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The longest telegraph lines, 900 mile long, is laid between Agra and Calcutta, today in 1854. This would become crucial during the Mutiny in 1857 for quick British message coordination.
Happened on 24th March 1854
India had been a vast country - for more reasons than one, but one due to its sheer size. Communicating across the land was difficult, and news could take weeks, if not months, if carried by a human runner who had to stop over long distances. This needed fixing, and the solution would come in the mid-19th century with the laying down of telegraph cables in India.
The British were obviously interested in it for more nefarious reasons than quick and easy communication for business and commerce uses. They saw the value of quick communication in governing a country led by a few Britishers, some more Indian civil servants, and a lot more natives - thus quick communication could be a crucial difference to crush any uprisings - as they did in 1857.
The Telegraph Department was set up in 1850, and cables started being laid. Calcutta and its harbours down the Hooghly were connected in 1851. But the largest line to be laid down at once came in March 1854, which was completed on the 24th of that month, where 800 miles of telegraph was laid between Calcutta and Agra.
This route would be of utmost importance to the military and commercial organs - most of North India’s population, older imperial centres, and the Gangetic Plains’ resources lay along this route, and fast communication was vital just in case British deals were not being honoured.
This would pay itself off most handsomely in the 1857 uprisings, which happened mostly along the Northern Indian plains as well. The British could use the telegraph to send messages of where their rule was intact and where it had been taken over, to coordinate their meetings and assaults. At the same time, the telegraph remained a force of its own in India, till the 2000s SMS service came in.
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