Review Of ‘Clock Towers of India: Sentinels of Time’

Clock towers in India are affectionately known as ghanta ghars and many of them were built during the British Raj and showcase stunning Indo-Saracenic or Gothic architecture. Clock Towers of India: Sentinels of Time (Niyogi Books), a coffee-table book by Debasish Das, documents more than 150 such landmarks across the country providing a handy and interesting frame of reference for scholars and general readers alike. Beyond standalone ghanta ghars, it chronologically documents clocks embedded in municipal town halls, railway stations, post offices, universities, synagogues, temples and churches (such as Christ Church in Shimla and the Methan Mani Tower in Thiruvananthapuram). Taken together, they span over three centuries.                

Das’s interest in clock towers grew into a five-year research project that began around 2020. A technology professional based in Gurugram, he describes himself as an “avowed horologist” and clock-tower admirer. His original assumption was that public clocks arrived with the British Raj and were limited to a few well-known monuments. However, his research brought out a much wider story involving churches, synagogues, temples, markets, railway stations, universities, princely states and even maritime structures.

Each tower, he found, could open the door to another piece of history. Researching one might lead to the origins of a town’s name, the story of an institution founded for the sons of Indian princes or an episode preserved only in local memories and old newspapers. Das says he repeatedly found himself checking dates, consulting archives and cross-checking facts.

The book ranges from early colonial structures like the clock tower at the Basilica of Holy Rosary in Bandel, West Bengal (1660) which was built by the Portuguese to post-Independence landmarks like the Mahatma Phule Mandai clock in Pune (1993). For each entry, Das provides the construction history, architectural style, specifics of the clockwork, dials and clockmakers and current maintenance status, apart from interesting anecdotes where he can find them.

Das goes beyond architecture to explore the clocks themselves, including their mechanisms, makers, repairs and present condition. The David Sassoon Clock Tower, for instance, is described as a 75-foot structure in Italian style, with its characteristic round arches. Its clock was designed to chime the Cambridge Quarters, also known as the Westminster Quarters, the familiar sequence associated with Big Ben which became the standard for major clock towers across India.

His membership of the London-based Antiquarian Horological Society provided him with an important resource. The book includes a list of British clockmakers who supplied clocks to India and enriches the historical details.

One of the more interesting sections deals with electric clocks and the old master-and-slave system. A central “master” clock could send electrical impulses to numerous secondary dials installed elsewhere, allowing all of them to show exactly the same time.

Das reproduces a 1951 note from the Horological Journal titled “Delhi’s 900 ‘Slaves’”, describing the system by which 900 clocks across the capital were controlled electrically from a five-foot-high master clock in the Central Secretariat. More than 100 clocks were installed in Parliament, another 100 in All India Radio offices, 45 in Government House and 400 in the North and South Blocks of the Secretariat. Das suggests that much of this installation was carried out by Gent & Co. of Leicester, England.

Rather than just timekeepers, Das treats many of the clock towers as witnesses to changing times and cities. Their histories connect technology with architecture, colonial trade with local craftsmanship and public life with the simple human need to know what time it is.

The book contains fascinating material about clock mechanisms and public clocks, but there is a much larger story here:  public clocks were not merely architectural ornaments or technological curiosities; they changed how cities experienced time, influencing railway travel, working hours, markets and the rhythms of urban life.

Das acknowledges that the 150 towers in the book represent only part of India’s clock tower heritage. In some cases, he knew of a tower but could not find enough reliable information or photographs to document it properly. That admission also points to the larger value of the project. Many of these structures continue to stand in public view, yet their stories are gradually vanishing. Clock Towers of India: Sentinels of Time rescues some of those stories from disappearing into oblivion, showing how something as ordinary as a public clock can become a record of a city’s past.

One wishes the book went beyond the towers themselves though. The fascinating details about mechanisms, makers and repairs could have been accompanied by more of this larger social history. The strongest entries are those where the clock opens a door into the life of a city.

(Anjana Basu is a writer and an advertising consultant based in Kolkata. Her recent works include The House the Press Built and Translating for Rituparno)