Engineers in India: Industrialisation, Indianisation and the State, 1900-47
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Engineers in India: Industrialisation, Indianisation and the State, 1900-47 A P A R A J I T H R AMNATH July 2012 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Imperial College London Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine DECLARATION This thesis represents my own work. Where the work of others is mentioned, it is duly referenced and acknowledged as such. APARAJITH RAMNATH Chennai, India 30 July 2012 2 ABSTRACT This thesis offers a collective portrait of an important group of scientific and technical practitioners in India from 1900 to 1947: professional engineers. It focuses on engineers working in three key sectors: public works, railways and private industry. Based on a range of little-used sources, it charts the evolution of the profession in terms of the composition, training, employment patterns and work culture of its members. The thesis argues that changes in the profession were both caused by and contributed to two important, contested transformations in interwar Indian society: the growth of large-scale private industry (industrialisation), and the increasing proportion of ‘native’ Indians in government services and private firms (Indianisation). Engineers in the public works and railways played a crucial role as officers of the colonial state, as revealed by debates on Indianisation in these sectors. Engineers also enabled the emergence of large industrial enterprises, which in turn impacted the profession. Previously dominated by expatriate government engineers, the profession expanded, was considerably Indianised, and diversified to include industrial experts. Whereas the profession was initially oriented towards the imperial metropolis, a nascent Indian identity emerged in the interwar period. Throughout, the thesis studies British and Indian engineers in parallel. It also underscores the importance of studying the history of science, technology and medicine in twentieth-century India in relation to the heterogeneous, evolving colonial state. Finally, the focus on practitioners complements the existing historiographical emphasis on intellectuals’ debates on science, colonialism, modernity and nation. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Table of Contents 4 List of Tables 5 List of Figures 6 Acknowledgements 7 1 Engineers in India, 1900-47: Putting practitioners at the centre of the history 9 of science, technology and medicine 2 Indianisation and Industrialisation in Indian History 35 3 Professional Institutions and the Growth of an Indian Identity among 67 Engineers 4 ‘British integrity, resource and impartiality’: Indianisation and the culture of 99 public works engineering 5 Efficiency, Loyalty, and the Limits of Indianisation: Technical officers in the 129 railways 6 Industrial Engineers and Extra-Imperial Influences: The technical experts of 165 the Tata steel works Conclusion 199 Bibliography 209 4 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 2.1 Types and sanctioned sizes of public services as of 1913 48 3.1 Membership trends: Institution of Civil Engineers 79 3.2 Membership trends: Institution of Mechanical Engineers 79 3.3 Membership trends: Institution of Electrical Engineers 79 3.4 Membership figures, Institution of Engineers (India) 88 3.5 Presidents of the Institution of Engineers (India), 1920-40 92 3.6 Titles of some papers discussed at the IEI’s meetings 94 4.1 Salary scales (in Rupees) of PWD engineers, 1892-1908 108 5.1 Ownership and management categories of railways in India,1920-1 132 5.2 Salaries of Superior Officers, State Railways, 1913 139 5.3 COMPOSITION. Extent of Indianisation, Railway Superior Service officers, as 152 of 1st April 1925 5.4 RECRUITMENT. Indianisation—fresh recruitment to the Railway Superior 153 Service, 1921-1941 5.5 COMPOSITION. Extent of Indianisation, Railway Superior Service officers, as 155 st of 31 March 1934 5.6 COMPOSITION. Percentage share of Indians among gazetted railway officers in 159 the early years of World War II 6.1 Covenanted and uncovenanted employees of TISCO in various years 181 6.2 Expenditure on and contributions to the Jamshedpur Technical Institute in its 186 first two years 6.3 Applicants to the JTI for November 1922, by province/ princely state 187 6.4 Province-wise origin of JTI students until 1926 188 6.5 Profiles of some graduate trainees, JTI 194 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 2.1 Structure of Indian government, 1905 41 2.2 Government administration, c. 1900-20: departments and services 45 3.1 Major employers of engineers in India, c. 1850-1905 70 4.1 PWD organisation and recruitment at 1900 103 4.2 Routes into the ISE (direct recruitment and promotion) 112 5.1 State railways: Indians by percentage in each department of the Superior 157 Services, 1925 and 1934 5.2 Company-run railways: Indians by percentage in each department of the 158 Superior Services, 1925 and 1934 6.1 Organisation structure of TISCO, interwar period 172 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am most thankful to my primary and secondary supervisors, David Edgerton and Abigail Woods, for their guidance, support and patience. They have been prompt and unstinting with their feedback and advice. Through careful questioning over countless meetings and emails, they have helped me out of culs- de-sac and flights of enthusiasm alike, always steering me straight ahead. The intellectual atmosphere at CHOSTM, Imperial College and the conviviality and helpfulness of my fellow doctoral students have made my research an enjoyable experience. I would particularly like to thank Yogesh Mishra for being a sounding board, and Waqar Zaidi and Ralph Desmarais for good advice at various junctures. The research could not have been undertaken without the Hans Rausing Scholarship, while a Goodenough College Anon Bursary eased the cost of staying in London after my funding period. Several historians in India and the UK went out of their way to give advice and encouragement: I particularly wish to thank Deepak Kumar, Dhruv Raina, Pratik Chakrabarti, John Bosco Lourdusamy and Ramachandra Guha. Sabine Clarke and Sloan Mahone encouraged and supported my wish to embark on doctoral work some years ago, while Margret Frenz and Jahnavi Phalkey have taken an active interest in my work and been invaluable sources of reassurance. For guiding me through the archives and making available the materials that form the basis of this study, although not all of it has made it into the thesis, thanks are due to Antonia Moon and the staff at the Asian and African Studies Reading Room at the British Library; R.P. Narla and Deepti Sasidharan at the Tata Central Archives, Pune; Swarup Sengupta at the Tata Steel Archives, Jamshedpur; Ishwara Bhatt at BITS Pilani; R.P. Chatterjee at the Institution of Engineers (India), Kolkata; Anne Locker and others at the IET; Carol Morgan at the ICE; Adrian Clement and others at the IMechE. Several friends in Oxford and London acted as foster family to me in the UK. I must especially mention Debapratim De, who has been a great source of moral support, and the institutions of St Cross College, Oxford and Goodenough College, London, which provided a sense of community in the midst of what is essentially a solitary pursuit. Anand Bhaskaran’s friendship was invaluable during my year of writing in Chennai. Friends, family and acquaintances in various cities in India have put me up on my research visits, taken a keen interest in my work, saved books and newspaper articles for me, and participated in many long conversations. I wish especially to thank P. Balakrishna and R.V.S. Mani. Countless other people helped in many ways, though I will have to content myself with thanking them in person. But I must relax my stiff upper lip for a moment to record my gratitude to my parents and sister, to whom I owe the most. They have given me privacy and company as needed while I have been at home writing my thesis. More importantly, it is their unconditional support over many years that enabled me, in the first place, to pursue my dream of learning to be a historian. 7 CHAPTER 1 Engineers in India, 1900-47 Putting practitioners at the centre of the history of science, technology and medicine Introduction This thesis is a history of engineers working in India in the first half of the twentieth century. Situating the experience of this extremely important, yet under-studied, group of technical practitioners within the political and economic history of the country, the thesis is envisioned as a contribution to the history of science, technology and medicine (HSTM) in India. Scholarship in Indian HSTM, which has gathered momentum since the 1990s, has thus far focused mainly on the colonial era. The majority of these works deal with the long nineteenth century (extending until World War I), whereas historical studies focusing on science, technology and medicine (STM) in twentieth-century India are relatively rare.1 The temporal focus of the literature corresponds to its main thematic concerns. In studies of the long nineteenth century, the literature is primarily concerned with understanding the relationship between science and colonialism. Debates in the historiography surround the nature of science in a colony (was it ‘Western’, ‘indigenous’, or ‘colonial’?) and the manner of its growth (did science ‘diffuse’ or ‘circulate’?). Ultimately, the notions of limitation, dependence, and subordination to the imperial metropolis are dominant in these works. The literature on the twentieth century, including that dealing with the final decades of British rule, is concerned mainly with the role of science and technology in nationalist intellectuals’ discourse on the creation of an Indian ‘modernity’. The primary actors in this story are usually politicians and scientists (in their role as intellectuals)—Nehru, Gandhi, M.N. Saha, P.C. Ray, J.C. Bose—as opposed to (for instance) engineers, doctors or technicians as practitioners of STM.