CDS (I) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 51 of 120

Correct — C, 1865. Telegraphic contact between Europe and India was achieved through the Persian Gulf route. The submarine cable was laid in 1864 — the Musandam to Bushire section was completed on 25 March that year and the stretch from Karachi to Fao at the head of the Gulf on 5 April — and the through connection to London, across Turkey and Persia and then down the Gulf, was achieved in 1865. Even then a message took a minimum of about five days to travel from Karachi to London, since it was relayed by hand at many stations. An earlier attempt through the Red Sea in 1859 had failed outright; no messages were ever passed between London and Bombay over it.

• (a)1851 — 1851 is the domestic milestone, not the international one. That is the date usually given for the first experimental electric telegraph line in India, laid by W.B. O'Shaughnessy between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour, though some accounts date the first working line to 1850. Either way it connected two points inside Bengal.
• (b)1854 — 1854 is the year a separate Telegraph Department was opened and the telegraph was thrown open to the public in India. Again an internal development — a service for Indian users, not a link to Europe.
• (d)1871 — Too late. By 1871 the link had been running for six years, and by then the alternative all-sea route from Britain to Bombay had also been completed, giving a faster and more reliable second channel.

The telegraph reached India in stages. An experimental line ran between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour around 1850 to 1851 under W.B. O'Shaughnessy, a separate department opened the service to the public in 1854, and the network then spread rapidly along the main trunk routes. The overland-and-Gulf link to Europe, built by what became the Indo-European Government Telegraph Department, was completed in 1865 and put London within days rather than weeks of Calcutta. A submarine route from Britain to Bombay followed shortly afterwards, and repeater stations such as the one on Telegraph Island in the Strait of Hormuz kept the Gulf section working.

The set of options is a chronology of Indian telegraph history with only one entry that faces outward, so the way in is to sort the years by what happened in each. 1851 and 1854 are internal: an experimental line and then a public service. 1865 is the year the internal network was joined to the European one. The strategic driver behind the whole project is worth carrying: the absence of a telegraph to Britain had been felt acutely during the revolt of 1857, when news and instructions took weeks by ship, and the Gulf line was pushed through in the years immediately afterwards. It also changed how the colonial economy worked — prices for Indian cotton and jute could now be quoted against London on the same day rather than the same season.

• The Persian Gulf cable sections were completed in 1864: Musandam to Bushire on 25 March and Karachi to Fao on 5 April.
• The through connection between London and Karachi was achieved in 1865.
• A message still took a minimum of about five days between Karachi and London on the new line.
• The first experimental telegraph line in India ran between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour, dated 1850 or 1851 depending on the account.
• A separate telegraph department was opened in 1854, when the service was made available to the public.

• Reading a domestic milestone as an international one — 1851 and 1854 are both about India's internal network.
• Assuming the first cable laid was the first cable that worked; the 1859 Red Sea attempt carried no traffic.
• Imagining the 1865 link was instantaneous — messages were relayed by hand and took days.

As a date question on the Europe-India link, or as a statements item on the first telegraph line in India and its route.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The first experimental electric telegraph line in India connected Calcutta with

  • (a)Agra
  • (b)Diamond Harbour
  • (c)Madras
  • (d)Bombay

  Answer(b) Diamond Harbour — the line built under W.B. O'Shaughnessy, usually dated to 1851.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The through telegraphic link between London and India completed in 1865 ran mainly along which route?

  • (a)Across the Persian Gulf
  • (b)Around the Cape of Good Hope
  • (c)Across the Pacific
  • (d)Through Central Asia and Tibet

  Answer(a) Across the Persian Gulf — overland through Turkey and Persia and then by submarine cable down the Gulf to Karachi.