4.9 De industrialisation
1.1 Introduction
- destruction of traditional Indian industries was earliest consequence of colonialism.
- British gradually removed all of their competitors French, Dutch which put the artisans in a bad bargaining position with only one entity to sell to.
- Monopoly in the market, exploited the artisans to sell at a lower price so that their profit margins would be high
- This left them with little money to invest in newer technology
1.2 Effects of British Industrialisation on Indian Industry [^1]
- Industrial revolution in Europe wiped out the market for Indian artisans due to mass production of goods.
- also led the home market be invaded by cheap mass produced goods.
- In Gangetic Bihar ratio of industrial population to total pop dec from 18.6 in 1809 to 8.5% in 1901
- Industrial pop dec from 62.3% to 15.1 %
- Real income per worker in industry inc b/w 1900 - 1947
Views
Tirthankar Roy on real income increase
- achieved due to tech specialisation and industrial reorganisation like substitution of family labour w/ wage labour,
- inc commercialisation and inc labour productivity in small scale industry that catered to non local markets
- Agri 80%, Mfd 10% and services 10-15%
- Discriminatory intervention
- IN money market was dominated by EU banking house
- Investment only in railway, jute, tea plantation and mining
- Chamber of commerce, Managing agency houses influenced gov policy - control 75% industrial capital
Views
- RC Dutt and MM Malviya showed that there was a significant increase in the value of Manchester cloth from 1860-1900.
- Recent economic historians like Sarda Raju for Madras, NK Sinha for Bengal, Bagchi for Bihar have given considerable evidence of de-industrialisation
- Deniel Thorner has tried to show that there was no de-industrialisation from 1881-1931. A/C to him male work force increased and different industries should be lumped together so that now the decline does not look very high.
1.2.1 Criticism of No Deindustrialisation Theory
damage had already been done before the census completely dismissed the workforce of women as being erroneous which is not true as women are significant contributors to Indian agriculture Certain imperialist openly admitted the need and desire for de-industrialisation of India viz John Maynard Keynes who wanted India to become prosperous by supplying agricultural good to the industrialised west
- From Sekhar Bandyopadhyay↩︎