History of Railways in Assam

History of Railways in Assam: The year 1853 holds an important place in the history of modern communication in India.  Because on April 16 that year, a 34 km railway line was laid between Bombay and Thane, a revolutionary change in India's communication system.  Exactly 28 years later i.e. in 1881, the Assam Railway and Trading Company (ARTC) first constructed a railway of 20 km from Amala Patti in Dibrugarh to Dinjam River for the tea industry.  As a result, a new horizon began in the communication system of Assam.

Later in 1884 ARTC constructed 65 km of railway to Makum coalfield.  Makum area was renamed as Magharita.  A year later in 1885, the passenger train from Dibrugarh to Sadiya was started.  Assam Bengal Railway (BR) Company was established in 1891 as a branch of ARTC.  Chittagong Port was the main hub of ABR.  ABR's meter gauge line work was roughly divided into three parts:-

(a) Chittagong to Badarpur and Silchar branch line. It was also known as the Chittagong-Cachhar line. The line was completed in 1899.

 (b) Badarpur to Lamding Pahar line. It took a total of 11 years to build this line.

 (c) Line extending from Guwahati to Far Makum via Lamding.

 ABR was fully operational in 1904. Assam Bengal Railway Volunteer Rifles was formed for the maintenance of railway freight. Later it was known as Assam Bengal Railway Battalion (ABRB).

 Assam Bengal Railway established under the initiative of ARTC was merged with Eastern Bengal Railway (EBR) in 1942 to form Bengal Assam Railway (BAR). In this way ABR eventually becomes BAR. Several other Railways operated under ARTC like Bengal-Doors Railway, Jorhat Provincial Railways, Chaparmukh - Silghat Railways, Katakhal Lalbazar Railway etc. are also merged with Bengal Assam Railway.

 In 1947, the partition of the country split the BAR into two parts. As a result, the connection between North East India and West Bengal was established through Siliguri via many circuitous routes. This connecting route is known as Siliguri Corridor or 'Chicken's Neck'. In 1950 this railway service came to be known as Assam Railway (AR) and in 1952 as North Eastern Railway. Finally in 1958 the name of this railway service was changed to North-East Frontier Railway (NFR) and its head office was Maligaon. Currently this name is common.

Objectives of Railways in Assam: The two main reasons why the British established railways in Assam were –

 (1) commercial requirements and (2) military and administrative requirements.

(1) Commercial Necessity

The question of railway construction became especially important after the establishment of tea plantations in Assam. Along with the tea industry, there was a need to connect Chittagong port with Kolkata port for easy export of Assam's cotton, jute, forest resources and other raw materials from Assam to Britain. And it was on this basis that the ARTC laid the railway from Dibrugarh to Tinsukia Margarita in 1884. Also, the tea estate owners pressed the East India Company to build a railway to make trade relations between Assam and Bengal easier and more profitable. And as a result Assam Bengal Railway Company was established in 1891. In 1928, this company traded around 18 crore rupees worth of Assam tea and jute through Chittagong port. At the same time, the tea plantation business in Assam flourished. And as a result there is a need for a lot of workers in the tea gardens. Hence the need for railways was felt to bring laborers from other parts of India easily and cheaply to Assam. Hence the need for railways in Assam arose not for the public good of Assam but for the commercial interests of British imperialism.

(2) Military and Administrative

Needs In addition to commercial interests, the policy of railway expansion in Assam gained importance during British rule due to military and administrative reasons. While discussing the military importance of Northeast India including Assam, Mackenjie commented, "As the nineteenth century progressed, the British Colonial authorities in mainland India grew extremely conscious of the strategic importance of the region" in fact the anti-British tribal population in the border region of Assam. The residence was at times a source of concern to the British authorities. So any anti-British force can be quickly suppressed by bringing the British army from Bangladesh, the need for railway construction also arises. Therefore Lord Curzon (1899-1905 AD) commented on the construction of the Badarpur-Lamding Pahar line, "A petty uprising in a quasi-Bengal village of peasants, was magnified into a menace to the empire, and the immediate construction of the Hill Sec- tion was regarded as an imperial necessity."

As a result,

the specific objectives with which the railways were laid in Assam were successful. Assam's distance from Bengal was greatly reduced by the establishment of railways. Brahmaputra valley trade links with East Bengal and Surma valleys were strengthened and land links with Chittagong and Kolkata ports were established. As a result of this, on the one hand, the inland trade prospers, on the other hand, the raw materials of Assam can be easily sent to Britain from those two ports and the industrial products made in Britain can be easily imported into the Indian market. Thus the whole of India, including Assam, became a “captive market” for British goods.

 The establishment of railways in Assam made it possible to easily suppress the subsequent anti-British uprisings in Assam. The construction of railways started the process of urbanization in areas like Dibrugarh in Assam.

 The establishment of railways brought thousands of laborers from other parts of India to Assam by rail to work in Assam's sawmills. Later on these foreign workers created various complications in Assam.