India, June 20 -- When the Vande Bharat Express chugged from Katra on June 6 and arrived in Srinagar three hours later, crossing the 359-metre bridge over the Chenab river and the 11-km tunnel through the forbidding Pir Panjal range, it broke a physical and psychological barrier that symbolised Kashmir's isolation after the partition. India's division in 1947 hit Kashmir the hardest politically and economically, spawning a protracted conflict and reducing it to a backwater from the crossroads of commerce and the blending of cultures.

The partition severed Kashmir's long-distance trade links to Central Asia and beyond, ending its significance as an economic hub and stagnating its economy. Overnight, Kashmir became dependent on a cart road...