History & Civics
Answer
The British conquest has a ruinous impact on Indian economy.
- The Peasant's Suffering — The Indian peasants had to sell their produce at cheap prices in order to satisfy the greed of the moneylenders, the Zamindars and the government officials.
- Destruction of Handicrafts — Heavy duties were imposed on goods exported into England from India. Further, British goods were forced upon India, since we were at the mercy of our foreign masters. The policy of Free Trade was responsible for the destruction of our crafts and trades.
- Dissatisfied Educated Indians — The educated young men in India were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the government because the better paid jobs were kept out of their reach. Surendranath Bannerjea, an ICS official, was dismissed from the service on superficial grounds.
- Poverty, unemployment and workers exploitation — The progress of industries in India was very slow. But in 1880, there were nearly 60 mills or factories in India. With the evolution of the new pattern of economy, poverty and unemployment also increased. The workers, as usual, were exploited by the mill owners, mostly Englishmen.
- Government ignored people's welfare — Burden of taxes was constantly on the increase, but the government did very little to promote the welfare of the people. Huge expenditure was incurred on army and the police force to sustain Britain's imperial interests. Insufficient attention was being paid to raising the living standards of the people.
Related Questions
To benefit British industry, British rule pursued a policy of free trade in India. The nationalists were generally concerned about the lack of public investment in agriculture and argued that the British were trying to turn India into a valuable source of raw materials and a consumer of British-manufactured goods to make India an extension of the British economy.
(Source: History of Modern India by Bipin Chandra.)
Discuss how the British empire deindustrialised India.
How did the introduction of English as the medium of instruction help the Indians?
It was because of the efforts made by Raja Rammohan Roy that …………… , the Governor-General of India, passed a law in 1829 making the practice of sati illegal and punishable by law.
- Lord Dalhousie
- Lord Wellesley
- Lord William Bentinck
- Lord Canning
Read the excerpt given below and answer the question that follows:
"From the mid-18th century, it was a European corporation, the East India Company - run from the City of London by merchants and accountants, with their ledgers and careful accounting - that ran amok and seized and subjugated a fragmented and divided India in what was probably the supreme act of corporate violence in history."
—William Dalrymple(a) What term is used to describe the East India Company's act of running India's trade and finance from the city of London? How did it work?
(b) What was its impact on the artisans and craftsmen?
(c) The author has described the East India Company's act as 'Corporate violence'. What term was used by Dadabhai Naoroji for such an act? Describe how it worked.