The world’s highest railway bridge, an ambitious piece of engineering across a mountain valley in Kashmir, was opened Friday by Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi, just weeks after a deadly tourist massacre in the Himalayan region sparked a brief conflict with neighboring Pakistan.
Modi’s visit to India-administered Kashmir was his first since a brief but deadly conflict between India and Pakistan in April. The nuclear-armed neighbors traded missiles, drones, and artillery shelling for four days after New Delhi blamed the massacre on its neighbor, which Pakistan denies.
Decades in the making, the arched Chenab Bridge sits 359 meters (about 1,180 feet) above the river of the same name – that’s 29 meters (over 95 feet) higher than the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Costing more than $160 million with a length of 1,315 meters (4,314 feet), the bridge is part of the first railway link between Kashmir and the rest of India.
Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government has moved to integrate the Muslim-majority region with the rest of the country, including revoking a constitutional provision that allowed it to set its own laws in 2019.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed by India, Pakistan and China. All three administer a part of the region, one of the most militarized zones in the world.
In addition to the Chenab Bridge, Modi also inaugurated the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link project, which connects key cities in India-administered Kashmir to the rest of India.
For Modi, who swept to power more than a decade ago on a ticket of nationalism and a promise of future greatness, investments in infrastructure like the Chenab Bridge and the broader rail link project can be seen as a powerful tool for social integration and political influence. Since he was first elected in 2014, the prime minister has rapidly expanded the region’s road and rail connectivity, building networks that connect disparate towns with major cities.
In 2019, New Delhi revoked a constitutional provision giving India-administered Kashmir the autonomy to set its own laws. The southern and eastern portions of the region known previously as the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir became two separate union territories, bringing them under direct control of New Delhi – a move Modi claimed would promote stability, reduce corruption and boost the economy.
The Chenab Bridge is being hailed as a major win for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government.
His administration has poured billions into upgrading India’s old and outdated transport network, part of its vision to transform the country into a developed nation by 2047.
Among these ambitious projects is the construction of several tunnels and highways in the mountainous Himalayan region which has been criticized by some environmentalists who say the heavy construction could damage fragile topography already feeling the effects from the climate crisis.
Modi’s Char Dham Highway project, a multimillion-dollar infrastructure plan to improve connectivity in the state of Uttarakhand, came under fire in November 2023 when an under-construction mountain tunnel collapsed, trapping dozens of workers inside for several days with little water and oxygen.
In August that year, more than a dozen workers were killed after a bridge under construction collapsed in the northeastern state of Mizoram. In June, a four-lane concrete bridge that was being built across the River Ganges in the eastern state of Bihar collapsed for the second time in just over a year, raising questions about the quality of its construction.
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