Comparing time zones around the planet is the stuff of stately hotels and buzzing newsrooms, conjuring the image of rows of authoritative clocks labelled with the names of the world’s greatest cities. But clocks labelled “Madras time” may seem strangely out of sync with the rest – five and a half hours ahead of London, or nine and a half hours ahead of New York. That unusual half-hour increment and indeed the phrase “Madras time” itself have a whole history to tell.
India is huge; the seventh largest country by area and the second most populated nation in the world. By rights, the vast South Asian territory should encompass at least two time zones. But, in the 18th century when localised time (sometimes as local as village-to-village) was first being eradicated in favour of larger zones, India became an outlier.
Centralised time was brought to India by the East India Company, a powerful British trading entity that controlled much of the so-called subcontinent. In 1792, it was also in control of the Madras (Chennai) Observatory, giving it leverage over official timekeeping. By 1802, the company’s official astronomer established Madras time as five hours 21 minutes ahead of London.
This was declared the basis of Indian Standard Time, but it wasn’t until the spread of the railways over the next century that Madras time became somewhat better accepted as standard and this did not take place easily. Cities like Mumbai and Kolkata had their own times established by the British Raj, while Madras time became known as Madras Railway Time.
Similar consolidation of time was taking place around the world and by 1884, at a Washington D.C. conference, the first international time zones were officially established, fanning out from London’s Greenwich Meridian line in hourly intervals. London’s Royal Society put forward two potential time zones for India, reflecting the country’s width: six hours ahead of London GMT in the east and five hours ahead in the west of the country.
India’s colonial government wanted to flex its muscles however and the time zones were not a popular move. Eventually in 1906, the British rulers chose one single time for the whole country that trod a middle line between the two proposed zones: five and a half hours ahead of GMT.
While debate has continued over the negative consequences (for example in terms of educational outcomes) of having a time zone that is out-of-whack with people’s daily Circadian rhythms, India’s unusual time zone looks unlikely to change any time soon. The two time zone question was raised in parliament in 2019 but failed to get any traction.
