A class is discussing how railways were laid across India under British rule

Why

Ritu is working from a true fact — the railways were built, they were a huge undertaking, and Indians did travel on them and still do. Her step from fact to motive is where the trouble lies, because a thing's EFFECT and the REASON it was done are two separate questions. To find a purpose you look at the choices made in the doing: the lines ran from cotton and coal districts to the ports, not between the towns Indians most needed to link; fares and classes were arranged to suit the rulers; and the profits were guaranteed to British investors. Those choices tell you what the network was for. Test: ask what a railway built mainly for Indians would have looked like, and see whether the map matches. Zaid is right: real benefits can flow from a decision taken for entirely other reasons, so a benefit is never by itself proof of a good intention.