India British astronomer Henry Park Hollis disliked India Standard Time's offset: "A new time system has been proposed for India, Further India, and Burmah. The scheme suggested is that the times of the meridians 5½ and 6½ hours east of Greenwich should be adopted in these territories. No reason is given why hourly meridians five hours and six hours east should not be chosen; a plan which would bring the time of India into harmony with that of almost the whole of the civilised world." Hollis HP. Universal Time, Longitudes, and Geodesy. Mon Not R Astron Soc. 1905-02-10;65(4):405-6. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/65.4.382 From Ian P. Beacock, in "A brief history of (modern) time", The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/the-creation-of-modern-time/421419/ (2015-12-22): In January 1906, several thousand cotton-mill workers rioted on the outskirts of Bombay.... They were protesting the proposed abolition of local time in favor of Indian Standard Time.... Journalists called this dispute the "Battle of the Clocks." It lasted nearly half a century. From Paul Eggert (2017-04-20): Good luck trying to nail down old timekeeping records in India. "... in the nineteenth century ... Madras Observatory took its magnetic measurements on Göttingen time, its meteorological measurements on Madras (local) time, dropped its time ball on Greenwich (ocean navigator's) time, and distributed civil (local time)." -- Bartky IR. Selling the true time: 19th-century timekeeping in america. Stanford U Press (2000), 247 note 19. "A more potent cause of resistance to the general adoption of the present standard time lies in the fact that it is Madras time. The citizen of Bombay, proud of being 'primus in Indis' and of Calcutta, equally proud of his city being the Capital of India, and - for a part of the year - the Seat of the Supreme Government, alike look down on Madras, and refuse to change the time they are using, for that of what they regard as a benighted Presidency; while Madras, having for long given the standard time to the rest of India, would resist the adoption of any other Indian standard in its place." -- Oldham RD. On Time in India: a suggestion for its improvement. Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (April 1899), 49-55. "In 1870 ... Madras time - 'now used by the telegraph and regulated from the only government observatory' - was suggested as a standard railway time, first to be adopted on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR).... Calcutta, Bombay, and Karachi, were to be allowed to continue with their local time for civil purposes." - Prasad R. Tracks of Change: Railways and Everyday Life in Colonial India. Cambridge University Press (2016), 145. Reed S, Low F. The Indian Year Book 1936-37. Bennett, Coleman, pp 27-8. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282212 This lists +052110 as Madras local time used in railways, and says that on 1906-01-01 railways and telegraphs in India switched to +0530. Some municipalities retained their former time, and the time in Calcutta continued to depend on whether you were at the railway station or at government offices. Government time was at +055320 (according to Shanks) or at +0554 (according to the Indian Year Book). Railway time is more appropriate for our purposes, as it was better documented, it is what we do elsewhere (e.g., Europe/London before 1880), and after 1906 it was consistent in the region now identified by Asia/Kolkata. So, use railway time for 1870-1941. Shanks is our only (and dubious) source for the 1941-1945 data. Zone NAME STDOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL]
Attributed Statements:
Paul Eggert (2017-04-20):
Good luck trying to nail down old timekeeping records in India. "... in the nineteenth century ... Madras Observatory took its magnetic measurements on Göttingen time, its meteorological measurements on Madras (local) time, dropped its time ball on Greenwich (ocean navigator's) time, and distributed civil (local time)." -- Bartky IR. Selling the true time: 19th-century timekeeping in america. Stanford U Press (2000), 247 note 19. "A more potent cause of resistance to the general adoption of the present standard time lies in the fact that it is Madras time. The citizen of Bombay, proud of being 'primus in Indis' and of Calcutta, equally proud of his city being the Capital of India, and - for a part of the year - the Seat of the Supreme Government, alike look down on Madras, and refuse to change the time they are using, for that of what they regard as a benighted Presidency; while Madras, having for long given the standard time to the rest of India, would resist the adoption of any other Indian standard in its place." -- Oldham RD. On Time in India: a suggestion for its improvement. Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (April 1899), 49-55. "In 1870 ... Madras time - 'now used by the telegraph and regulated from the only government observatory' - was suggested as a standard railway time, first to be adopted on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR).... Calcutta, Bombay, and Karachi, were to be allowed to continue with their local time for civil purposes." - Prasad R. Tracks of Change: Railways and Everyday Life in Colonial India. Cambridge University Press (2016), 145. Reed S, Low F. The Indian Year Book 1936-37. Bennett, Coleman, pp 27-8. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282212 This lists +052110 as Madras local time used in railways, and says that on 1906-01-01 railways and telegraphs in India switched to +0530. Some municipalities retained their former time, and the time in Calcutta continued to depend on whether you were at the railway station or at government offices. Government time was at +055320 (according to Shanks) or at +0554 (according to the Indian Year Book). Railway time is more appropriate for our purposes, as it was better documented, it is what we do elsewhere (e.g., Europe/London before 1880), and after 1906 it was consistent in the region now identified by Asia/Kolkata. So, use railway time for 1870-1941. Shanks is our only (and dubious) source for the 1941-1945 data. Zone NAME STDOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL]
asia(Lines 1248 to 1308)