Mere claims are no substitute for a vision. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s optimism that the Jammu-Srinagar rail link will boost trade and tourism in Jammu appears to be a general and forward-looking assurance, focusing on the possibilities of imagined benefits of connectivity and trade.
However, it doesn't address the immediate concerns of the hoteliers, transporters and traders who currently depend heavily on Kashmiri travelers. While Abdullah claims the rail service will enhance trade, tourism and travel between regions and promises it will benefit Jammu, the local business community has specific concerns about losing their captive market of Kashmiri travelers if the latter do not stop in Jammu.
Promise of Connectivity
Though no specific date for the inaugural run of the Jammu-Srinagar rail-link is as yet announced, when the track gets into action, Vande Bharat – a luxury train – would be the sole piece of machine moving to and fro between the two capitals.
As this high-class luxury train will be flagged off to Kashmir, limiting its accessibility to those who can afford it, Abdullah’s promise of ‘connectivity’ and ‘trade’ falls flat. The Indian Railways have been drastically cutting down affordable trains and compartments for the common masses in recent years.
Every year when the Jammu-Srinagar highway is blocked due to inclement weather conditions, thousands of stranded Kashmiris are left to their own devices in Jammu. Would the train provide them an alternate route or would it remain out of bounds for those who can ill-afford? And, will fair weather conditions disrupt the rail link as much as the road links are?
So, if the train offers only a limited opportunity to travel and bridge the distance between the landlocked Valley and the world outside, while the enthusiasm in the Valley may be misplaced, the anxieties of Jammu’s business community may not be.
The business community's fears are based on their recent experience with both the cancellation of the 'Darbar move' and the extension of rail lines to Katra – taking away both their lifelines – the Kashmiri visitors and the visiting pilgrims.
The rail extension to Katra has already negatively impacted their businesses, with some reporting up to 90% decline. The end to the Darbar move signaled a double whammy. The annual shifting of the offices earlier brought thousands of Kashmiri government employees and their families to Jammu, generating significant business for local hotels and markets.
Now with the Jammu-Srinagar rail link being introduced, there are fears that neither the tourists, nor the Kashmiris will have reasons to halt in Jammu, whose economy by and large depends on the footfall of visitors. The city's transport, hotel and trade sectors derive 60-90% of their business from Kashmiri travelers.
Chief Minister's response doesn't offer specific solutions to protect these existing business interests. Nor does it explain how exactly Jammu will benefit from being bypassed by direct rail connectivity between Kashmir and Delhi. The fears of that connection being broken – in conjunction with the partial end of the Durbar move – are not misplaced. With just one luxury train likely to ply, for now, there is no reason for confidence about boosting trade.
J&K’s History of Rail Links
Omar Abdullah spoke about similar fears about Pathankot when Jammu was introduced to the rail map, but his comparison is odious. Unlike Pathankot, which served as the main railway junction between 1952 and 1971, in the last seven decades Jammu has served as not just a gateway between Kashmir Valley and mainland India but is also a major trading hub that depends on both the visitor inflow from outside and the visiting Kashmiris during winters.
A history of rail connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir would serve the chief minister’s understanding better.
Both the Pathankot Road and rail link were necessitated by the partition of 1947 that severed Jammu and Kashmir from its natural routes. Jammu was linked by rail to its twin town – Sialkot, now in Pakistan.
The train journey was abruptly stopped after India’s partition in August 1947 as invisible walls erupted all around, snapping Jammu and Kashmir’s link with the outside world. While Jammu was connected immediately by road via Pathankot, the next railway link started in 1971-72 by which time both the memory and trace of the old Jammu-Sialkot rail link were beginning to fade.
Started in 1890, the 40-minute train journey sent traders and students from Jammu to Sialkot and beyond to Lahore and brought day-picnickers from Sialkot to enjoy a day at Jammu’s famous Ranbir Canal, where they would spread their blankets along its storied banks and where the cool evening summer breeze – locally called Duddu – would provide them a cherished escape in the evenings.
A road replaced the railway line connecting Jammu with Suchetgarh – the last point on the Indian side. Some remnants of the track that could be seen in places till the 90s – in vacant lands and near Jammu’s old railway station – were also lost amidst a relentless phase of concretisation of open spaces.
The old railway station in Jammu was replaced by a transport yard for many years till the area was acquired for erecting a cultural centre called Kala Kendra about two decades ago. Where a heritage station with its few remaining remnants once whispered decades of stories, now stands an architectural calamity – a graceless bulk that is an affront to both aesthetics and function.
An ode to bureaucratic mediocrity, the building’s poorly lit corridors and badly conceived art galleries are a vindictive conspiracy against art and artists. Beneath this concrete misadventure that missed the opportunity of connecting the past to the present lies the ghost of the erstwhile state’s first railway station and its labyrinth of many stories – of people ordinary and well-known who embarked on that journey.
Salima Hashmi, the daughter of celebrated Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, once told me that her father and mother met at the Jammu railway station for a romantic rendezvous during their courtship years. After the meeting, Faiz took the train to Sialkot.
I recall seeing an old photograph of Maharaja Pratap Singh, the Dogra ruler, standing and waiting at the Jammu railway platform to receive the Prince of Wales, probably in 1922. There is also an undated photograph of the railway station with grand buggies and tongas waiting outside.
Many such stories and images are now lost in oblivion.
Extending Rail Connectivity Beyond Jammu
Jammu was added to the independent and post-partition railroad map in 1971-1972 via Pathankot. For decades, it had the distinction of being the northernmost railway station till the railway line was extended to Udhampur in 2005, and later to Katra – killing Jammu’s significance and economy.
The Delhi-Jammu-Baramulla railway project was first conceived and announced in 1994, albeit as a disconnected rail line from Qazigund to Baramulla via Srinagar due to the seemingly impossible task of connecting Udhampur to Qazigund through mountainous terrain.
However, not much work was executed as the Valley was caught in the grip of militancy till the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee declared the railway line as a national project to be entirely funded centrally and batted for an unbroken link.
The dream of the uninterrupted train ride then had evoked much skepticism. It was unheard of. Trains had never been part of the Kashmiri lexicon. The first experience of a train and railway station for most Kashmiris came after 1972 when they would descend to the plains when the offices moved to the winter capital in Jammu.
In the 70s, not many had the pleasure of experiencing a train journey. The affluent often flew directly to Delhi. The less affluent would drive down to Jammu and catch the train for a journey ahead. For others, the world outside Jammu and Kashmir remained inaccessible – both geographically and culturally.
So, Jammu’s railway station almost became a sightseeing site during the winters where men, women and children would come to watch the trains screech to a halt or chug out on a journey to a world beyond their imagination.
Three decades later, when Vajpayee announced the train to Kashmir, there wasn’t much enthusiasm. The train link had been talked about since the early 90s but among the larger public there was disbelief even as work on the Baramulla-Anantnag rail line picked up pace.
A year before the train was flagged off between Anantnag and Baramulla in 2009, the work on the Katra-Qazigund alignment was abandoned due to adverse geological reports. However, subsequently the work resumed with minor alignment changes. Its ecological viability is, however, still disputed.
The same year, the work on the railway line between Baramulla in the north and Qazigund in the south was completed.
In late 2011, the challenging 11.2 km Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel (Banihal-Qazigund tunnel) was completed, allowing trains to run from Banihal through to Baramulla by 2013, though the southern connection to India’s main rail network remained incomplete.
Meanwhile, significant progress was made on other sections, with the excavation beginning on the world’s tallest rail bridge across the Chenab River, and successful trial runs conducted between Udhampur and Katra. With that, Katra was finally added to the Indian Railways map.
Now, after many hiccups and delays over the last several decades, the train will finally roll from Delhi to Kashmir via Jammu in January next year.
But the response is mixed - caught between partial enthusiasm in the Valley, anxieties in Jammu and skepticism of the people living in the hills along the track.
Ecological Costs
The Kashmir rail link is being celebrated as an engineering marvel with its record-breaking bridges and tunnels, through breathtaking views. This, however, glosses over the heavy toll it has imposed on local communities and ecosystems.
Many residents, particularly apple orchard owners in Kashmir Valley, were displaced from ancestral lands and productive orchards through forcible acquisitions, with numerous cases of delayed or inadequate compensation reported. For the affected families connected with horticulture, the lost apple orchards are not just a sign of economic devastation but also destruction of cultural heritage.
The project’s construction in a highly seismic zone (Zone V, India’s highest risk category) raises serious environmental concerns, as extensive tunneling and mountain cutting have potentially destabilised the fragile Himalayan slopes, caused excessive landslides, deepening the anxieties of the people in the Ramban district, where people have complained of sinking land and damaged houses due to excessive blasting and tunneling.
Massive construction footprint has also taken a heavy toll on the green gold in the once verdant hills and led to deforestation and soil erosion.
The balance between development and environmental protection remains a critical challenge. The 2009 project suspension, triggered by geological and environmental red flags, led to modest design modifications. However, questions linger about the decision-making process. Was there adequate independent environmental scrutiny, or did the usual bureaucratic complacency, red-tape, inefficiency and opacity prevail? While the project ultimately proceeded, only time will reveal whether this decision was prudent – though hopefully not through disaster.
Connections or Divisions?
A profound truth lies in the path of every rail line: As routes are engineered with steel and concrete between different points on a map, or abruptly dismantled, there are stories that unfold of connection and division. From 1947 till the present, nothing illustrates this non-linear evolution better than Jammu, whose significance has diminished or grown with the absence or creation of rail links.
Will Jammu be the ultimate loser? And, would Kashmir gain at all?
For now, undeniably, the train offers an opportunity to travel with comfort and ease and make the world outside the landlocked Valley more accessible for Kashmiris. But will it connect them to mainland India?
When a government relentlessly disempowers the people politically and economically and popularises a narrative that allows a larger mass celebration of the misery of Kashmiris in mainland India, Kashmiris (at least those who can afford the journey) can rejoice only better accessibility.
But real connectivity will come when bridges and routes of trust are built, paving links from one heart to another.
(A modified part of this article was earlier published by Newslaundry on December 1, 2024. It can be accessed at
https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/12/02/a-train-to-kashmir-tales-of-tracks-that-bridge-or-break)
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