A Train Through Kashmir

Photo
A newly-inaugurated train arriving at the Banihal railway station in Jammu and Kashmir, on June 26.Credit Bilal Bahadur

On a summer afternoon, Mohammed Yasin, a fruit trader from Banihal in Indian-administered-Kashmir, made a video of his seven-year-old son’s first train journey. Mr. Yasin, 36, held his mobile phone out of the window to capture the passing landscape as they hurtled across the valley of Kashmir.

“I want him to remember this experience,” he said.  “I could never have dreamed of sitting in a train at his age. Change is coming here too.”

Mr. Yasin and his son made their journey a few days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated an 18-kilometer stretch that has been added to a train line running through the valley in late June.

The ambitious train project is not unlike China’s rail link to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and aims to connect Kashmir to the north Indian plains. The train has been running for a few years from the town of Qazigund in southern Kashmir to Baramulla in the northern part of the valley.  The 18-kilometer addition now connects Qazigund to Banihal, across high mountains in the south that previously could be crossed only through the Jawahar tunnel built in the 1950s.

Mr. Yasin, who was heading back home to Banihal, explained that the train would reduce the cost of his journeys from Banihal to Srinagar, the summer capital, which he makes at least twice a week.

He has been taking his packages of fresh and dried fruit from Banihal to Srinagar by taxi, which costs him 2,500 rupees or about $50. He would like to transport his fruit to Srinagar by train, but the train doesn’t stop long enough at stations to load and unload goods.

But on his way back to Banihal, after leaving off his fruit in Srinagar, Mr. Yasin takes the train. He used to pay 170 rupees for a seat in a shared taxi, which took about four hours. The train gets him home in an hour and half for 25 rupees. “It’s really great to be able to save money and time,” he said. “It’s going to be a big boost to business.”

The new stretch of the Kashmir rail line required constructing the second longest railway tunnel in Asia at a cost of 17 billion rupees, or $277 million. It took 1,300 workmen and 150 engineers seven years to complete the 11 kilometers through the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas, which had once cut off the valley during the snowbound winter months.

In the weeks after the rail line opened, many residents of Jammu and Kashmir took their first-ever ride on a train simply to marvel at the feat of engineering. As the train snaked its way through a dark tunnel passengers would let out a volley of applause. Many craned their heads out the windows and whistled. Others snapped photographs.

Railway operators say that trains are already overloaded with at least 25,000 passengers every day.  At the Nowgam railway station in Srinagar, which tends to be the busiest, scuffles have broken out due to overcrowding.

Tracks have yet to be laid down for the most daunting part of the train project, a 148-kilometer stretch through very high mountains between the Jawahar Tunnel at Banihal and Katra town in southern Jammu province. This section could take years. It would involve building the highest rail bridge in the world, about 359 meters above sea level, over the Chenab River.

The talk in the Kashmir Valley about the new railway tunnel prompted Mehraj Deen, 35, who paints cars in Srinagar, to take his first train ride in order to experience the excitement first hand. He left work early one afternoon in July and hopped on board to visit a friend.

The train passed apple orchards, rice fields and snow-capped mountains. The sweeping vistas, Mr. Deen said, made him momentarily forget his economic struggles. As the views dissolved into the sunset and a jarring ring of a call from home knocked Mr. Deen back to reality, he talked about how low his income was, how daily expenses continue to mount, the school fees for his children, and the potential of the finished railway line to boost his earnings.

With no savings, Mr. Deen said that he needed to work every day to support his wife and two children. He travels to Jammu every winter to find work because his business slows down during the cold months in Kashmir.

But traveling to Jammu during the winter is difficult and sometimes even impossible depending on snow conditions on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, the road link between Kashmir and India. “If the trains works properly it will make the winters much more comfortable moneywise,” he said.

Earlier this year, local newspapers reported that Jammu and Kashmir had an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent in urban areas, compared with India’s national average of unemployment of 3 percent for urban areas.

But unlike Mr. Yasin, Mr. Deen did not see the train as a symbol of integration with India. “The British made roads, railways and colleges in India. But did that mean Indians did not want independence?” he asked. “For development, we want to connect with India and we want to connect with Pakistan and China. But that does not mean we want to be part of these countries.”

Recalling his own fears and suffering of living through a decade of violence, Mr. Deen said that Kashmiris’ hearts and minds would only be won with a genuine resolution to the conflict.

Although the insurgency has waned, Kashmir continues to be a heavily militarized area and the Line of Control, the disputed border between the Indian-controlled and Pakistan-controlled parts of Kashmir, has witnessed an increasing number of violent incidents.

“Right now, I’m traveling in the train but I am not at peace,’’ he said. “With so much violence around how can one be at peace?”

Betwa Sharma is a freelance reporter based in New Delhi.