Just before freedom, the Indian economy was in exceptionally terrible shape because of British pioneer rule. The sole motivation behind the British provincial guideline in India was to diminish the nation to be a natural substance provider for Great Britain’s own quickly growing modern base.
Economic Development Under the British Rule:
- India had a free economy before the approach of the British principle
- Notwithstanding agribusiness being the principal wellspring of jobs, the country’s economy was described by different sorts of assembling exercises like handiworks ventures, metal, stone works, and so on
- The Indian manufactured products enjoyed a worldwide market based on the reputation of the fine quality of material used and the high standards of craftsmanship seen in all imports from India
- However, later the colonial economic policy was more concerned with Britain’s domestic interests than India’s development
- Such a strategy achieved a significant change in the construction of the Indian economy, i.e. changing the country into a provider of unrefined substances and shopper of completed everyday items from Britain
- Moreover, the government made no sincere attempt to estimate India’s national and per capita income
- Made some singular endeavours to gauge such livelihoods by Dadabhai Naoroji, R.C. Desai, William Digby, Findlay Shirras, V.K.R.V. Rao and William Digby, Findlay Shirras
Sectoral Scenario During Colonial Times
Agricultural Sector:
- India was an agrarian economy
- Around 85% of the country’s general population generally is not clearly or indirectly set in stone from cultivation
- The agricultural sector productivity was low due to low levels of technology, lack of irrigation facilities, and negligible use of fertilizers
- But the agrarian economy also experienced some growth due to the expansion of the aggregate area under cultivation
- Various systems of the land settlement were introduced by the colonial government, which resulted in the stagnation of the sector
- Mainly the zamindari system was carried out in the then Bengal Presidency
- The benefit gathering out of the agribusiness area went to the zamindars rather than the cultivators
- The zamindari system improved the condition of agriculture
- The fundamental interest is to gather leases paying little heed to the financial state of the cultivators
- There was, obviously, some proof of a somewhat better return of money crops in specific spaces of the nation because of the commercialisation of farming
- In any case, this could barely help ranchers in working on their financial condition as, rather than delivering food crops, presently they were creating cash crops which were to be at last utilized by British businesses back home
- India’s horticulture was famished of interest in terracing, flood-control, waste, and desalination of soil
- Little ranchers and tenant farmers neither had assets and innovation nor had a motivating force to put resources into horticulture
Industrial Sector:
- India couldn’t foster a modern sound base under frontier rule
- Indeed, despite the country’s reality, popular craftsmanship ventures declined, and no related modern base was permitted
- The essential thought process of the pioneer government behind this arrangement of efficient industrialization in India was two-crease
- Lessen India to the situation with a simple exporter of significant unrefined components for the forthcoming present-day ventures in Britain
- Transform India into a rambling business sector for the completed results of those enterprises
- Decrease of the native craftsmanship ventures made monstrous joblessness and interest currently being satisfied by modest British imports
- During the second half of the nineteenth century, India’s modern industry began to take root, but its progress remained slow
- Initially, the modern industry was confined to cotton (mainly in Maharashtra and Gujarat) and jute textile (mainly in Bengal) mills, dominated by Indians and the British, respectively
- The iron and steel ventures started coming up at the start of the 20th century
- The Tata Iron and Steel Company (T.I.S.C.O.) was formed in 1907
- A couple of different ventures in sugar, concrete, paper, and so on came up after the Second World War
- Be that as it may, there was no capital merchandise industry to advance further industrialisation in India
- The development pace of the new modern area and its commitment to the Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) stayed little
- The public area businesses were restricted to railroads, power age, correspondences, ports, and other departmental endeavours