disappeared. The question that is at the forefront here is to find out whether it
is possible to reconnect these current static fragments, these raw materials, to
the former whole. The main characteristic of this former whole was the fluidity
of the fragments, the constant move of the information along the routes of
exchange.
Communication, technology and globalisation
At a cursory reading it seems most likely to make a connection between
globalisation and the transfer of information after the technological inventions
of the 19th century created the conditions to accelerate information exchange.
In the debate about globalisation, the aspect of communication is usually linked
to technical developments and the speed at which goods, people and ideas were
transported. In this respect the introduction of the telegraph is often regarded as
a decisive milestone in making the world smaller. Rudyard Kipling's poem Deep
Sea Cables is illustrative for this notion: 'Here in the womb of the world - here on
the tie-ribs of the earth Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and
beat They have killed their father Time'.11
Indeed, the invention of the telegraph in a certain sense did kill time. Exchanging
messages no longer depended on the speed at which a document could be
physically transported. It was invisible signals rather, which sent information
over long distances along a cable.12 The distance between Europe and its colonies
decreased substantially after the telegraph came in use. The Indo-European
Telegraph linked India, via Russia overland to Britain in 1865, but it still took
until 1870 before a direct, high-quality submarine telegraph connection was
established between London and Bombay. These new technological connections
gave birth to infinite imaginative possibilities. In reality, the new line between
Europe and India faced many difficulties in the first years. Although much faster
than a ship, it still took an average of five to six days to get a message of only 20
words from London to India.13 Notwithstanding the difficulties of establishing
a reliable connection between London and India, the telegraph had already
developed into a powerful 'instrument of empire', due to the efforts of governor-
general Dalhousie who called the establishment of the telegraph in India a
'national experiment'.14The first proposals to build a telegraph system in India
were developed in 183815 and the first connections were created even before the
railway lines were laid.16 When Dalhousie left India in 1856 a 4,000 mile network
of telegraph lines connected Peshawar, Agra, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta
to the important European (military) settlements in the inland country.17
According to Choudhury, the telegraph network in India was a 'linear, rational
and mathematical network that linked the commercial and military nodes of the
colonial state'.18The lines of communication did not follow the human housing
pattern anymore but took the shortest way to connect the existing nodes.
CHARLES JEURGENS INFORMATION ON THE MOVE. COLONIAL ARCHIVES: PILLARS OF PAST
GLOBAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE
13 Hugill, Global communications, 39; for the history of telegraphic communication see Ahvenainen,
The Far Eastern Telegraphs.
14 Choudhury, 'Beyond the Reach', 350.
15 Choudhury, 'Beyond the Reach'.
16 Misa, Leonardo to the Internet, 105-106.
17 Choudhury, 'Beyond the Reach', 338.
18 Choudhury, 'Beyond the Reach', 351.
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