Land Acquisition for the Railways in Bengal, 1850–62

Abstract

This article on the acquisition of land for the railways in Bengal, during the most formative phase of their construction in India, rejects the dominant notion of the trouble-free transfer of land. It examines the legal and social issues involved in acquiring land for public works. Based on the analysis of cases of both the individual and the village based reactions, the article suggests that the opposition to the land acquisition drive for early railways in Bengal had been both location and class specific. The intensity of the opposition sometimes forced the government of the East India Company to change the original route map of the railways. The people, Indian and European alike, were opposed mainly to the government’s policy of undervaluation of land and the uniform rate of compensation. In the post-1857 period, the speedy extension of the railways became a priority for the new government. Nevertheless, far from hardening its stand on land acquisition, British government adopted a conciliatory and more sensitive attitude to this contentious issue. The realignment of railroad, exclusion of sacred sites, location specific valuation of land and the policy of liberal compensation, discussed in this study, are all important evidence of this flexibility.