India Showing Railways Open and Under Construction March 31 1944

Detailed overview of the railway system in India during WWII.

The densely informative legend and tangled web of route lines visible on this map gives the audience a faint impression at the vast complicated railway system in India. The subcontinent has dense rainforests, arid deserts, snowy mountains and huge urban centers, making transportation systems especially difficult to manage.

However, prior to the implementation of the railroad, these disparate environments had little interaction with one another, making universal independence movements from British authority especially difficult. With the availability of easier transportation came the greater transfer of ideas about Indian identity and freedom. India committed heavily to the industrial, financial and manpower (over 2.5 million soldiers) resources of the Allies during WWII, and emerged as a significant economic power at war’s end. This new leverage breathed new life into existing independence movements; and, in a world dominated by the anti-colonial powers of the U.S. and U.S.S.R., Great Britain finally granted full independence in 1847.