Forging a New India in a Telegraph World: Expansion and Consolidation within India

Abstract

Between 1860 and 1900, the Indian Empire emerged as a crucial strategic element in both the cable and overland telegraph networks of the British Empire. By 1875 India was the main overland link between the West, and the Far East and Australasia. However, less than 70 years later, by 1931, the Indo-European Telegraph Department was desperately trying to liquidate its holdings as it wound up operations. This book examines these 70 years in the context of the imperial telegraph system. By 1874, two main overland lines serviced the connection with India. The first was the Turkish route that went from Constantinople through Diarbekr and Baghdad to Fao. The second was the line run by the Siemens’ Indo-European Telegraph Company, from Berlin through Russian Odessa and north of the Black Sea to Tabriz and Tehran. Fao was connected by submarine cable to Bushehr where it met the overland line from Tehran via Isfahan and Shiraz: both these lines were under the management of the Indo-European Telegraph Department of the Government of India. From Bushehr, submarine cables passed via Henjam and Masandam, and Gwadar, further east on the Persian coast, to Karachi. The Eastern Company’s submarine cables dropped around the coast of Portugal to touch at Gibraltar, from where they passed via Malta and Alexandria and Cairo through the Suez to Aden, and from there to Bombay.