In this book Ritika Prasad examines the impact of railways on Indian society from multiple aspects. Each aspect is addressed in a separate chapter. Chapter 1 examines the ‘market segmentation’ issue: the way that different categories of passengers became associated with different classes of travel. It considers what passengers thought about their travelling companions, what they thought about the railway companies and what the railway companies thought about them. It focuses on third-class travel, and on issues of particular concern to passengers, such as the provision of toilet facilities for third-class passengers at stations and on the train.
Chapter 2 discusses discrimination between Europeans, Anglo-Indians and Indians, men and women, and between different castes (especially Hindus and others). The challenges that rail travel posed to taboos, especially in relation to physical proximity and interpersonal contact, are extensively discussed. Dietary needs, dress codes and acceptable behaviour are carefully considered too.
Railway embankments as a threat to flood management are analysed in chapter 3. The focus is on ‘criminal’ activity involved in cutting through embankments to alleviate flooding. Chapter 4 is concerned with the well-known issues of railway time and the social consequences of the standardisation of time. Chapter 5 examines the spread of contagious diseases by rail. It analyses in detail the inspections carried out during the 1897 plague, and the sanitary measures, such as disinfection of railway vehicles, introduced about the same time. It considers changing attitudes towards the spread of cholera, the intrusiveness of inspections, and the perceived problem of pilgrimage, which resulted in unhygienic overcrowded trains.
Chapter 6 considers the military use of railways, showing how the railways were used to expedite troop movements when quelling civilian unrest and when dealing with threats to the borders of Empire. It also shows how the railway was used by protesters to mobilise anti-government supporters. The vulnerability of railways to disruption and sabotage is also highlighted. This leads on to a discussion in chapter 7 of Ghandi's attitude to the railways, and the emergence of the railway station as a theatre for nationalist sentiment. The main sources of evidence are court cases, minutes and memoranda of various organisations, and the Statistical Abstract of British India.
The individual chapters contain a lot of useful information. Most of them begin with a couple of anecdotes on which the rest of the chapter hangs. The descriptive material is highly readable, but this material is packaged in some obscure social theory. The introduction announces that the book ‘asks how railway technology, travel and infrastructure became increasingly and inextricably woven with everyday life in colonial India, how people negotiated this increasing presence of railways in their lives, and how the ensuing processes of adaptation, contestation, and accommodation have materially shaped India's history.’ The answer is that ‘railways became integral to how inordinate numbers concretely experienced many of the historical abstractions shaping their contemporary world, specifically the intrusion of new and alien technology structured through the demands of capitalist expansion and imperial dominance’ (p. 3).
In other words, the question concerns the impact of railway on society, and the answer is that it was significant. It is not clear, however, that it was substantially different from the impact of railways in other countries, including Britain. For ‘low caste’ read ‘lower class’ and much of what is documented in this book would be mirrored in the social history of railways in Britain. This is hardly surprising, since the railways were largely owned, managed and regulated by the British until 1947.
It is perhaps because the question is so vague that the conclusion (chapter 8) is rather disappointing. There is an attempt to return to the issues posed in chapter 1, but most of the chapter is occupied by reflections on the modern Delhi metro.
This book can be mined for fascinating detail, but at the end of the day it tells us exactly what we would expect to be told about the impact of railways in India. The impact was considerable, it increased mobility, even among the relatively poor, and imperial attitudes affected the way that different classes of passenger were treated. Those who like their prejudices reinforced will be delighted with the book. Those who want surprises may be a little disappointed, but they will still appreciate the wealth of interesting detail.
