Of Codes and Coda: Meaning in Telegraph Messages, circa 1850-1920

"Von Codes und Coda: Bedeutung in Telegrammen, circa 1850-1920". This paper examines the telegram and its impact upon meaning and language, including Indian nationalist strategies subverting imperial control. After 1860, the British Indian Empire emerged as a crucial strategic element in the telegraph network of the globe. It included countries outside present-day India and the larger sphere of 'informal empire.' The paper uses the terms India and the Indian Empire in this broader sense. Changes in time and shortening of distance, allowed messages to be sent and received rapidly but permitted multiple interpretations of what telegrams meant. It was a world of electronic communication where codes and ciphers and mistaken meanings were recurrent: a world of shadowy meanings. This paper analyses the technological and interpretative dimensions of this asymmetrical world of transnational electronic communication flows.