Iron Serpents and Divine Chariots: Cultural Reactions to the Railway Engine in Colonial South Asia

 

Iron Serpent

Imagine a time not so long ago, when the world moved at the pace of a bullock cart or the swiftness of a horse. Now, picture the mid-19th century in our very own South Asia, and the sudden, dramatic arrival of a roaring, fire-breathing iron beast – the steam railway engine. This wasn't just a new machine; it was a seismic event, transforming everything from daily life to deeply held beliefs. Today, we're going to journey back to understand how our ancestors across the subcontinent, from the vibrant streets of Bombay to the rugged mountains of Balochistan, truly encountered and reacted to this transformative and unsettling novelty.

 

The British Vision: What Was the Iron Serpent's Purpose?

What motivated the British Empire to introduce this colossal technology to South Asia, and what grand plans did they have for its impact?

The British colonial administration and missionary advocates were quite clear about their intentions: they hailed the locomotive as a "mighty engine of improvement". Their rhetoric suggested it was destined to awaken India from its "slumber," breaking "chains of superstition and prejudice". Indeed, some liberal Indian thinkers, like Debendranath Tagore, initially shared this optimism, believing steam technology would usher in social progress.

However, the rapid expansion of the railway network – from a mere 21 miles between Bombay and Thane in 1853 to over 15,842 miles by 1880 – was driven primarily by colonial priorities, not local needs. These included:

• Military Control: The railways proved crucial for military mobilisation, a fact vividly demonstrated during the 1857 Rebellion. British commanders openly boasted that trains would allow "troops to move like smoke" to any trouble spot, effectively securing the frontiers.
• Economic Extraction: They were designed to facilitate the efficient movement of raw materials, such as Punjab's wheat and cotton, from inland production areas to ports for export.
• Administrative Control and the powerful projection of imperial might and "progress".
• Missionary Objectives: Missionary journals celebrated how railways shrunk distances to villages and shrines, making missionary work and education more accessible. Some even viewed the locomotive as a "perpetual sermon," a living demonstration of God's power through human ingenuity.

By 1860, India already had approximately 1,350 km of track, surging to over 7,000 km by 1870, with key lines pushing into Punjab and Sindh. The Karachi-Kotri line was operational by 1861, and the Lahore-Multan section opened the same year. For the British, this engine was the undeniable vanguard of their transformative, and often coercive, colonial project.

A Collision of Worlds: How Did Locals React to the Unfamiliar Monster?

When this "iron horse" first thundered into their lives, how did ordinary people across South Asia, particularly in our own regions of Sindh and Punjab, make sense of this bewildering, smoke-spewing novelty?

The grand colonial narrative of "progress" stood in stark contrast to the perceptions of many locals. Ordinary Indians often did not see the railway as a "wonderful invention or great convenience". Instead, their first encounters with the iron engine elicited a profound range of cultural responses, from awe to terror, each deeply laden with meaning. For many, the thundering engine and billowing smoke seemed supernatural.

• The "Great Rakasha": In many villages, it was even called the "Great Rakasha" or Rākās – a term for a demon or ghost. This folk label immediately signalled widespread anxiety. Observers reported that crowds would pause, cross themselves, or perform rituals as trains passed. Accounts describe locals applying sindoor (vermilion tilak) and flowers to the locomotive’s smokestack as if it were a deity. One newspaper noted admiringly how "The natives salaamed the omnipotence of the steam engine as it passed". For some Hindus, the train's noise and smoke evoked images of fire-gods or divine chariots. This "salaam" often reflected a spontaneous expression of awe, akin to revering a thunderstorm.

• "Shaitan" on the Indus: The Scinde (Sindh) Railway, opened in May 1861 between Karachi and Kotri, offers a vivid case study. The chief engineer, J.W. Brunton, recalled that before 1860, "the natives of Scinde had never seen a locomotive engine". Unable to understand its hidden power, they feared them, "supposing they moved by some diabolical agency, they called them Shaitan" (Satan or demon). When the first trial engine emerged from Karachi, entire crowds of Sindhis ran away or fell on their knees, believing the metal monster was possessed. This "horror reaction" among Sindhi Muslims and Hindus reflected a common worldview in rural Sindh, where machines and unnatural phenomena were often interpreted as witchcraft or djinn. Brunton even had to drive very slowly to avoid accidents due to the intense fear. For the Sindhi peasantry, the locomotive was truly a "manifest spirit". Although some Sindhi elites eventually welcomed the economic gains, the early motif of trains as demonic haunted Sindhi collective memory for generations.

• "Devil's Horse" in Punjab: In the Punjab, where railways arrived in the early 1860s, Punjabis experienced similar disorientation. One Sikh farmer felt "cursed" when the engine spat fire onto his fields. Punjabi villagers called the locomotive "Deo Suwal" ("God’s whip") due to its thunderous impact. A Christian missionary noted, "The natives universally called it the 'Shaytan-ka-ghora' (Devil's horse). They said it was fed on fire and water, like the demons in their tales". Particularly in rural Punjab, some perceived it as a malevolent female spirit, its piercing whistle likened to a witch's wail, its fiery breath fitting folkloric depictions of demonic entities.

These early responses demonstrate that the engine was not merely observed; it was assimilated into existing local cosmologies, interpreted as an instrument of fate, a divine scourge, or a miracle vehicle, depending on one's perspective.

Beyond Supernatural Awe: Regional and Social Complexities

How did different communities and social strata across South Asia, from the pragmatic merchants of Bombay to the tribal elders of the Frontier, truly embrace, resist, or redefine the railway's meaning?

The reactions to the railway were far from uniform; they were complex, layered, and often unfolded along religious-cultural lines as much as ethnic ones.

• Bombay and Western India: Devotion and Distaste. In Bombay and neighbouring Marathi regions, initial reactions were a fascinating blend of elite spectacle and popular dismay. Thousands thronged the route of the first train in 1853. Local Hindus smeared the iron wheels with sindoor, sprinkled traditional offerings like rice and coconut, and placed garlands – giving the locomotive a place in their familiar rituals. One villager called it a "moving palace" of the gods, another saw it as a walking temple for their deity Vitthal. This "salaam" reaction was a spontaneous expression of awe at technology. However, less reverential responses also emerged. Within a few years, upper-caste Hindus and wealthy Muslims sometimes refused to travel in trains alongside lower-caste or poor passengers, as the very social mixing in compartments sparked unease. This meant trains were partly seen as instruments of social levelling, which alarmed traditional elites. In rural Konkan, locals called the locomotive's hiss "the sound of the devils’ sledge".

• Punjab and Sikhs: Economic Embrace and Martial Mythos. Despite initial disorientation and folk superstitions like the "Devil's horse", many urban Punjabis and Sikh merchants quickly grasped the train’s economic promise. Amritsar potters began sending wares by rail, and Sikh pilgrims enthusiastically took trains to distant shrines. Religiously, some Sikhs related the train’s unstoppable speed to the Khalsa’s martial mythos – "Chardi Kala" (ever-ascending spirit). A famous 1865 photograph even shows Sikh cavalry boarding an engine, indicating a certain pride in modern arms. By the late 19th century, many Punjabis, especially the emerging middle class, embraced the railway as a source of modern identity, with patriotic leaders praising it for knitting together villages into a "New Punjab". This ambivalence – initial fear followed by strategic acceptance – typified the Punjabi outlook.

• Frontier Peoples: Pashtuns and Baloch – A Foreign Imposition. In the North-West Frontier and Balochistan, railways arrived even later, and reactions were heavily coloured by politics. Built primarily for military control after the Afghan War, British records lament that local tribesmen generally shunned the trains or considered them "devilish". A Peshawar newspaper in 1882 reported Pathan horsemen firing guns into a passing engine "to scare off evil spirits". Many Pashtuns associated railways with British power and encroachment, and tribal elders sometimes forbade young men from even speaking of the train. Similarly, in Balochistan, early lines met skepticism. Baloch nomads, believing fortune spirits inhabited the mountains, viewed iron rails as blasphemous disturbances. One chieftain reportedly demanded prayers alongside the new track lest it anger the Jinn. Baloch poetry mockingly called the locomotive an "Iron Leviathan of the Sahib". Overall, the frontier response remained wary; to many Pashtuns and Balochs, the railway was not a liberating tool but a foreign imposition on their sacred geography.

Religious Divides and Social Strains: Who Rode and Why Not?

Beyond regional variations, how did the deeply embedded religious beliefs and the rigid social hierarchies of the time influence who embraced the train and who recoiled from it?

The railway inadvertently became a powerful lens through which existing social tensions and religious interpretations were amplified.

• Hindu Perspectives: While some Hindus ritually "invited" the locomotive as a new divinity, likening it to Shiva’s dreadful weapons or Parvati’s sacred bull, others harboured anxieties. Some devout Hindus worried that the engine’s constant noise and smoke offended village deities. In one Gujarati village, priests even rescheduled a temple feast because a trial run disturbed their ceremonies. Caste issues were paramount: elite Hindus in Bengal and Maharashtra refused to sit in third-class coaches beside "untouchable" castes; some high-caste widows opted to journey on foot rather than share seats.

• Muslim Responses: Muslim reactions also varied. Some rural Muslims in Uttar Pradesh considered the machine unclean and refused to travel by train until the late 19th century. A few ulama (clerics) denounced trains as haram (forbidden) because they emitted intoxicating smoke. However, others tried to reconcile the train with Islam by composing hymns likening God’s power to the piston’s might. Urban Muslim merchants in Bombay and Dhaka, in contrast, quickly adopted trains for pilgrimage (e.g., Hajj via Bombay port) or business, treating them as neutral transport. Yet, frontier Muslims still tended to suspect the rails as instruments of colonial war.

• Sikh Adaptation: While reverent of martial technology, some Sikhs questioned the train’s intrusion into their warrior heritage. Yet, many pragmatically saw it as a means to visit holy cities like Nankana Sahib or Amritsar faster.

• Indigenous Christians: Generally, indigenous Christians, influenced by their churches’ ties to Western technology, greeted railways pragmatically. Christian missions were already using trains to reach remote stations, and converts often exulted at train journeys, seeing them as evidence of God’s blessings and modern learning. Unlike animist or conservative villagers, they rarely interpreted the locomotive in supernatural terms.

Caste and Class on the Tracks: The railway also exposed and exacerbated social stratification. Elite Hindus and Muslims initially viewed railways as a lower-class mode of travel. "Untouchable" castes and the poor were often relegated to crowded third-class coaches. This led to many upper-class Indians avoiding trains for decades. However, paradoxically, railways also became sites of contestation and social reform. Reformers like Mahadev Govind Ranade encouraged Brahmin youths to break taboos by riding in second-class, and Sikh reformers insisted that all Khalsa ride together. The railway, by planting doubts in caste orthodoxy, provoked some Indians to question inherited hierarchies. Yet, for many ordinary passengers, the fear of caste mixing on a speeding train was just one more unknown element adding to their dread.

 

The Colonial Gaze: Misinterpretations and Enduring Legacies

How did the British, who presented the train as a civilising force, interpret these diverse and often ritualistic Indian reactions, and what enduring legacy did this "iron horse" leave on South Asian culture?

British officials and missionaries consistently extolled the railroad's benefits in their reports: reduced travel times, famine relief, and stimulating a pan-Indian market. They believed the train demonstrated the "power of Man's God-given mind". Yet, this colonial optimism sometimes coexisted with anxiety, as administrators worried about villagers sabotaging tracks or attacking trains.

Intriguingly, even as Britons lionised trains, they sometimes spread paternalistic folk tales to "explain" them to natives, calling them "iron horses" tamed by "Sahib genius". These narratives presumed that without British tutelage, Indians would only see railways as "demon-driven". This stereotype, as we've seen, ignored the rich diversity of Indian responses – from reverence to pragmatic acceptance to genuine fear – rooted deeply in existing cultural and religious frameworks, not merely ignorance.

Ultimately, these varied reactions reveal the deep symbolic rupture the railway represented. For isolated agrarian communities, the locomotive appeared as a self-propelling force that transcended natural law – a profound disruption of the familiar world. Those who worshipped it were not simply converted by colonial propaganda but were enacting a local ritual of power, "bowing to iron" as they might to thunder gods. Those who demonised it, calling it "Shaitan" or "Rakasha," voiced deep anxieties that their old order was under siege. In famine-stricken provinces, it was even cynically called "Tilti Caiman" (turning of coffins), as often only the wealthy could afford fares while locals starved.

The railway, in essence, became a "Rorschach test" for South Asian society. It could represent modern opportunity or foreign oppression, depending on one's perspective. Over time, however, most communities adjusted. By the early twentieth century, Indians of all backgrounds travelled by train routinely, and railway imagery was even repurposed in nationalist poetry and art. The initial religious framing of the locomotive – whether as Shaitan or as Viṣṇu’s chariot – gradually yielded to secular narratives of progress.

To cut the long story short, when the iron horse first thundered across the subcontinent, our communities met it with astonishment, dread, and wonder. Sindhis trembled and murmured "Shaitan," Punjabis reacted with awe and fear, Hindus reverently smeared it with tilak, and rural Muslims saw the engine as a portent. These reactions were both literal and symbolic, signifying a collision of worldviews. Though the railway eventually lost much of its mystique and became an everyday part of life, its early impact left deep traces in folklore and memory. While colonial officials celebrated it as civilization's gift, for many 19th-century Indians, it was an uncanny stranger, a "great demon" engine that upended familiar lifeways, marking a true cultural turning point in South Asian history.