U.K. to throw out laws relating to the establishment of railways in India.
A rich source material on the origins of Indian railways will be lost to historians for ever as the British government is set to scrap a large chunk of the colonial legislation relating to the construction and maintenance of the vast railways network across the subcontinent.
The move is part of a massive “spring cleaning” to get rid of more than 800 “obsolete” laws cluttering up the statute book. Some go back to the 14th century.
In a report, the U.K. Law Commission on Wednesday said it had identified as many as 38 Acts dating back to 1849 and 1942 and concerning the various railway companies that operated in colonial India and “in the wider East Indies”.
“The Acts span nearly a century of railway enterprise, but all are now obsolete. They centred on the individual railway companies which originated in England, and on the projects they were created to deliver within the Indian sub-continent,” it said.
Obsolete or not, they provide a rare glimpse into the origins of the Indian railway system, arguably one of the few beneficial legacies of the Raj. The first regular train service between what was then Bombay and Thane was established by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company in 1854 under an Act passed in 1849 Act. It incorporated the company and gave it power to enter into contracts with the East India Company.
This Act is now on the chopping block as is a 1942 legislation enabling liquidation of the Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway Company after its operation had been sold to the government. Other provisions proposed to be repealed include the Assam Railways and Trading Company's Act, 1897; Oude Railway Act, 1858; Scinde Railway Act, 1857; and the Great Southern of India Railway Act, 1858.
The Commission said: “Today they have no practical use.”
A bill — the Statute Law (Repeals) Bill — expected to be introduced in Parliament this summer, is the largest the Law Commissions have ever produced. Sir James Munby, chairman of the Law Commission for England and Wales, said the idea was to get rid of “statutory dead wood” and help “simplify and modernise our law, making it more intelligible”.
“We are committed to ridding the statute book of meaningless provisions from days gone by and making sure our laws are relevant to the modern world,” he said.
John Saunders, head of the Law Commission's statute law repeals team, said that while Parliament was “brilliant at making the laws, it is not quite so good at getting rid of them”.
“It's a sort of spring cleaning task we do every four years,” he said.
I for one have reason to think the railways are a beneficial legacy.
My family were part of that legacy.
You have your views and I have mine, which are, that without the railways where would India be now.
They were given a functional railway system by the British.
I have much more to say on this matter but prefer to keep my opinion to myself.
What a nonsense to say the railways is a beneficial legacy! How stupid are we to view the British so benevolently? There are several countries in the world which were not ruled by British or for that matter by any western country and still have a railway system, in some cases much better than Indian Railways. It is a pity some people still have not got over colonial mentality even after decades of independence.
I don't understand why we waited till the day it was decided to be destroyed to think about preserving it! :|
The bulk of the Constitution of India is the Government of India Act of 1935. Plus a few things like the fundamental rights from the Irish and American constitutions and some other things from here and there. There is a view that we should dump this foreign law-based Constitution and go for a fresh one based on the laws of Manu and the Varnashrama Dharma. That will make it truly indigenous.
History is too comprehensive to be left for the legislative bodies, be it India, the Undivided India or the UK for that matter. Historians have a vast task and such an invaluable document should be preserved in our national archives, so that we are able to comprehend it and take a fresh look at it. I am sure we won't have to thank the colonial administration for "Gifting" the railways to us.
I am sure India is also having hundreds of laws and practices
established by britishers but I don't see anybody attempting to change
them. We must come out of this mentality that 'everything of foreign
origin must be superior to us'.
Can someone also look into our constitution and laws which are mostly
copied from the British, highly inefficient and absolutely useless in
some cases? Its high time we change our constitution for modern times.
The British are more practical. In India too we have hundreds of Acts
made by the British, which have no relevance today.But they still
continue to be in our Statute book.
It is high time we too make a cleaning operation
Why don't take a soft copy of the documents before junking it? There are so many ocr readers that can give them a soft copy. History should be told as how the situation existed. Not as how somebody feels.
For example I keep hearing from many elders that India will not have a railway system if the British were not ruling us. The British would have built less than 10% what we currently call as Indian railways. We still don't have the pride to own our own accomplishment. Also the British built it for helping ship goods quicker to the ports so they can be taken to England. Not as a service to the People of India.
Such distorted take on history can be avoided by keeping these records for reading later. Some smart history students of the future will interpret our history more correctly that way instead of going by opinions of a few.
This is too rich a source to be lost. The Indian Government should acquire them for the archives division. Another idea is for an Indian student(s)to do a PhD.
The Hindu should be thanked for highlighting so many old events. I am struck for nostalgia. I worked at IIT Madras 1964-80 and the Hindu featured me in Our Scientists No.115 in August 1971. Not a day passes that I do not access your great paper.
you say you revise them every 4 years.. then how come the 140 year old laws are still there
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