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Imperial Indian Railway system Project

Group Project plan and work

We decided to do two parts to our project. Austin edited the railway section on the British Raj page since logically anyone interested in British Imperialism of India would look there first. Below is the section text on that page and the edits Austin made in bold. Finally he then updated a hyperlink on the section page to link readers to the main section page of Indian Railway History where readers could go to learn more about the subject. There Thomas and Franky added their sections to the main page to add further information about the Colonial Project of railways in India, of which that page was utterly lacking in.

Work section

"Development itself was intended solely as a means of providing London with an uninterrupted flow of dividend returns on capital investment." (Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism, London: Yale University Press, 168.)

Government used its railways to rapidly mobilize its forces to defat the 1857 sepoy rebellion. (Deepak Kumar, Science and the Raj: 1857-1905, Delhi, 1997, pg 46-47.

5 companies owned all of British railways in India that were also all British, and at profit maximization. further no government regulation. (The Cambridge Economic History of India: Volume 2, c.1757-c.1970,Cambridge University Press; Reprint Edition (March 31, 1983), by Dharma Kumar (Editor), Meghnad Desai (Editor) p 751

The colonial government encouraged cooperation instead of competition, and the companies divided India into spheres of influence. (ibid, pg 752 and 755)

The colonial Indian Government was involved and not impartial to the development of the railways, (Ian J. Kerr. Building the Railways of the Raj, 1850-1900. Oxford University Press (June 11, 1998) pg 164-85.

The British used the railway network to economically colonize India (pg 72)

The railway thus served as a tool of the colonial government to control India. "...as an essential strategic, defensive, subjugators and administrative 'tool'" (Ian Derbyshire, 'The Building of India's Railways: The Application of Western Technology in the Colonial Periphery, 1850-1920', in Technology and the Raj: western technology and technical transfers to India 1700-1947. editors Roy Macleod, Deepak Kumar London:Sage 1995 (pg 203)

labor was harsh on indigenous population for the colonial government cared chiefly for Europeans. And the colonial legal system did little to prosecute Europeans who mistreated Indians who were usually acquitted. (Ian Derbyshire, 'The Building of India's Railway) PG 166-177.

PG 73. (British separated work on race, where mental jobs like administration were only allowed for Europeans, and menial hard labor only for Indians.

Railway was seen as a strategic defense of the European population, allowing the military to move quickly to subdue native unrest and protect Britons. (Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of India, pg 108.)

"[IRFCA] India's First Railways". www.irfca.org. first railway

Austin's Section

Full text of the railway section from British Raj. Bold text is my additions. Further my additions have been uploaded to the actual page.

Changed the link from the section to lead to History of rail transport in India where Thomas and Franky did their sections,

British India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century, which was the fourth largest in the world. At first the railways were privately owned and operated. They were run by British administrators, engineers and craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians.

The East India Company (and later the colonial government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to 5% during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99-year lease, with the government having the option to buy them earlier. Two new railway companies, the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and the East Indian Railway Company (EIR) began to construct and operate lines near Bombay and Calcutta in 1853–54. The first passenger railway line in North India, between Allahabad and Kanpur, opened in 1859. Eventually, five British companies came to own all railway business in India, (Laxman D. Satya, "British Imperial Railways in Nineteenth Century South Asia," Economic and Political Weekly 43, No. 47 (November 2008): 72.) and operated under a profit maximization scheme. (Satya, 72.)

In 1854, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India. Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The route mileage of this network increased from 1,349 kilometres (838 mi) in 1860 to 25,495 kilometres (15,842 mi) in 1880, mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.

After the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857, and subsequent Crown Rule over India, the railways were seen as a strategic defense of the European population, allowing the military to move quickly to subdue native unrest and protect Britons. (Barbara D Metcalf and Thomas R Metcalf, A Concise History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 96.) The railway thus served as a tool of the colonial government to control India as they were "an essential strategic, defensive, subjugators and administrative 'tool'" for the Imperial Project. (Ian Derbyshire, 'The Building of India's Railways: The Application of Western Technology in the Colonial Periphery, 1850-1920', in Technology and the Raj: Western Technology and Technical Transfers to India 1700-1947 ed, Roy Macleod and Deepak Kumar (London: Sage, 1995), 203.

Most of the railway construction was done by Indian companies supervised by British engineers. The system was heavily built, using a broad gauge, sturdy tracks and strong bridges. By 1900 India had a full range of rail services with diverse ownership and management, operating on broad, metre and narrow gauge networks. In 1900, the government took over the GIPR network, while the company continued to manage it. During the First World War, the railways were used to transport troops and grain to the ports of Bombay and Karachi en route to Britain, Mesopotamia, and East Africa. With shipments of equipment and parts from Britain curtailed, maintenance became much more difficult; critical workers entered the army; workshops were converted to making artillery; some locomotives and cars were shipped to the Middle East. The railways could barely keep up with the increased demand. By the end of the war, the railways had deteriorated for lack of maintenance and were not profitable. In 1923, both GIPR and EIR were nationalised.

Headrick shows that until the 1930s, both the Raj lines and the private companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel, such as locomotive engineers. The hard physical labor was left to the Indians. The colonial government was chiefly concerned with the welfare of European workers, and any Indian deaths were "either ignored or merely mentioned as a cold statistical figure." (Satya, 73.) (Derbyshire, 157-67) The government's Stores Policy required that bids on railway contracts be made to the India Office in London, shutting out most Indian firms. The railway companies purchased most of their hardware and parts in Britain. There were railway maintenance workshops in India, but they were rarely allowed to manufacture or repair locomotives. TISCO steel could not obtain orders for rails until the war emergency.

The Second World War severely crippled the railways as rolling stock was diverted to the Middle East, and the railway workshops were converted into munitions workshops. After independence in 1947, forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated to form a single nationalised unit named the Indian Railways.

India provides an example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a very well-built system designed for military purposes (after the Mutiny of 1857), in the hope that it would stimulate industry. The system was overbuilt and too expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried. Christensen (1996), who looked at colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests, concluded that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the current needs of the railways or of their passengers.

Bibliography

Derbyshire, Ian. 'The Building of India's Railways: The Application of Western Technology in the Colonial Periphery, 1850-1920', in Technology and the Raj: Western Technology and Technical Transfers to India 1700-1947 ed, Roy Macleod and Deepak Kumar London: Sage, 1995.

Kumar, Deepak. Science and the Raj: 1857-1905. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Kumar, Dharma and Meghnad Desai. The Cambridge Economic History of India: Volume 2, c.1757-c.1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1983.

Kerr, Ian J. Building the Railways of the Raj, 1850-1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Satya, Laxman D. "British Imperial Railways in Nineteenth Century South Asia," Economic and Political Weekly 43, No. 47 (November 2008): 69-77.

Thomer, Daniel. "The Pattern of Railway Development in India." The Far Eastern Quarterly 14, no. 2 (February 1955): 201-216.

Watts, Sheldon. Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism. London: Yale University Press, 1999.

Thomas' section

Will be added as the origin section at the beginning of the page.

Empires are in constant competition with their near peer opponents. Whether it be trade, innovation, or even war, the constant need that drives these forces is always motivated by the country’s survival and its place in the world. Railways are one such innovation that impacted trade, communication, and war. Great Britain was at one point the largest empire in the world, with one of its key holdings in India. Looking at the map, we can see that India dwarfs the British isles many times over, so the distances to travel and to communicate would present a challenge in itself.

           India was an economic anchor that the British Empire exploited for its own benefit. Getting the resources and materials needed to feed the empire was not easy, and was also a time-consuming process. The recent invention of the railway would be brought to India in the mid-19th century. It was intended to not only transport goods, but serve as a means of improving communication and transporting military personnel between cities to expedite their use wherever needed.[1] Colonizers would also perceive that the mere creation of a railroad would bring “backward societies into normative history.”[2] Whatever method was used to implement the railroad, this line of thinking by the powers that be, would justify the end state of railroad creation on the continent. While railroads weren’t built with the primary goal of transporting people, this was the biproduct of the development of such routes.[3] This enabled the people of the continent to travel further and quicker, while also having a drastic effect in how people communicated and traded.

---

[1] Satya, Laxman D. "British Imperial Railways in Nineteenth Century South Asia." Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 47 (2008): 69-77. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40278213.

[2] PRASAD, RITIKA. "'Time-Sense': Railways and Temporality in Colonial India." Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 4 (2013): 1252-282. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24494197

[3] Headrick, Daniel. "A Double-Edged Sword: Communications and Imperial Control in British India." Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 35, no. 1 (131) (2010): 51-65. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20762428.

Franky's Section

Will be added as the economic section after the chronology section.

Railways were one of the greatest factors in India’s economic development. The system made Trade within India as well as trade with on the international market possible and dramatically increased from 1850 to ­1947. Prior to the railway's introduction, transportation across India was a challenge. Road conditions were poor and water transportation that was limited to the coasts. Railways moved people and cargo across India unifying the local markets. Passenger travel by the early 20thc surpassed 256 million annually. (Prasad p.1255) Economic policy was determined by the train system and culturally, Railways became a force for independence in India. (Chaudhary)  

The colonial government’s stated goal was to make trade and travel inexpensive. In London, the project was lauded as a way to gain access to cotton markets within India's interior. Passenger travel was not a stated goal but, five years into the project the first passenger rail line was opened connecting Bombay to Thana. By the early 20th c passenger travel was a primary revenue stream and it the world’s fourth largest rail system though, compared to the population of India the capacity was still inadequate. (Chaudhary). Trainlines in imperial India were a public-private partnership. The Colonial government planned routs and private companies constructed them.

The passenger rail network, was widespread by the 1910s leaving a great social impact on India.(Chaudhary p.17) The railroads were the easiest way for the movement of people in India during the nineteenth century. Roads were not a priority for the government of India and were dangerous and difficult to travers. For the transport of people, the fast travel time made it the best means of travel.  For the transport of goods, trains were much more fuel efficient.(Chaudhary p.6)

The transportation of people integrated all of India. For the communities privileged with rail access, the price of goods came down and the average wages increased when compared to parts of India that did not have railways. Moreover, prices stayed consistent in comminates on the rail network. (Chaudhary p.3­4) In addition to speed and fuel efficiency, the rail was a safe means of travel.  Safety rates were high even compared to Western countries and the statistics improved continuously. (Chaudhary p.10)

The rail network necessitated standardized time. In 1905, the British implemented standard time across the empire. London insisted that standardize time proved the mantis of the entire imperial project as time is standard time is modern and retinal. (Prasad p.1254­1255) The imperial government imposed standard time across the whole of India based on the twelve-hour clock. (Prasad p.1271­-1272) Standard time integrated India into the global economy.

Bibliography  

Arnold, D. (1980). Industrial Violence in Colonial India. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22(2), 234-255. doi:10.1017/s0010417500009324

Bogart, D., & Chaudhary, L. (2012). Railways in Colonial India: An Economic Achievement? SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2073256

Bogart, D., & Chaudhary, L. (2013). Engines of Growth: The Productivity Advance of Indian Railways, 1874–1912. The Journal of Economic History, 73(2), 339-370. doi:10.1017/s0022050713000296

Kerr, I. J. (2014). Colonial India, its Railways, and the Cliometricians. The Journal of Transport History, 35(1), 114-120. doi:10.7227/tjth.35.1.8

Prasad, R. (2012). ‘Time-Sense’: Railways and Temporality in Colonial India. Modern Asian Studies, 47(4), 1252-1282. doi:10.1017/s0026749x11000527

Railways

Main article: History of rail transport in India

The railway network of India in 1871, all major cities, Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, as well as Delhi are connected

The railway network of India in 1909, when it was the fourth largest railway network in the world

"The most magnificent railway station in the world." says the caption of the stereographic tourist picture of Victoria Terminus, Bombay, which was completed in 1888

British India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century, which was the fourth largest in the world. At first the railways were privately owned and operated. They were run by British administrators, engineers and craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians.

The East India Company (and later the colonial government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to 5% during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99-year lease, with the government having the option to buy them earlier. Two new railway companies, the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and the East Indian Railway Company (EIR) began to construct and operate lines near Bombay and Calcutta in 1853–54. The first passenger railway line in North India, between Allahabad and Kanpur, opened in 1859. Eventually, five British companies came to own all railway business in India, and operated under a profit maximization scheme. Further, there was no government regulation of these companies.

In 1854, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India. Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The route mileage of this network increased from 1,349 kilometres (838 mi) in 1860 to 25,495 kilometres (15,842 mi) in 1880, mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.

After the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857, and subsequent Crown rule over India, the railways were seen as a strategic defense of the European population, allowing the military to move quickly to subdue native unrest and protect Britons. The railway thus served as a tool of the colonial government to control India as they were "an essential strategic, defensive, subjugators and administrative 'tool'" for the Imperial Project.

Most of the railway construction was done by Indian companies supervised by British engineers. The system was heavily built, using a broad gauge, sturdy tracks and strong bridges. By 1900 India had a full range of rail services with diverse ownership and management, operating on broad, metre and narrow gauge networks. In 1900, the government took over the GIPR network, while the company continued to manage it. During the First World War, the railways were used to transport troops and grain to the ports of Bombay and Karachi en route to Britain, Mesopotamia, and East Africa. With shipments of equipment and parts from Britain curtailed, maintenance became much more difficult; critical workers entered the army; workshops were converted to making artillery; some locomotives and cars were shipped to the Middle East. The railways could barely keep up with the increased demand. By the end of the war, the railways had deteriorated for lack of maintenance and were not profitable. In 1923, both GIPR and EIR were nationalised.

Headrick shows that until the 1930s, both the Raj lines and the private companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel, such as locomotive engineers. The hard physical labor was left to the Indians. The colonial government was chiefly concerned with the welfare of European workers, and any Indian deaths were "either ignored or merely mentioned as a cold statistical figure." The government's Stores Policy required that bids on railway contracts be made to the India Office in London, shutting out most Indian firms. The railway companies purchased most of their hardware and parts in Britain. There were railway maintenance workshops in India, but they were rarely allowed to manufacture or repair locomotives. TISCO steel could not obtain orders for rails until the war emergency.

The Second World War severely crippled the railways as rolling stock was diverted to the Middle East, and the railway workshops were converted into munitions workshops. After independence in 1947, forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated to form a single nationalised unit named the Indian Railways.

India provides an example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a very well-built system designed for military purposes (after the Mutiny of 1857), in the hope that it would stimulate industry. The system was overbuilt and too expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it carried. Christensen (1996), who looked at colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests, concluded that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the current needs of the railways or of their passengers.