Hey, the west enslaved you for centuries but look at the brighter side. They tried to pull out the roots of countless obnoxious practices and also gave you the concept of… railways. So what if they looted you for ages, they weren’t all that bad, okay?
Well, if you’ve been bulldozed into thanking Britain as they paved your way into modernising India then do not fall for it. Then why did they introduce the railway system in our country? They weren’t messiahs after all.
British colonists used railways as a means of transportation for the goods they plundered from India, including spices, cotton, silk, and tea, which they had originally traded under the name East India Company.
So, when they were initially established, did the railroads benefit Indians in any way? No. Right from the ticket desk to the ticker checker only white people were hired, shutting all doors to employment for Indians.
A railway network was built between 1853 and 1924 to aid Britain’s incessant extraction from India. Indians were obliged to pay for them and cheated in the process. Despite having efficient and affordable designs, Britain compelled India to purchase trains from them. In short, it was a nightmare for the Indian taxpayers.
After Britain could no longer profit from its presence in India, English men split India into two parts and the Muslim majority concentrated on Pakistan during the partition. And trains became the sights for mass murder. Trains accommodating the refugees were stopped and everyone on board was murdered.
The only ones spared were the drivers so they could carry the train full of corpses to the final destination. And they say what could possibly go wrong when some ‘learned men’ introduced unconventional concepts in an uncivilised country.