The following discussion of the impact of rail travel comes from Mohandas Gandhi's Hind Swaraj, or, Indian Home Rule (1909). Written in the form of a dialogue between a newspaper editor (representing Gandhi) and a reader (representative of the Indian public at large), Hind Swaraj explored the key political and cultural questions that concerned Indian nationalists, offering a distinctive and trenchant critique of modern civilization, including industrial technologies such as railways:

READER: I shall hear you on the railways.

EDITOR: It must be manifest to you; but for the railways, the British would not have such a hold on India as they have. The railways, too, have spread the bubonic plague. Without them, masses could not move from place to place. They are the carriers of plague germs. . . . Railways have also increased the frequency of famines, because, owing to facility of...