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unit-5-pre-colonial-and-colonial-india

Unit-5 Pre-Colonial And Colonial India

This unit attempts to deal with the economic changes brought about by British rule.

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Write fifty words each on the following themes: Drain of wealth, De-industrialization?

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Learning Pundits Content Team

Written on Apr 15, 2019 2:44:17 PM

  1. Drain of wealth: The drain theory, as formulated by the nationalists, referred to the process by which, a significant part of India's national wealth, was being exported to England for which India got no economic returns. In other words, India was made to pay an indirect, tribute to the English nation. Needless to say, this drain of India's wealth to England, in the form of salaries to British officers posted in India, home-charges and the profits made on the British capital invested in India, benefited England and diminished the sources for investment in India. This monopoly of plunder and exploitation by the Company continued till the end of eighteenth century when England moved from mercantile capitalism to industrial revolution and the emerging industrial capitalists in Britain started demanding the end of Company rule in India.
  2. De-industrialization: Besides the external drain theory, the nationalists argued that British rule led to the de-industrialization of India. India was an exporter of cotton manufacture and this was how the Company started its trade but gradually India became an importer of cotton manufacture and thus Indian artisans, craftsmen and important trading centres collapsed and whatever manufacturing activity existed was destroyed under the impact of imports of cotton manufacture almost exclusively from Britian. Arniya Bagchi observed that: "for more than seventy-five years up to 1913, India remained the major importer of cotton goods from Britain, often taking more than forty per cent of the British exports". Thus the industrialization of &gland was accompanied by the decline and destruction of Indian cotton manufacturer. As a result, India witnessed, from the early 19th century onwards, a steady decline in population dependent on indigenous industries and a consequent over burdening of agriculture.