The book, The Iron Raj: Railways’ Economic Impact on Uttar Pradesh and Colonial North India (1860-1914) by JDD’s Ian Derbyshire is published this month. This 601-page monograph is based on decades of research and builds on his PhD thesis. It sets out the diverse economic and social impacts of the introduction and spread of railways in the North Indian province/state of what is today Uttar Pradesh: the upper Ganges valley lying between Delhi in the west and Benares (Varanasi) in the east.
The book provides the first detailed and holistic analysis of railways’ impact on the rural and urban economy of an Indian province during the colonial period and also covers the building and financing of railways, the development of Kanpur as an inland industrial centre and how increased movements of people by rail, for migration and pilgrimages, spread diseases including cholera, plague and influenza, checking population growth between 1900 and 1920.