Jammu and Kashmir is known to the world for its cultural heritage and shares much resemblance to the Middle Eastern countries like Iran. The cultural richness of the valley is showcased through various mediums and carpet is one the main reflections of it. The study attempted to analyze the impact of domestic income, horticulture output, political conflict and population growth on the carpet industry of Jammu and Kashmir. Taking annual time series data from 1990 onwards, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model is employed to estimate the long run and short run results. The empirical results indicate that domestic income negatively affecting the output of the carpet industry both in the long run as well as in the short run. Further, some sort of structural shift from primary commodities to secondary and tertiary sectors is visible from the econometric results. It is also revealed by the results that during political upheaval and lockdowns, the carpet industry provides a lifeline to support the local employment. The paradoxical findings arise due to fact that clampdown and terror has forced the people to look for safer jobs and at the same time to be closer to their families and relatives. The horticulture activities compliment the carpet output by releasing the labor in slack seasons. The whole diagnostic testing deducts that our model is robust and statistically significant. The theoretical properties driven out of this study can be used for policy analysis.