The Jammu Srinagar national highway carved into the mighty Pir Panjal ranges has always been more than a road. It is an umbilical cord of Kashmir, binding the valley with the rest of India. Trucks groaning under the weight of apples, cement, rice sacks and petroleum barrels; buses filled with families heading for weddings and pilgrimages, soldiers moving too far off posts, students returning homes, this road has carried not just goods but also aspirations, fears and futures.
Yet, every season reminds us of one truth that this road belongs not to man but to the mountains. Nature with its landslides, flash floods and sudden snow decides whether Kashmir remains connected or cut off.
In recent months, this truth has been writ large once again. Flash floods, incessant rainfall and cascading landslides reduced the four-lane highway into a wounded trail. The road caved in at several stretches, bridges were swept away and stranded convoys snaked across half-collapsed slopes.
For the people of Kashmir, this was not just an infrastructural breakdown. It was a reminder of the fragility of life in the Himalayas where a single night of heavy rain can undo years of administrative effort.
Lifeline under siege by Nature
The collapse of the highway was not sudden. For weeks, reports of cracks and minor landslides had surfaced but the real blow came when torrential rain lashed Ramban, Banihaland Nachlana belts. In the dead of night, boulders as large as houses rolled down, flattening entire stretches of the blacktop.
Kashmir’s only road to the world has once again collapsed under the weight of rain and neglect. As landslides bury highways and apples rot in orchards and highway roadside, the valley’s lifeline becomes its wound. A story of nature’s dominance, human fragility and an unyielding resilience.
Truck drivers parked helplessly, their headlights cutting across sheets of rain, watching as the mountains seemed to breathe and roar. Junaid Ahmad, a driver from Baramulla, talks to KC says, “It felt like the hills were alive. You could hear the rocks tearing away before they thundered down. The backbone of our economy buried down under the fury of nature.”
This time the damage was widespread. Unlike earlier blockages that were cleared in hours or days, the entire roadbed at several points simply disappeared. Restoring it was not just about clearing debris but rebuilding earth and road itself.
The himalayan topography offers little mercy to the people of Kashmir. The highway snakes through young, restless mountains, geologically unstable and still rising. Every monsoon or cloudburst pushes soil, gravel and boulders onto its surface. In trying to tame the mountains, engineers must constantly bow to their unpredictability which they didn’t so far.
Nature’s fury
While the road crumbled under the weight of nature’s wrath, another quiet crisis unfolded in the orchards of Kashmir. Apples, the valley’s pride and economic lifeline began falling prematurely.
The early September rains accompanied by unexpected hailstorms and unseasonal winds knocked down almost 40% of the crop in some belts of Shopian, Pulwama and Baramulla. The fruits looking ripe to get plucked turned rot and compost beneath the apple trees.
For growers like Tariq Ahmad of Sopore, the highway’s closure compounded the despair. He says, “Even if the apples survive on trees, they need to reach markets in Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata within days. Otherwise, they rot. And this year, both the sky and the road betrayed us.”
Kashmir produces nearly 20 lakh metric tonnes of apples annually accounting for 75% of India’s production. When the highway is blocked, apples remain piled in cold stores though minimal in number or on roadsides while prices in Delhi soar due to scarcity. But this year, nature struck at the source itself, the fruit rarely even reached the trucks.
The premature apple fall is not a one-off incident. Scientists at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences warn that changing climate patterns, warmer winters and erratic spring frosts and heavy autumn rains are rewriting Kashmir’s horticultural calendar. The collapse of the highway only magnifies these blows tremendously.
Fragility beyond asphalt
The Kashmir highway is often seen only as an engineering marvel or an infrastructural bottleneck connecting valley to the mainland India. But in truth, it is a metaphor for Kashmir itself, a place where beauty and vulnerability coexist since decades.
Economically, each closure means losses running into crores. Truckloads of perishable commodities spoil, petrol pumps run dry, construction slows and tourism stalls.
Socially, blockages ripple valley every day. Patients from villages heading to Srinagar or Delhi for treatment get delayed and miss appointments. Students miss their exams despite preparations. Weddings are postponed. Mutton, chicken and vegetable prices soar and for people here, the highway is not a road but a calendar of life.
And politically, every collapse of the highway stirs unease. It reopens the old anxieties of Kashmiris about connectivity, isolation and marginalization. While development projects are showcased through glossy videos and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, nature’s fury often reduces them to fragile promises.
The question many ask is that can this highway ever truly be safe? Engineers have widened tunnels, built retaining walls, installed netting and deployed heavy machinery. Yet, nature often reclaims what man builds.
The Himalayas are not like the Alps or Rockies, settled in their old age. They are young, raw and trembling. Scientists report that the Pir Panjal range records one of the highest rates of erosion in the world. No matter how strong the asphalt is, it rests on shifting earth and fragile slopes.
The flash floods this year were part of a broader himalayan pattern. From Himachal to Uttarakhand, similar tragedies unfolded as rivers swelling beyond their banks and mountains caving under pressure.
Between fragile calm and fragile roads
The fragility of the highway mirrors the fragility of peace in Kashmir. Both appear calm on the surface; yet remain vulnerable to sudden shocks.
Post-2019, the government initiated Confidence Building Measures promoting tourism, offering employment schemes, hosting G20 summit and projecting images of normalcy. For a while, these efforts bore fruit as stone pelting declined, schools reopened and markets bustled.
But just as a single cloudburst can wash away a stretch of highway, a single militant attack or political standoff or even nature’s fury can unsettle the valley’s fragile calm. Both peace and connectivity demand constant tending, resilience and patience.
Looking back, Kashmir’s history with roads is a saga of hope and collapse. When Jawahar Tunnel was opened in 1956, it was hailed as the end of isolation. Yet within a decade, snow and slides rendered it unreliable. The four-laning of the highway was celebrated as a modern marvel only for nature to mock its permanence.
The repeated cycle of promise and collapse defines Kashmir’s highways. Each inauguration is followed by a landslide. Each assurance by officials is tested by rain. Each winter mocks administrative optimism. And yet, Kashmiris endure. They load their trucks again, rebuild their orchards, and reopen their hotels and reimagining their futures. Fragility may define life here but resilience sustains it.
Experts agree that a purely engineering approach cannot suffice. What is needed is a holistic plan that respects both the environment and the economy. Time has come the government start audit and direct concerned to stop reckless cutting of slopes for widening projects. Apply industry which suffered massively must equip apple growers with resistant varieties, cold storage chainsand insurance schemes against premature fall. Irony of our administration is that despite having another readily available high, Mughal road, the said road is being used very rarely and faces official apathy most of the times. Railways and Mughal road must diversity the connectivity of valley so that Kashmir does not hang by one fragile thread. The highway may never be immune to nature’s fury but it can be made more resilient as less a gamble and more a lifeline.
The Jammu Srinagar highway is not merely about asphalt and tar. It is about Kashmir’s relationship with nature, with mainland India and with itself. Every landslide reminds us that development here must bow before nature and geology. Every apple fall warns us that climate change is rewriting centuries old rhythms. Every roadblock echoes the uncertainties of politics and peace.
Kashmir’s highway of fragility will continue to glitter in videos and photographs, carrying convoys, tourists and fruits but beneath its surface lays a story of a region where man’s promises are constantly humbled by mountains, rain and time. Highway in Kashmir, like its peace is not permanent. It is fragile as to be nurtured, respected and protected every single day.
