Critically examine the causes responsible for the phenomenon called de-industrialisation in India during the nineteenth century.

Answer:

Deindustrialisation refers to the decline of India's traditional handicrafts and the shift of population back onto agriculture during the nineteenth century. Colonial trade policy, technological competition and the collapse of indigenous demand were its principal causes, though the extent of the process remains debated.

Trade and tariff policy

• One-way free trade admitted British manufactures to India at nominal duty.
• Indian textiles entering Britain had earlier faced prohibitive tariffs.
• Indian import duties were reduced under pressure from Lancashire.
• India was converted into a supplier of raw materials and a market for finished goods.

Technological and competitive causes

• Machine-made British cotton goods were far cheaper than hand-woven cloth.
• The Industrial Revolution gave Britain an overwhelming cost advantage.
• Railways carried cheap imports into the interior, destroying local markets.
• The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 reduced freight costs further.

Collapse of indigenous demand

• The extinction of Indian courts removed the chief patrons of luxury crafts.
• The decline of the nobility ended demand for fine muslin, brocade and metalwork.
• The Company's monopoly and the dadni system had already depressed weavers' earnings.
• Artisans were sometimes compelled to sell below cost to Company agents.

Consequences

• Weavers and spinners were thrown back on agriculture, increasing pressure on land.
• The proportion of the population dependent on agriculture rose through the century.
• Old manufacturing towns such as Dacca and Murshidabad declined sharply.
• Bishop Heber and others recorded the desolation of former weaving centres.

The historiographical debate

• R.C. Dutt and Naoroji made deindustrialisation central to the nationalist critique.
• Morris D. Morris questioned the statistical basis of the claim.
• Amiya Bagchi's study of Bihar found a clear fall in industrial employment.
• Most historians accept the process while debating its magnitude and timing.

The wider significance

• It became the central charge in the nationalist economic indictment of colonialism.
• It explains the swadeshi emphasis on reviving indigenous industry.
• Modern industry, when it came, was largely Indian-owned, as with the Tatas.
• The pressure of population on land remained a lasting structural legacy.

Deindustrialisation was therefore the product of an asymmetrical trade regime, machine competition and the disappearance of indigenous patronage. As Bagchi's evidence and the nationalist economists both indicate, whatever the precise magnitude, the nineteenth century saw India's craft economy contract and its population pressed back upon the land.