10.5 Hours?

One of the most frequently asked questions I get while in India is, "What time is it over there right now?". Whenever I respond that Indian Standard Time (IST) is 10.5 hours ahead of CST (during Daylight Savings Time (DST) as the country does not observe DST), it is somewhat confusing. Why the half-hour, you ask? I ordinarily repond jokingly that the country just wanted to be ahead of Pakistan. But, in fact, it's actually quite an interesting history.

For most of India's history, the ruling kingdoms kept their own local time, typically using the Hindu calendar. One example of this is at the palace in Jaipur that Brent and I visited last year. Outside of the palace is the Jantar Mantar observatory which contains large sundials up to 90 ft. high that were used to determine the local time. These were built during Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh's rule in 1733, and there are four other astronomical observatories throughout the country outside of Jaipur. Jai Singh's greatest achievement was actually construction of Jaipur City (which is better know as the "Pink City"), not the revolutionary developments in astronomy through these observatories.

Due to the country's east-west distance of approximately 1,200 miles, at one time the country had multiple time zones as would be expected. However, when India gained independence from the British in 1947, the Indian government established IST as the official time for the entire country. To put that in perspective and for all you trivia buffs out there, the shortest distance from the east to west coast in the U.S (as the crow flies) would be approximately 2,000 miles from San Diego, CA to Jacksonville, FL. So wouldn't you think that those that live on the far east side of the country constantly struggle with a really early sunrise? That is indeed true and they have to advance their clocks and avoid the extra consumption of energy (i.e. $$$) after daylight hours.

Although the Indian government consistently refuses to split the country into multiple time zones similar to those under British rule before independence, there are provisions that exist in certain laws that allow State governments to define and set the local time for a particular industrial area.

Confusing, or not surpising at all for a bazaar country like India?