Book Review : Telegraphic Imperialism: Crisis and Panic in the Indian Empire, c. 1830

Deep Kanta Lahiri Choudhury, Telegraphic Imperialism: Crisis and Panic in the Indian Empire, c. 1830, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010, pp. xii+277.

In 1870 Bombay and London were connected by telegraph. According to received wisdom, this technological leap enabled greater metropolitan con- trol over the colony. The consequences flowing from technological advances however have their own logic. Telegraphy made possible the speedy trans- mission of information, rendering the colonial State itself vulnerable due to inadequate control over this transmission. The availability of more informa- tion about the Indian empire led to increased parliamentary scrutiny that acted as a check on arbitrary intervention from London. The anxiety over ineffective control over information resulted in a crisis: colonial policy was frequently a response to the crisis. By situating the history of the telegraph within the larger picture of the political economy of imperialism, Deep Kanta Lahiri Choudhury’s pioneering study brings out the complexities of the changes in the world of communication during the latter half of the nine- teenth century. The close connection between the telegraph and the aggres- sive expansionist thrust of British imperialism in the eight decades or so from the late 1830s to the outbreak of the First World War has not received much attention. It is this that Lahiri Choudhury highlights in his work.