Ian J. Kerr – författare

The former Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire, India remains, by any measure, a major economic and political actor on the world scene. Without her extensive railway network—completed against all odds by her British colonial masters—it is impossible to imagine what might have become of the diverse lands and peoples of the subcontinent. These railway networks brought them together as a colony; these networks fostered the nationalism that would be Britain's downfall. This rail network both remade the physical landscape and brought social-cultural cohesion to a diverse and wide-ranging populace. It would be common rail travel that Gandhi would employ to reach the masses. From its romantic mystique to its dangerous reality, it is rail travel today that keeps vital social, cultural, economic and political forces moving.India's railroad history serves as a unique lens to her larger story of triumph over adversity. By 1905, India had the world's fourth largest railway network—a position it retains in the early 21st century. The railroads were at the organizational and technological center of many of the inter-related economic, political, social, cultural, and ecological transformations that produced modern India through, and out of, its colonial past. In addition to this vast technical achievement, and (in keeping with the series focus), there is an equally important and wide-sweeping human-interest tale to be told with evocative vignettes of the triumph of the human spirit (one billion strong!) in the face of great adversity.

India has had operating railways for well-over 150 years: railways that have played a central and well-documented role in the making of India in the colonial and post-colonial eras. This handbook provides a reference guide for researchers interested in almost any facet of the history, colonial and post-colonial, of these railways. The secondary literature is identified and surveyed, primary sources and their locations identified, statistical and cartographic data discussed and presented, and a massive bibliography made available. This handbook is the indispensable tool for anyone seeking to understand India's railways and the roles they played in the making of modern India.

Some 25,000 miles of railways were constructed in India from 1850 to 1900. This involved a substantial investment of British capital, the transplantation of Victorian railway technology to the British Indian Empire, the presence of a small, supervisary cadre of British engineers, skilled workmen and overseers, and the mobilization of millions of Indian workers. This is the first, wide-scale examination of this subject in modern times. It explains how great physical obstacles and human complexities -- for example massive rivers, epidemics of disease and the co-ordinated use of large labour gangs - tested alike the skills and fortitude of British supervisors and the Indian workers, whose labour built the railways and whose construction-related deaths numbered in tens of thousands. This book is intended for students of modern Indian history, technology transfer, labour history and railway enthusiasts.

Part of the Themes in Indian History series, this valuable book reprints important writings on India's railway history. A substantial introduction places the sections in their historical and historiographical contexts, while the body of the work identifies neglected topics and outlines a new approach to the study of Indian railways. It will greatly appeal to scholars and students as well as to the general reader of Indian history.