for what they might become.

We also want a world in which genocide is prevented whenever it can be prevented.

The tragedy of the hypothetical is that, for once, we are forced to choose between those two desires.

— By: Arshiyah Baba