An Ominous Ring

The telecom bill signals the government's authoritarian intent.

- SEEMA CHISHTI

The British East India Company built the Indian telegraph system. William O'Shaughnessy, who had come to India in 1833 as a 24-year-old assistant surgeon with the Company, is said to have devised the telegraph. He soon started experimenting with electricity, and went on to invent an electric motor and a silver chloride battery. In 1839, he set up a 131/2-mile-long demonstration telegraph system near Calcutta. His work did not draw much attention from his bosses, until James Andrew Broun-Ramsay became the governor-general and understood its true potential. By 1856, it connected Calcutta, Agra, Bombay, Peshawar and Madras. Well before the British Raj took charge, the telegraph, among other technology, helped tighten the colonial noose over India. It is said to have played a part in helping the British put down Ghadar in 1857. "There is the accursed string that strangles us," a captured rebel cried, pointing at a telegraph line as he was being led to his death by the British.