Before the
British rule in India beginning from the late 1750s, India was not in a much
good condition due to the lack of education and knowledge. Even though we had a
prosperous and flourished economy, we didn’t know how to utilize it, this is
why we had a majorly backward society for a long time. It was after the British
rule that we understood the importance of education and started investing in
it.
So, what
exactly was India’s condition before and during the rule. How were we
underusing our opportunities?
AGRICULTURAL
SECTOR
There was a
big sluggishness in the agricultural sector during the British empire. This was
mainly because of the ‘zamindari system’. Under this system, all of the profits
earned by the farmers for selling the harvested crops in market went directly
to the zamindar of the land in the form of a ‘lagaan’. Here, the zamindars were
only concerned about their lagaan and not the condition of the farmer. So even
if he was not in a good financial position to pay the lagaan, their remaining money
were forcefully being taken away from them. These lagaan was to be given to the
colonial government by the zamindars and therefore, the government did nothing
to improve this system.
Apart from
this, the government also forced the commercialization of agriculture. This
meant that the farmers were only supposed to grow those crops which were meant
for the sale in the market and not the ones for their own consumption. For
doing this, the farmers were even being paid but it didn’t really help since
all of the crops were being taken away by the government.
Also, India
was really underdeveloped when it came to technology. Therefore, there were
hardly any irrigation facilities available or any fertilizers accessible. Due
to this, there was extremely low productivity in the country and there were
never enough crops being produced for the entire nation. Furthermore, the
colonial government did absolutely nothing to improve the conditions of this
sector, no initiatives, no investments, nothing.
INDUSTRIAL
SECTOR
The
industrial sector was quite reputed in the international market, before the
British rule, for its handicrafts. We were known for our creativity in
hand-made products. Although, during the rule, our handicraft industry declined
since British were following two-fold policy to completely collapse the Indian
market. They used to buy the raw materials from India at cheaper rates and
export them their own country. However, when the finished goods were made, they
imported back and sold to the Indians at higher prices.
As a result,
there was high level of unemployment in the nation and also the market was
rebuffing since the Indian goods could not compete with the imported
machine-made goods.
Also, there
was rarely any capital goods industry available during the rule in the country
therefore, industrialization could not be promoted further. this resulted in
the limited contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which restricted the
growth of the Indian economic. Again, the British government did not take any
initiative to improve this situation as they were more interested in the
economic growth of their home country.
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