Economic Impact Of The British Rule

• The British succeeded in selling their goods at a cheap price as foreign goods were given free entry in India without paying any duty. On the other hand, Indian handicrafts were taxed heavily when they were sent out of the country.
• British government often imposed a protective tariff on Indian clothes as a result gradually India from being an exporter of clothes became an exporter of raw cotton and an importer of British clothes. This reversal made a huge impact on the Indian handloom weaving industry leading to its virtual collapse.
• It also created unemployment for a large community of weavers. Many of them migrated to rural areas to work on their lands as agricultural laborers. This, in turn, put increased pressure on the rural economy and livelihood. This process of uneven competition faced by the Indian handloom industry was later dubbed by the Indian nationalist leaders as de-industrialization.
• Deindustrialization resulted in the decline of many cities and initiated the process of ruralization of India.
• Transferability of land was the most important feature of the new land settlement which caused great insecurity to the tenants who lost all their traditional rights in land. There was little spending by the Government on the improvement of land productivity. The zamindars, with increased powers, resorted to summary evictions, demanded illegal dues and ‘begar’ to maximize their share in the produce.
• The peasant turned out to be the ultimate sufferer under the triple burden of the Government, zamindar, and moneylender. His hardship increased at the time of famine and Scarcity.
• There was fragmentation of land due to sub-infeudation which made it difficult to introduce modern technology which caused a perpetually low level of productivity.
• There was also a new market trend of commercialization and specialisation that was encouraged by many factors—the spread of money economy, replacement of custom and tradition by competition and contract, the emergence of a unified national market, growth of internal trade, improvement in communications through rail and roads and the boost to international trade is given by entry of British finance capital, etc.
• Indian traders, moneylenders, and bankers had amassed some wealth as junior partners of English merchant capitalists in India. Their role fitted in the British scheme of colonial exploitation. It led to the rise of an industrial capitalist class and the working class was an important feature of this phase.

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