User:TJkiwi/sandbox

Wiki project, India railroad

Who benefited the most, and why was it made?

               Origins

Who

What

When

Where

Why

Historical summary until 1948

Article link : https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Imperial_Railway_Project_in_India&action=edit&redlink=1 

1.      PRASAD, RITIKA. "'Time-Sense': Railways and Temporality in Colonial India." Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 4 (2013): 1252-282. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24494197.

a.      How the train influenced the standardization of Indian standard time

b.      the imperial state perceived the intended effect of railway transport and travel rather specifically: as a speedy mechanism to literally transport temporally backward societies into a normative history THIS IS THE WHY p 1254

·         According to an imperial official writing in 1846, railways were that 'mighty engine of improvement' which would 'cause the slumbering spirit of India to awake from the sleep of ages, the sleep of apathy, superstition and prejudice

·        First passenger train 1853

·        Colonized people were distant form the historical present, so Britain was compelled to bring them forward by modernizing India

2.      Satya, Laxman D. "British Imperial Railways in Nineteenth Century South Asia." Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 47 (2008): 69-77. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40278213.

·        Commercially, it would be best for the cotton of Berar, while for the first 120 miles from Bombay we would proceed in the immediate direction of the military stations of Ahmed- nuggur, Jaulna and Auranga

·        Purpose was commercial and military

·        Railways privately owned by companies with strong ties to government

·        Financial and industry heavily favored British trade

·        India a “captive economy” serving GB

·        Railway was to support an alternate source of cotton in India from the US

·        International trade caused a deficit, but trade within INidia to GB was beneficial, so this would offset the international trade (69)

·        India had become the chief export market for British goods including textiles, iron and steel goods, and other products reflecting Britain's industrial strength

3.      Headrick, Daniel. "A Double-Edged Sword: Communications and Imperial Control in British India." Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 35, no. 1 (131) (2010): 51-65. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20762428.

·        Article is about the communication benefits/ unintended consequences of the railroads.

·        India extremely important to the British Empire, maybe more so than the American colonies

·        Construction of railroad began in 1850, in 1853 the first train moved.

·        Revolutionized communications within India (mail, telegram)

·         governor-general, the Marquess of Dalhousie, who ruled India from 1848 to 1856. Dalhousie was a radical modernizer,

4.       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1v-pOBozNE

·        The white man has a burden and cannot show weakness in front of others.

·        They must appear perfect to their subjects or colonized, because any support is months or weeks away. So, establishing dominance is very important.

·        “half devil, half child”

o  They’re not Christian, so it is a burden to ensure that they are incorporated into the religion of Christianity so that they do not go to hell

o  Also, half child implies that they are not properly educated, are not mannered or cultured. Their ways are so alien that they can be interpreted as such.

·        French coined the term civilization

o  Europeans are only capable of civilizing missions

·

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Empires are in constant competition with their near peer opponents. Whether it be trade, innovation, or even war, the constant need that drives these forces is always motivated by the countries survival in its place in the world. Railways are one such innovation that impacted trade, and war. Great Britain was at one point the largest empire in the world, with one of its key holdings in India. Looking at the map, we can see that India dwarfs the British isles many times over, so the distances traveled to communicate would present a challenge in itself.

India was an economic anchor the British Empire exploited for its own benefit. But getting the resources and materials needed to feed the empire was not easy, and was time consuming. The recent invention of the railway back in England would be brought over to India in the mid 19t century. It was intended to not only transport goods, but serve as a means of improving communication and transporting military personnel between cities to expedite their use wherever needed. Colonizers would also perceive that the mere creation of a railroad would bring “backward societies into normative history.” Whatever method was used to implement the railroad, this line of thinking by the powers that be, would justify the end state of railroad creation on the continent.

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Paragraph update!

Paragraph

Empires are in constant competition with their near peer opponents. Whether it be trade, innovation, or even war, the constant need that drives these forces is always motivated by the country’s survival and its place in the world. Railways are one such innovation that impacted trade, communication, and war. Great Britain was at one point the largest empire in the world, with one of its key holdings in India. Looking at the map, we can see that India dwarfs the British isles many times over, so the distances to travel and to communicate would present a challenge in itself.

India was an economic anchor that the British Empire exploited for its own benefit. Getting the resources and materials needed to feed the empire was not easy, and was also a time-consuming process. The recent invention of the railway would be brought to India in the mid-19th century. It was intended to not only transport goods, but serve as a means of improving communication and transporting military personnel between cities to expedite their use wherever needed.[1] Colonizers would also perceive that the mere creation of a railroad would bring “backward societies into normative history.”[2] Whatever method was used to implement the railroad, this line of thinking by the powers that be, would justify the end state of railroad creation on the continent. While railroads weren’t built with the primary goal of transporting people, this was the biproduct of the development of such routes.[3] This enabled the people of the continent to travel further and quicker, while also having a drastic effect in how people communicated and traded. [1] Satya, Laxman D. "British Imperial Railways in Nineteenth Century South Asia." Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 47 (2008): 69-77. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40278213.

[2] PRASAD, RITIKA. "'Time-Sense': Railways and Temporality in Colonial India." Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 4 (2013): 1252-282. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24494197

[3] Headrick, Daniel. "A Double-Edged Sword: Communications and Imperial Control in British India." Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 35, no. 1 (131) (2010): 51-65. Accessed October 19, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20762428.