Empire and Post-Empire Telecommunications in India: A History

ISBN-13: 9780199489480 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 216 str.

Pradip Ninan Thomas

Opis

This book, on the history of telecommunications in India is the first of its kind to intentionally link the past and present, the continuities and discontinuities between telecommunications in the era of the British Raj and telecommunications in 21st century India. Beginning with the history of the telegraph, it explores in separate chapters, the history of oceanic cables and wireless in the context of the political economy and compulsions of Empire to control globalflows of communications. Telecommunications was vital to the Imperial project and connecting their Jewel in the Crown, India, was a key priority. However inter-colonial rivalries outside and within India and contestations between private and public ownership of telecommunications made that taskdifficult. This book explores these contestations and the changing priorities related to telecommunications in the era of the British and in modern Independent India. It makes the case that history is absolutely critical to understanding the present and the imprint of the past continues to shape the Indian state's engagements with telecommunications.

This book makes a case for the fact that any history of telecommunications simply has to be about the past as much as it is about its present. Digital India may be new but it is built on previous layers of telecommunications and in this sense the past can enlighten us about both the present and futures of telecommunications in India.

Recenzje

Thomas's consistent focus on the financing and organization of materiel (the military analogy is precise) for official communications is fruitful for the comparisons he wants to make. He has also done a service by highlighting the costs paid by the Indian public as the state and entrepreneurs pursued the expansion of telecommunications to serve empire and capital.

O autorze

Pradip Ninan Thomas is at the School of Communications and Arts, University of Queensland. He has written extensively on the media in India, the political economy of communications, communications and social change and the media and religion. He was the Vice President of the International Association for Media & Communication Research (2012-2016).