REASI: A newly completed bridge towering over a rugged Himalayan valley will soon help India strengthen its grip on the disputed region of Kashmir and counter China's growing strategic threat.
The Chenab Railway Bridge, the world's highest railway bridge, has been hailed as an engineering feat that first connected the rugged Kashmir Valley with the vast Indian plains by rail.
But its completion has raised concerns among some who live in the territory, where more than half a million soldiers are already stationed, and where there has been long opposition to Indian rule.
Senior Indian military officials said the strategic advantage of the bridge to New Delhi cannot be underestimated.
“The train to Kashmir will be vital both in peacetime and in wartime,” General Deependra Singh Hooda, a former commander of India's northern military, told AFP.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, is the center of fierce competition between India and Pakistan, which have been at odds since gaining independence from British rule in 1947, and the two nuclear-armed countries have fought wars over it.
The rebel group has been waging a 35-year insurgency demanding the region's independence or merger with Pakistan.
“This new bridge will help more soldiers move freely than before,” said Noor Ahmad Babar, professor of political science at the Central University of Kashmir.
But he told AFP that the bridge would “facilitate the movement” of civilians and goods, as well as soldiers.
This has left some Kashmiris feeling uneasy, as they believe that easier access will lead to a surge in outsiders buying land and settling.
Strict rules on land ownership have been lifted since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government revoked Kashmir's partial autonomy in 2019.
“If the intention is to suppress the sense of linguistic, cultural and intellectual identity of Kashmiris or to display a strong sense of nationalism, the impact will be negative,” historian Siddiq Wahid told AFP.
Indian Railways calls the $24 million bridge “the biggest civil engineering challenge faced by any railway project in India in recent history”.
This is expected to reduce the cost of transporting goods and promote economic development and trade.
But retired general Huda 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 bitter rivals vying for strategic influence across South Asia, and the 3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) border they share has been a constant source of tension.
In 2020, clashes between the two armies left more than 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead, and today, the two sides continue to face off along the disputed highland border.
“Everything from needles to the largest military hardware… has to be transported by road and stockpiled in Ladakh for six months every year before the roads close for the winter,” Hooda told AFP.
Now everything can be transported by train, making it easier to supply supplies to Ladakh through snow-covered passes in what Indian military experts call “the world's largest military logistics exercise.”
The project will support several road tunnel projects linking Kashmir and Ladakh, not far from the borders of India, China and Pakistan.
The 1,315-metre-long steel and concrete bridge connects two mountains via a 359-metre-high arch over the cool waters of the Chenab River.
The train is ready to run and is just waiting for Prime Minister Modi to cut the ribbon.
The 272-km-long railway starts from the garrison city of Udhampur, the headquarters of the army's Northern Command, and passes through Srinagar, the regional capital.
The route ends at a higher altitude of 1 km at Baramulla, a trade gateway town near the Line of Control with Pakistan.
When the road opens, the distance will double and it will take a day to drive.
The cost of building the railway is estimated at about $3.9 billion, and it has been a huge undertaking since construction began nearly 30 years ago.
Although several road and pipeline bridges are taller, the Chenab Bridge surpasses the Najiehe Bridge in China as the highest existing railway bridge, according to Guinness World Records.
Describing India's new bridge as a “marvel”, deputy chief designer RR Malik said the experience of designing and building it “has been a testament to our engineers”.
