Economic Life of India Under colonial Rule 1858-1947- the textile industry

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Economic Life of India Under colonial Rule 1858-1947- the textile industry

1.0 Introduction

The period of British colonial rule in India, also known as British Raj, started in 1858 and ended in 1947. During this period, the British government exercised direct rule and control over Indian provinces which were previously under the administration of British East India Company. This period marked the modernization of most developed nations and as well, the Indian society took substantial steps to initiate the process of modernization in their country. However, India was unable to reach economic standards of other modernizing nations such as Japan. According to Griffiths, the British government maintained set of policies in India which enabled them to increase their own revenue while rarely supporting the Indian society, economically or otherwise. During the period, numerous vital industries and service were neglected by the British colonial government while some suffered massively.

The impact of British colonial rule on the Indian textile industry was hugely devastating and harmful. Britain used various complicated methods to exploit India’s vast natural reserves such as cotton, silk and jute crops. Griffiths noted that prior to 19th century, the Indian textile industry was well developed and in fact, the Indian manufacturing industry was in a position to effectively compete with manufacturing sectors of the most industrialized nations. After control of several decades in the 19th and 20th centuries, British completely shattered the textile industry and the whole economic set up of India. In other words, the British rule led De-industrialization of the Indian textile industry, which eventually resulted into high unemployment rates, low income, poverty and hunger among the Indian population. This paper gives an overview economic life of Indian textile industry and the consequent de-industrialization of this industry during the colonial period.

Economic life and Deindustrialization of the Indian Textile Industry during Colonial Period

Deindustrialization is a theory that depicts process through which social and economic change takes place characterized by reduction or removal of industrial capacity in a nation or region, especially heavy manufacturing industry. According to Masani, the process of deindustrialization signifies the decline of an industry when it remains uncompensated by the growth of a modern industry in the same line of production. The process is well illustrated by the life of Indian textile industry during colonial period.

Textiles have long historically as important component of India’s exports. In fact, according to Restivo, archeological evidence from Mohenjo-Daro shows that dyes were used in India for at least the second millennium BC. Budhist scripts show that Indians made woolen carpets as early as 500 BC and some of the technical skills used then are still used today. Thus, India developed its textile industry at an early stage, along with its textile manufacturing technology. As noted earlier, the history of India’s prominence from textile industry largely stems from its wealth of natural resources such as cotton, silk and jute crops.

A few decades before the colonial period, India had a well developed textile industry which for many centuries had sold high-quality cotton products in the local market, and throughout, in the Middle East and in much of Africa. The country’s manually operated textile machines were among the best in the world and in fact, served as the model for the first production machines in Britain. There were large factory towns where skilled labourers could produce so cheaply that the British East India Company, which controlled trade in the region could purchase from the native industrialists, ship these products to Britain, and sell them at full 100 percent mark up over cost. Generally, prior to colonial period, the presence of these natural resources and development of manufacturing sector enabled India to enjoy huge surplus which afforded luxury and comfort to the a large proportion of the country’s population.

According to Markovits, the prosperous Indian textile industry had increased the local manufacturing sector’s capability of successfully challenging the British manufacturing sector. After British entry into India in 1858, it reacted to this potential challenge both politically and economically. First, the British textile industries started increasing investments in production equipments and increased the amount of capital utilized by each worker. They started using more mechanized forms of production in order to increase productivity.

According to Tirthankar, the British textile industries demanded and were given protection from imported Indian textiles. To protect local industries further, the British government placed a high tariff on all imported Indian textiles in Britain, thereby pricing them out of market. At the same time, Britain forced home-made textiles into the Indian market, while accepting the import of raw cotton from India to be used for British production free of any barriers. On top of this, the British government started exporting cheap textile products to India resulting in reduced market for Indian textile products in the Indian local market. By 1913, India had become the major importer of textile products from Britain, which accounted for accounted for 40 percent of British exports. In 1860s, American civil war had disturbed the supply of cotton to British textile industry, creating a cotton famine and Britain instantly reacted by grabbing cotton in India.

During the same period, new textile technology was imported in India by British traders who were involved in exportation of the textile products to Britain. According to Bipan, these new powerful groups of merchants turned mill owners and competed with handloom weavers for the common market and raw materials. These traders established of textile mills in Lancashire and later in India and deprived the Indian weaver both the market and raw materials.

According to Tirthankar, most of the scientific and technological activities sponsored by the British government in India during the colonial period were geared towards the agricultural sector and towards the engineering colleges to undertake the construction of irrigation systems. In order to secure raw materials and provide effective control, surveys were made to map the country with its natural resources. This was followed by among other operations, the establishment of network roads, railways and communication systems. In 1854 the Public Works Department was established in order to centralize the operations of these systems. According to Tirthankar the British main aim in establishing these initiatives was to make the Indian country a source of raw materials for British factories and market for their finished goods.

The impact of this development/underdevelopment was creation of two rival segments of the Indian society; one based on the traditional handcraft and handloom system and the other based on modern technology imported from Europe. Despite the clearly defined interests and motives for specific projects, there was no explicitly formulated science and technology policy during the initial phase of British colonialism. After the industrial revolution and the consequent rapid growth of science and technology in Europe, the colonial Indian state began several experiments in the application in the science and technology. Eventually, science and technology was made an integral component of state policies. Consequently, by the late 19th century, many Indians were discouraged by the heavy emphasis on applied technical education and visible neglect of the theoretical scientific research and teaching.

With the increased lack of control on market and resources, the Indian major textile industries and traditional handloom weavers were displaced and there an exodus out of the weaving trade. A big percentage of Indian textile labourers (weavers and spinners) lost their jobs. In fact according to Mukherjee, the number of textile workers in India fell from 6.3 million in 1800 to 2.4 million in 1913. Available statistics estimated that the idle handloom weavers were approximately 13% of the total Indian population by 1940. Though some Indian handloom weavers sought to remain competitive, their wages dropped significantly. This resulted into acute poverty, dispossession and destruction of livelihoods of many Indians

According to Tirthankar Roy (18), British anti-industrialization policies in India changed after 1931 in response to rising nationalist opposition to colonial domination in the nation. During the protests, the new assertiveness of Indian business was expressed politically in open support of the Gandhi’s swadeshi (which means ‘from your own country) with its semi-religious boycott of foreign goods. Further, the global depression during early 1930s, led to a decline in the value of Indian exports, collapsing India’s export surplus with the rest of the world, leading British monopoly to the end. This took place concurrently with the growth many India industries. On the initiative of Tatas, three power stations were constructed in 1938 in the region of Ghats, near Bombay, which enabled the textile industry to break free from its dependence on coal from North West. This Overall, the production of Indian manufacturing industry doubled during 1930s.

According to Kumar, the first and the second world wars also provided chance for the Indian textile industry to resurface, along with other industries such as the sugar and the steel industries. Import tariff increased in India between 1900 and 1947 from 5 percent to 25 percent which helped to keep Germen and Japanese importers out of India. This helped to increase revenues for this state. According to Kumar, though this helped to create a new stratum for India, its economy continued to languish and per capita income continued to fall from 1900 to 1947. By the time of independence in 1947, manufacturing in India accounted for only 7 percent of national product and only about 2 percent of the country’s labour force was employed in textile factories. Therefore, the British colonial rule led to complete de-industrialization of the Indian textile industry.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the British colonial rule in India brought down the Indian manufacturing industry which had been the source of Indian vibrant economy for a long time. If gauged using modern parameters, India was not an industrial nation. But by the standards of 18th and early 19th centuries, India was the ‘industrial Worksop of the world. The textile industry in particular provided day-to-day requirements for the Indian population and the Indian textiles enjoyed worldwide reputation. The British government’s initiatives in Indian during the colonial period resulted into destruction of Indian textile industry, characterized by catastrophic disappearance of Indian cotton manufacturers from list of exports from India. Eventually, India was reduced to supplier of raw materials and raw agricultural products to industrialized nations, particularly Britain. This resulted into loss of jobs, reduced income and pauperization of Indian weavers. Generally, these events marked the process of de-industrialization of the Indian Textile industry.

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