Railways' Economic Impact on Uttar Pradesh and Colonial North India (1860-1914): The Iron Raj

Informed by decades of archival research, this ground-breaking book provides the first detailed and holistic analysis of the impact on North India’s rural and urban economies of colonial British India’s major infrastructural investment in railways, covering their first fifty years (1860-1914). By 1914, a dense 4,800 mile rail network was in place in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state. This book provides a wide-ranging analysis of railways’ economic, social, demographic and environmental effects in this key region. It provides new insights into how rail construction adapted to North Indian conditions, how the state pioneered more efficient railway building and operations in the 1870s, and how the western part of the UP and ‘independent’ cultivators benefitted from rail opportunities while the river-served East UP became involuted, buttressed by migrant remittances, among many other topics. This book will be an essential read for those seeking to understand economic developments in Colonial India and railways’ role.

About the Author :
During the 1980s, Ian D. Derbyshire carried out extensive fieldwork and archival research in north India and the UK on railways’ impact on the economy and society of Uttar Pradesh (UP) between 1860 and 1914. He also taught international economic history at Cambridge University and York University and carried out postdoctoral research with the support of the British Academy. In the 1990s and more recent decades, his research has explored the financing of India’s railways, rail construction methods and challenges in North India, and the impact of rail communications on UP migration, pilgrimages and dissemination of disease, among other subjects. In addition to writing on North Indian economic history, he has also published extensively on international politics and produced research reports for the UK Parliament.

Review :
"Derbyshire has presented a complex narrative linking many parts – commerce, institutions, urbanisation, industrialisation, transport and living standards – persuasively. Most importantly, while railway study has evolved recently as a distinct specialism, Derbyshire integrates railway history with the economic history of the biggest region of India."Professor Tirthankar Roy,London School of Economics"There is much to appreciate in Derbyshire’s account. The examination of the statistical evidence is painstaking, especially with respect to individ¬ual cash-crop commodities and significant subdivisions within the United Provinces. Although the author’s principal concern is with economic change, he does address the technological opportunities and constraints of railway construction and operation and the social consequences of the railways, for instance in terms of different caste communities and the emergence of Kanpur as a railroad town and industrial center."David Arnold, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick