Railways weren’t Britain’s ‘gift’ to India—we paid with blood, sweat & humiliation

Thispreposterous agreement was signed in 1849 between the British colonial Government of India and two railway companiesthe East India Railway (EIR) and the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIP)...

Owners of the railway companies and the cotton mills were a formidable group in Parliament, particularly after 1858,when political control of India was transferred from the East India Company to the British government..

So other than coal and the ballast for the railway tracks, every piece of equipment was imported from Britain.The amount paid by India to British manufacturers for railway materials and stores more than doubledin 30years (from Rs 2.09 crore in 1867 to Rs 5.35 crore in 1897)..

So skilled were the Indian mechanics that a law was passed in 1912in British Parliament specifically banning Indian railways workshops from designing and making locomotives...

The railwayswerenta gift to India from the benevolent British colonial authorities; everyfootof the lineswaspaid for by the ordinary Indian in blood, sweat and untold hardship and humiliation...