Prime Minister of India, the Reverend Mr. Modi, jovial after the installation of a Yogi in Lucknow, has opened another tunnel into and from Kashmir. The tunnel has been hailed in superlative terms in the Asian region. To the applause of his audience, Mr. Modi gave two choices to the people of Kashmir: go for tourism or for terrorism, with not so hidden implications of both choices. Apparently, in the mind of the saffron chieftain, the tunnel is bound up with the promises of tourism. That once again underlines that the chieftain and his tribe of different party colours consider Kashmir just as a piece of real estate. The newly-opened 9.2 Km Chenani-Nashri tunnel is the latest in the series of technological advancements to span Kashmir and connect itto the mainland of India. This tunnel might spark a debate amongst many, on which party should take credit for conceiving and launching it, but mostly Indians will take pride in it as a national achievement. The tunnel does not open on a jubilant population, but on a land frozen in a time warp and a population caught up in nightmares of the past and fears of the future. At worst the tunnel frightens and at best challenges local dreams of consolidation of a sub-national identity. Ever since work had been started on the Jawahar Tunnel in 1954 under guidance of two Germans, Alfred Kunz and C. Barsel, the Govt. of India has made many attempts to bridge time and territory and connect Kashmir to the rest of India. The 2.85 KM Jawahar Tunnel had also been celebrated as a milestone, which brought Kashmir closer to India. In fact, allsuch efforts have only increased the scale of the nationalist rhetoric of interconnection. There is no doubt that the tunnel completed in 1956 and the one inaugurated just a couple of days ago will reduce the time required in reaching Kashmir from mainland India, and will help many elite Kashmiris fleeing from the cold in winters. The moot question, though, is whether the tunnel will bring Kashmiris closer to the people of India. Geographical closeness is a given, but will Kashmiris and Indians connect emotionally? That is the gold standard of any kind of coming together when individuals and sub-nations are interested in emotionally coming close to each other. If it had been otherwise, then Northern Ireland would have long “come close” to Britain. No kind of geographical breakthroughs, not even the under-sea linkages, have brought the territory any more emotionally closer than it was a century ago. It was not for nothing that the Irish satirist in the 1720s said that burn everything British, except their coal. This slogan had become a kind of a grandmother’s tale and a staple for a large number of Irish nationalists. At bottom, the slogan revealed that in spite of all the technological ingresses into Ireland, the people remained emotionally alienated from Britain, even at the height of the British Empire when the pleasures of sharing the exploits of empire were far greater than after its decline and death. Before framing the content of his speech at the inauguration of the tunnel, the prime minister could have done well to try and find out what purposeshad been served by tunnels built in the past. Instead of the proposed progress, the decades following the construction of the first tunnel had witnessed a social and political churning with tragic results. While the previous tunnel opened in the backdrop of a relatively peaceful era, this one has opened amidst social disarray. If asincere attempt had been made to bring Kashmir closer to India, there would have been no need to pierce mountains. Instead, revisiting the failure to connect people in the past and opening paths into the hearts of Kashmiris could have worked better. Why is it that the Jawahar Tunnel and the train did not bring Kashmir closer to India? With practically no disappearances in 1954, no mass graves, no mass imprisonments and no hangings of Kashmiris, the founders of India could not bring about an emotional connection.How is it that after so much of what has happened in the past few decades, the same can be achieved? The question will remain unanswered if geographical tunnels are seen as an alternative to a serious and meaningful engagement with the failed decades of the past. For tunnels to be meaningful, emotional interconnection is a pre-condition. The writer is a lecturer at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar. He can be reached at javjnu@gmail.com