India's Kashmir railway is an engineering feat - and an occupation project

Middle East Eye

4 hours ago

On 5 June, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a new railway project in Indian-occupied Kashmir.
In scenes that have since been played on a loop and celebrated across India, Modi is seen gripping an Indian flag high above his head, and dramatically marching across a bridge like a standard-bearer of a conquering army.
To accomplish this railroad project, Indian engineers had to build the "world's highest bridge", 359 metres above the Chenab river bed in Jammu. Likewise, the Anji Khad Bridge, India's first cable-stayed railway bridge, towers 331 metres above the river gorge.
"This shows that our resolve is as big as the dream for India's development," Modi said after signalling the commencement of the rail line and the two new rail bridges over the Chenab and Anji Rivers, on 5 June.
He added that the network "ensures all-weather connectivity" and will "boost spiritual tourism and create livelihood opportunities".
The Vande Bharat (Praise India) train, which connects the northernmost part of Indian-occupied Kashmir to Katra in Jammu, has been marketed as "setting a new benchmark in comfort for the people of Jammu and Kashmir".
But as hinted by Modi, the train is not for Kashmiris.
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Instead, it serves Indian interests: transporting Hindu pilgrims, flooding the region with Indian tourists, and crucially, creating a direct line for the transfer of troops and resources for the Indian military.
Militarised mobility
A new documentary by Channel 4, Is India quietly tightening its grip on Kashmir? - released in mid-June - found that the number of Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir was on the rise.
It is estimated that up to 750,000 troops, or around half of India's total army, were now operating in the region.
India's ambition in Kashmir is so thinly veiled that the train itself was suffused in saffron orange, the colour of Hindu nationalism and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Usually, trains in India are blue, red or green.
In this, India borrows from the colonial textbook of using bridges and railways as means to exert influence over territory as well as to communicate power and imperial ambition.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding national flag during the inauguration of the Chenab Rail Bridge, on 6 June (Indian Press Information Bureau/AFP)
There are numerous examples of such efforts in history.
In its bid to transform Mexico into a modern state, the Spanish introduced European infrastructure, including roads and buildings.
But it was the British who pioneered the use of bridges and railways to consolidate trade and ensure the mobility of their troops.
Even the King Hussein or Allenby Bridge that connects Jordan to Israel, used today as an alternative route into the West Bank (via Israel), was initially constructed by the British during World War One as a crossing point for troops.
Constructed ties
Beyond the obvious imperialist ambitions of the Indian state to build a breathtaking connection to Kashmir, the sheer scale of the project itself is reason enough to understand why the connection between Kashmir and India has had to be literally constructed - it is not natural.
The sheer scale of the project is reason enough to understand why the connection between Kashmir and India has had to be literally constructed - it is not natural
Before the 1950s, the Kashmir Valley had no year-round connection to the Indian mainland to its south, as the bitter winters made the road up in the Himalayan mountains to Kashmir impassable.
As part of the historic Silk Road, Kashmir traces a longer and stronger history with the areas to its west, including cities in today's Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, such as Muzaffarabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore, as well as the Central Asian cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, Kabul and Kashgar.
And had it not been for the Boundary Commission suspiciously giving the Muslim-majority Punjab district of Gurdaspur (technically meant to be given to Pakistan) to India on 17 August 1947 - two days after Indian independence, no less - Delhi wouldn't have even had a road link to Kashmir in the summer.
It was only in 1956 that India blasted a tunnel through the Pir Panjal mountain to arrange access through the winter.
Even then, the priority was for the transportation of troops and tourists.
And as the years went by and Delhi looked to reinforce ties with Kashmir, by installing puppet regimes, promoting development and marketing tourism in the valley as a means to assimilate Kashmir with India, the people of Kashmir continued to be separated from their loved ones by an artificial border with Pakistan-administered Kashmir, called the Line of Control.
A general view of Chenab bridge, the world's highest rail arch bridge in Reasi, Jammu and Kashmir, on 6 July 2024 (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP)
That the bridge today is being flaunted as a means to connect India with Kashmir, for the development of Kashmir, while Kashmiris are divided from each other across the Line of Control, is a historic injustice.
It raises questions, too, about whether Indian or western scholars are even remotely interested in hearing who Kashmiris regard as "invaders" and "infiltrators" in their native land.
Empty promises
Beyond the spectacle, other dimensions of the project lay bare the absurdities of this Indian project.
Throughout the project's construction, Kashmiri farmers lamented about the impact it would have on their farms and homes.
In some cases, farmland was razed and families were displaced to make way for the railway line.
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Of course, the train will be used by Kashmiris - in the same way the much-mythologised Indian independence leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi travelled in British trains, even as he waged a famous critique over their rapid expansion across India.
In his book Hind Swaraj, Gandhi wrote, "The English could not have such a hold on India as they have. Railways accentuate the evil nature of man: Bad men fulfil their evil designs with greater rapidity."
But even as the rail project has opened, regular travel is not about to become seamless either.
Passengers from Srinagar will be required to disembark in Jammu for additional security checks before heading to Delhi. This itself negates the promise of seamless connectivity.
That the Indian state and its sycophantic media would tout how the railway would improve connectivity in a region that endures some of the world's longest internet shutdowns - and where journalists cannot report freely without receiving a knock on the door from Indian intelligence - is as ludicrous as believing that Delhi - overseeing a country with more inequality today than under the British Colonial Raj - is on the cusp of becoming a world power.
Myth of progress
At its core, the railway project is not just an engineering marvel - it is an act of empire-making. And empire-making is a fundamental part of this story.
"Designed to overcome the region's challenging geography, it connects remote areas to the national rail network and marks a new chapter in mobility, trade and tourism for Jammu and Kashmir," the Indian government said.
The inability of Indian media and scholars to see this engineering feat as anything but proof of Delhi's costly and unnatural grip on Kashmir makes for a stunning study of mass delusion
"Built to endure tremors, strong winds and shifting geology, the Anji Khad Bridge is more than an engineering feat," it added.
Its purportedly unbreakable quality is further enhanced by the notion that it's also bombproof.
One might think that a multi-billion-dollar railway, specifically constructed to overcome nature's objections - landslides, fragile ecology, and extreme weather - would be deemed proof of incongruity with the geography.
But here, it is seen as a Titanesque symbol of India's rise and Modi's legacy.
That Indian media and scholars are unable to see the engineering feat in Kashmir as anything but proof of how costly and unnatural Delhi's determination to wrestle control over Kashmir, not to mention its imperial and colonial genealogies, makes for a stunning study of mass delusion.
We might call it Indian nationalism.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.