A rare and unique perspective on the cultural history of an organisation as perceived by writers, critics, films, colonial rulers and local citizenry from the 1840’s till today. The Railways has been centre stage for the better part of the century and half of their existence. Being an early product of the Industrial Revolution and its rapid expansion to the far corners of the subcontinent, it had a major impact on society in diverse ways. The author vividly captures the discussion and debates and the impact it has had on its changing cultural influence over time. The decision to build railways in India, in the 1840’s, came at a time the Railway investment bubble in Britain had burst which resulted in strong arguments for and against their introduction in India so much so that Rowland MacDonald Stephenson, Managing Director of the East Indian Railway, took up editorship and later the ownership of the Englishman, the forerunner of the Statesman, in order to promote the case, for building the Railway. One of the apprehensions that Indians would not use the Railway soon proved to be false as the Railway had a positive impact on mobility, caste distinctions notwithstanding. In fact, Dwarkanath Tagore became an important sponsor for Rail development. The description of early interaction between the ruling race and Indian passengers and spectators at stations and on trains makes fascinating reading.
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, with the Victorian Empire at its peak, significant literature centred around the Railways, often glorifying it. Authors such as Rousselet and Jules Verne highlighted the magnificence and romance of rail travel while Rudyard Kipling wrote many remarkable stories based on rail travel and has given us a graphic description of life in the Railway Townships. Several others are comprehensively covered by the author. There were dissenting voices such as that of Arthur Cotton and Florence Nightingale who, reacting to the severe famines at the time, felt too much money had been squandered on Railway Construction and more needed to be done for building canals.
The Railways, in a way, facilitated the Nationalist movement. Mahatma Gandhi journeys across the length and breadth of the country would not have been possible without Railways. His choice for travelling Third Class and the large meetings held at wayside stations large and small was an essential component of the Freedom Movement. The journeys of Subhash Chandra Bose including his escape via Gomoh, or that of Bhagat Singh from Lahore to Calcutta in disguise are important part of modern Indian History. Towards the end of the struggle for independence the Railways became the target of anticolonial action with the Kakori incident and other acts of sabotage, disruption and shut downs becoming a vehicle of revolutionary, seditious and antigovernmental expressions.
The most powerful chapter in the book is the one on partition, where the Railways become the ‘Dumb Waiters’ and purveyors of destiny of two nations. The horrors of partition generated a large number of books, short stories and films reminding us of the bestiality and violence that took place on a scale rarely seen in history, while the new national leadership looked on, helplessly. Partition literature quoted include Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, Krishan Chander’s, Peshawar Express, a story where the train itself is the narrator of events that took place on it, Bhisham Sahni’s Amritsar Aa Gaya, Sa’dat Hasan Manto, Kasri Nafisi and many more. There were also noteworthy films about partition such as Gadar and Deepa Mehta’s 1947: Earth.
Cinema has been the main source of entertainment for the masses in post independent India and has had a powerful cultural impact. Till the 1990’s there was hardly any film, in which a railway train did not figure, usually in a romantic setting. Arup Chatterjee is obviously a connoisseur of Indian films as he adeptly brings out the finer nuances of a range of rail related movies. These include Aradhana with its song sequence filmed on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (now a World Heritage Site), Coolie extolling the hardships of a porter, Satyajit Ray’s Sonar Kella with its camel chase train sequence, the sensitively depicted romantic encounters in a rail compartment in Mere Huzoor and Pakeezah, and the life of an Anglo-Indian family in a Railway Colony in Julie. By the end of the Twentieth Century films had begun to cater to the diaspora such Dilwale Dulhniya le Jayenge while the influence of the Railways itself, on the popular psyche, was on the decline. The Railways also became the target of disgruntled elements and terrorists with attacks on the Samjhauta Express (2007), Mumbai CST Station in 2008 and several incidents in the North East. It is now only the nostalgia that comes with the charming stories of small town India by RK Narayan and Ruskin Bond that remind us of the Railways in their heyday.