Which of the following industries was most affected by the 'deindustrialisation' of India in the 19th century?
- (a)Silk manufacture
- (b)Cotton textiles
- (c)Iron and steel
- (d)Woolen manufacture
Correct — B, Cotton textiles. Cotton was the industry India dominated before the nineteenth century and the one that collapsed hardest under British machine competition. Lancashire's power-driven spinning and weaving cut the price of cloth far below what Indian hand spinners and handloom weavers could match, and a one-way tariff regime let those goods into India while Indian cloth faced heavy duties in Britain. The result was the destruction of hand spinning first and then of much of handloom weaving; the fall of the Indian cotton industry is treated as the central case of nineteenth-century deindustrialisation and as an important factor in the decline of India's share of world output under colonial rule.
- (a)Silk manufacture — Indian silk did suffer, particularly in Bengal, but it was a far smaller industry employing far fewer people, so its decline was neither the largest nor the one historians treat as defining deindustrialisation.
- (c)Iron and steel — Traditional Indian iron smelting declined too, but it was a scattered, small-scale craft rather than a mass export industry, and its collapse displaced a fraction of the workforce that cotton did.
- (d)Woolen manufacture — Woollens were a regional speciality of the Himalayan and north-western belt, never a national industry or a major export, so they cannot be the industry 'most affected'.
Deindustrialisation describes the collapse of India's traditional manufacturing during the nineteenth century and the shift of the workforce back into agriculture. The mechanism had three parts. Machine-made British yarn and cloth arrived far cheaper than handmade goods after the Industrial Revolution; the tariff structure was asymmetric, protecting British manufactures at home while opening the Indian market; and the East India Company's earlier procurement system had already squeezed weavers' earnings. Bengal, which had been the wealthiest province and the centre of the muslin trade, was hit hardest of all. Nationalist economists such as Dadabhai Naoroji and R. C. Dutt built their critique of colonial rule on precisely this record.
The elimination here is a question of scale. All four crafts named were affected to some degree, but only one of them employed millions and only one of them had been India's leading export. Before mechanisation, Indian cotton textiles clothed much of Asia and Europe, and Dhaka muslin was the most famous fine cloth in the world; that is the height from which the fall is measured. The hand-spinning trade went first, because machine yarn was the cheapest import of all, and weaving survived longer but on imported yarn and in a shrunken market. Note also that Indian mill-based cotton manufacture revived from the 1850s in Bombay and Ahmedabad — the industry that was destroyed was the handmade one, not cotton textiles as such.
- The fall of the Indian cotton industry is treated as a leading factor in the decline of Indian output under British rule.
- The decline of hand spinning is described as the most important single instance of deindustrialisation in India.
- Cheap machine-made imports plus an asymmetric tariff regime were the two drivers of the collapse.
- Bengal, then the wealthiest province and the centre of the muslin trade, was the worst affected region.
- Reading 'most affected' as 'only affected'; silk and traditional iron declined too, but on a far smaller scale.
- Confusing the destruction of handmade cotton textiles with the fate of the industry as a whole, which revived in mechanised form from the 1850s.
- Dating the collapse to the late nineteenth century; the sharpest damage came in the first half, before railways and mills.
Asked as a single-line 'which industry' item on colonial economic history — the same content UPSC frames as a statement item about the Industrial Revolution's impact.
Which of the following statements correctly explains the impact of Industrial Revolution on India during the first half of the nineteenth century?
- (a) Indian handicrafts were ruined.
- (b) Machines were introduced in the Indian textile industry in large numbers.
- (c) Railway lines were laid in many parts of the country.
- (d) Heavy duties were imposed on the imports of British manufactures.
Answer(a) Indian handicrafts were ruined — the destruction of handmade manufacture is what the Industrial Revolution meant for India in that period.
The same event, asked as a mechanism rather than as a name. Its answer is exactly what this item's answer describes, and its rejected options mark out what had not yet happened by mid-century.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The decline of which activity is described as the most important single instance of deindustrialisation in nineteenth-century India?
- (a)Hand spinning of cotton yarn
- (b)Salt manufacture
- (c)Shipbuilding
- (d)Indigo processing
Answer(a) Hand spinning of cotton yarn — cheap machine-made yarn was the first and most destructive import.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which province, then India's wealthiest and the centre of the muslin trade, suffered most from nineteenth-century deindustrialisation?
- (a)Punjab
- (b)Bengal
- (c)Gujarat
- (d)Awadh
Answer(b) Bengal — the muslin weaving centres around Dhaka were the worst hit.