REASI: Newly-built bridge towering over rugged Himalayan valley could help India retake disputed Kashmir soon, counter growing strategic threat from China
The Jenab Railway Bridge, the world's highest bridge, is hailed as an engineering feat that linked the restless Kashmir Valley to the vast plains of India for the first time by rail.
But its completion has sparked concerns among some in a region with a long history of resistance to Indian rule, where more than 500,000 troops are currently stationed.
Indian Army chief says strategic benefits of bridge to New Delhi cannot be underestimated
“The Kashmir railway will be important in peacetime and wartime,” former chief of India’s Northern Command, General Deependra Singh Hooda, told AFP.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, is at the centre of a fierce conflict between India and Pakistan, which have been divided since independence from British rule in 1947, and the nuclear-armed neighbours have been at war over the region.
The rebels have been waging a 35-year insurgency demanding independence for the territory or its integration with Pakistan.
The new bridge “will facilitate greater movement of troops in and out than ever before,” said Noor Ahmad Baba, a professor of politics at the Central University of Kashmir.
However, the bridge will not only facilitate the movement of people and goods, he told AFP.
The incident has caused unease among some in Kashmir, who believe easier access will attract more outsiders to buy land and settle there.
Previously strict rules on land ownership were scrapped after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government revoked Kashmir's partial autonomy in 2019.
“If the intention is to intimidate Kashmiris' sense of linguistic, cultural and intellectual identity or to show strong nationalism, the impact will be negative,” historian Siddiq Wahid told AFP.
The Indian Railways said the $24 million bridge was the “biggest civil engineering challenge faced by any Indian railway project in its history.”
It is hoped that this will help stimulate economic and trade development and reduce the cost of moving goods.
But retired General Hooda said the bridge's most important outcome would be a revolution in logistics in Ladakh, an icy region bordering China.
India and China, the world's two most populous countries, are fierce rivals vying for strategic influence across South Asia, with their shared 3,500-kilometre (2,200-mile) border a persistent source of tension.
Their forces clashed in 2020, leaving at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese dead, and forces from both sides are currently locked in a standoff in a disputed high-altitude border area.
“From needles to the biggest pieces of military equipment… they have to be transported by road and stocked up in Ladakh for six months every year before the road is closed for the winter,” Hooda told AFP.
Everything can now be transported by rail, in what Indian military experts call the “world’s largest military logistics exercise,” facilitating transport to Ladakh through snow-capped mountain passes.
The project will support several other ongoing road tunnel projects that will connect Kashmir and Ladakh, not far from India's borders with China and Pakistan.
A 1,315-meter-long steel and concrete bridge connects two mountains with an archway at a height of 359 meters above the cold waters of the Jenab River.
The train is ready to run and is just waiting for the ribbon cutting by Mr. Modi.
The 272-km railway starts from the garrison town of Udampura, the headquarters of the Northern Army Command, and passes through Srinagar, the regional capital.
It ends at an altitude of more than 1 km at Baramulla, a commercial gateway town near the Line of Control with Pakistan.
When the road is open, the distance will be doubled and it will take one day to drive.
The railway cost about $3.9 billion and is a massive project, with construction starting nearly three decades ago.
While many road and pipeline bridges are taller, Guinness World Records has confirmed that the Chenab Bridge has surpassed the previous tallest railway bridge, the Najiehe Bridge in China.
Deputy Chief Designer RR Mallick described India’s new bridge as a “magnificent” and said the experience of designing and constructing it “has become a holy book for our engineers”.
