Railways in india were built only for the benefit of the people by the Colones rulers how can you say that
Answers
1. Railways in India weren't built for the benifit of the people by the colonial rulers.
2. The main purpose was to shift the mineral resources to the nearby seaports, they built the Railways.
3. If we observe major railway lines laid by the colonial rulers they laid rail routes directly to the seaport areas only.
4. Before introduction of Railways our transport system was very backward.
5. In 1853 first railway line was established from Bombay to Thane.
6. Even though Railways were introduced by the Britishers for their own benefit, but it is no useful to us transport in the goods from one place to another place.
Answer:
Nowhere other than India is the railway so indelibly connected with the image of the nation. Just as there is no single country on earth that has such a broad cultural, ethnic, and racial mix as India, there is also no railway system that has played and, crucially, continues to play such a fundamental role.
There are endless paradoxes about the Indian railways. They were the greatest gift left by the colonial power, and yet they were not built to serve the needs of local people. The fact that they did so, and continue to do so, was almost incidental. The British companies that laid down the tracks had not envisaged that people would pour en masse onto the iron road to take advantage of the immeasurably improved experience of traveling across the vast sub-continent offered by train services. Even though for the best part of the first 100 years of the railway age, they were owned and controlled by companies based 5,000 miles away in the United Kingdom, they immediately assumed an Indian identity, which only became stronger over time. A neat illustration of that is the fact that Indian Railways adopted a rather bowdlerized version of the famous London Underground roundel on its station signs.
The Indians took to the railways, not just physically, but emotionally. Railways and India are a good fit, an enduring one since not only are the Indians still building new lines, but virtually none have ever been closed. The railways delivered much for India. Just as with the United States of America, they bound the country together. They allowed fast travel between one end of the country and the other and cemented relationships between the various provinces. They enabled goods to be carried around the country far more cheaply than ever before. They allowed the development of markets in foodstuffs and other agricultural produce that increased their availability and, eventually, did make famines less likely. They created an infrastructure that in India was unprecedented in its sophistication and extent. They gave the opportunity of secure jobs to millions of Indians and enabled many of them to acquire new skills. They helped the development of the trade union movement. They laid the foundations of the large Indian middle class. They brought sophisticated technology to the sub-continent.
And so much more. They were transformative in so many ways, creating the India we know today. As Theroux summarizes, ‘The railway was the bloodstream of the Raj, and it affected nearly everyone. It linked the centers of population; and the cities, which until then had been identified with their temples and forts, became identified with their railway stations, Howrah with Calcutta, Victoria with Bombay, Egmore and Madras Central with Madras.’ He goes on to suggest, with some justification, that India only functions thanks to its railways.
That is not to say that the railways were always welcomed by Indians. Indeed, they were the subject of huge controversy because they were seen as the principal instrument of colonization. The British, with their small army, could not have kept hold of a turbulent country for so long without the ability of the railways to move troops around quickly. After a slow start in 1853, the construction of the railway network envisaged by Lord Dalhousie was sped up rapidly after the 1857 Rebellion. The railways were an instrument of control. The stations became fortresses, the white and, later, the Eurasian, staff became an auxiliary army, and the tracks became lines of communication in the event of conflict. The 1857 Rebellion, coming as it did at a crucial stage in railway development, had an enormous impact on the railways’ eventual shape and the attitude of the British colonial rulers to their Indian subordinates. This was a nakedly military project, but not solely one. There were immeasurable economic benefits, too, and though the very design of the railways was as conduits to and from the ports to help British imports and exports, inevitably the Indian economy received a stimulus through their construction.