Question

What were the effects of Industrial Revolution of England on India?

Answer 1

1. The invention of flying shuttle by John Kay and the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright and Crompton within thirty years accelerated the process of spinning and weaving.
2. When the British established their foothold in Bengal as a territorial power, exploited Bengal and the Carnatic economically.
3. The weavers of Bengal suffered at the hands of the Company’s officials and their agents.
4. These officials and agents first insisted on payment of a transit duty for the commodities they carried from one place to another.
5. Later for cultivation of commercial crops required for British industries in England.
6. The English deliberately destroyed Indian industiy by dumping the Indian markets with their machine-made cheap cotton piece goods.
7. India lost her old industrial position and became an exporter of raw material.
8. The export of raw cotton from India had steadily dwindled owing to the competition from
   USA.
9. Weavers were thrown out of employment due to the British factory made cheap cotton fabrics in Indian markets.
10. The Collector of Madurai reported that families of about 5,000 weavers did not have the means to take more than one meal of rice a day. The Collector of Tirunelveli observed that the weaving population had outrun its means of subsistence.
11. To escape starvation deaths, peasants and artisans had to move out of the country opting to working on plantations in British Empire colonies.