For almost more than a century, clocks in India have been set at a difference of almost 30 minutes compared to most countries. India, which extends over around 3 thousand kilometers in South Asia, geographically covers what, theoretically, would be two different time zones, unified into one. In other words, both extremes – from east to west – have a difference of two hours in the position of the sun, which rises almost two hours earlier in the east than in the extreme west of India. The explanation behind this phenomenon goes back to a legacy of British rule that still exists and can be seen as a symbol of the territory’s union.
Until the 19th century, there was no regularization of time, with most territories operating according to their own timetables, which could vary from city to city, village to village. The situation began to change with the development of steam transport, which began to connect different territories and bring people around the world closer together. In India, the conception of time only began to change with the arrival of the East India Company, a British commercial organization that gradually took control of the region.
In 1792, the Company began to manage one of the first observatories in Asia, called Madras, beginning the process of unifying time in the region. Currently known as Chennai, Madras was one of the first modern observatories created in Asia, founded in 1786 by William Petrie. A decade later, the astronomers responsible for the observatory declared that Madras time would become the basis for Indian time. However, the “Madras Time” was only officially established in 1905.
It took a few decades to regulate the time zone across the entire territory in a process that, despite some resistance from the population, was encouraged through the growth of the country’s railway lines that began to cross the country. “The railways had enormous power over the colonial powers. The rhythms of work are no longer linked to the boss down the street, the church bell and the other 20 people with whom you are going to work. Now it is determined by the railway that arrives once a day,” explained Geoff Gordon, an international law researcher at the University of Amsterdam, in an interview with CNN.
At the same time, the world began to debate the need to establish bases for the timetables of different countries. The development of transport and the need for better coordination of transcontinental rail travel and maritime navigation thus led to the establishment of the first international time zones. Through a conference held in Washington DC, in 1884, it was decided that the time zones would be based on the Greenwich Meridian – a line of longitude that passes through the Greenwich Observatory in London. The rest of the world thus began to be hours ahead – east – or behind – west – Greenwich Mean Time – known by the acronym GMT – with hourly differences.
In the early 20th century, several scientific associations lobbied forces in India to align India’s time with GMT. In this sense, the Royal Society, in London, proposed two time zones, both with additions of a full hour in relation to the Meridian – six hours in advance to the east and five to the west. The recommendation was rejected by the Indian colonial government, which chose to remain with a unified time in between the proposal. India is now five and a half hours ahead of GMT, known as “Indian Standard Time”, or “Madras Time”.
The nation is not, however, the only one with a peculiar time zone, forming part of a small group of territories – such as Iran, Myanmar and parts of Australia – that share this 30-minute difference.
This time difference within the territory has, however, caused some difficulties for the population of approximately 1.44 billion people who inhabit the country. India’s single time zone has been the subject of several debates over the last few decades, with movements by populations in the northeast of the country demanding a different time zone. According to experts, the variation in sunlight that exists in the territory can result in consequences for the population, especially in eastern India, where the sun rises and sets much earlier than in the west, which forces people to resort to using artificial lights earlier in the day and, therefore, greater electricity consumption.
