The Railways were introduced in India in 1853 by the British for their benefit. No one at that point knew that it would become an integral part of the country, bringing the nation together geographically and socially. People connected to it not just physically but also emotionally. It was so transformative that it played a significant role in creating the India we know today.
The railways in India brought a sense of time and punctuality for the colonial Indians. And that is the reason why we Indians have clocked ourselves to a schedule better known as – Indian Standard Time. The standardizing of railway time in India took place around 1854 to 1905.
This standardization was not a one-day work. India is a vast country, and people's preferences changed from one part of the country to another. Not just people, governments of different states faced issues in settling down for a single standardized time. There were many arguments on whether Calcutta time or Bombay time or Madras time, or any other important city during those years' time should be adapted.
The Government of India consequently declared that it had decided to adopt on railways 'a standard time which in India will be precisely 5% hours in advance of Greenwich and 9 minutes in advance of Madras time, the change to be introduced at midnight between the 30th June and the 1st July 1905'.58. This new all-India railway time—-of a meridian roughly two degrees east of Madras—continues to be Indian Standard Time.
Now that railway times had been introduced, the question of how Indians inculcated it within their lives could be answered.
There have been many writings and narratives on this period. While Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay is enthusiastic about the railway times' which reduces a month's travel to a day, there are authors like Mirza Sahib, who states that the speed of railways had robbed journey of enjoyment. He believed that reaching your destination in a blink of an eye is not at all significant enough as the long days of travel, with fears and darkness all around. That travel seemed adventurous, and after the introduction of railways, he didn't even enjoy travelling.
More and more places got added to the railway network, and the country got connected.
Another important feature was the sense of punctuality. Indians considered trains to be irregular, and the British claimed that Indians were ignorant and helpless. Not just that, the Indians petitioned the railway administration for not having a punctual schedule.
An important reason why people were critical of the railways was their speed, especially those of 'mixed trains' that carried both passengers and goods. Passengers travelling by these trains had to wait for days to reach their destinations.
It's somewhat ironic that the railways tried to fulfil the "native needs" when they demanded faster speed and slower halts. Another demand widely prevalent was the timetables to be made available in the local languages. However, a sizeable section of the travellers was illiterate, who had to reach out to people to be read out the relevant information from the tables.
Despite so many problems, people adapted to the travelling ways introduced by the railways. However, in reality, railways were somewhat unreliable and slow. People desired speed and regularity; instead, a significant focus was on standardizing time. Added to the problems were language barriers and illiteracy, which reduced the immediate impact of railways.
The colonial Indians lived and faced many difficulties. With technology, their worlds kept changing. It had people who couldn't imagine travelling from one part of the country to another, people who had no idea how their lives and the lives of the generations to follow were going to change. India is proud to have Indian Railways, a primary connector of the cities and states. Had there not been writers then, we would not have known a lot about the people's lives. Yes, there would have been documents, yet the lives of the ordinary people and how they adapted and reacted to the changes, how critical they were of it and how they raised their voices, this all would not have been documented.
Even though railways wouldn't have been the only reason for creating a sense of time and punctuality, what matters is that it did bring a sense among Indians to understand the importance of time. Although the changes brought were limited, what's essential is that Indians themselves played a significant role in creating the change. Thus, we can say that railways had more of a social than a materialistic impact on time.
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