Development Of Modern Industries Under British
The establishment of large-scale machine-based industries in India was a significant development in the second half of the nineteenth century. In India, the machine age began in the 1850s with the establishment of cotton textile, jute, and coal-mining industries. Cowasjee Nanabhoy established the first textile mill in Bombay in 1853, and the first jute mill in Rishra (Bengal) in 1855. These industries grew gradually but steadily. In 1879, India had 56 cotton textile mills that employed nearly 43,000 people.
• In 1882, there were 20 jute mills in operation, the majority of which were in Bengal and employed nearly 20,000 people.
• India had 206 cotton mills in 1905, employing nearly 196,000 people. In 1901, there were nearly 115,000 people employed by over 36 jute mills.
• In 1906, the coal mining industry employed nearly one lakh people. Cotton gins and presses, rice, flour, and timber mills, leather tanneries, woollen textiles, sugar mills, iron and steel works, and mineral industries like salt, mica, and saltpetre were among the mechanical industries that grew in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• During the 1930s, the cement, paper, matches, sugar, and glass industries grew. All of these industries, however, grew at a snail's pace. British capital owned or controlled the majority of modern Indian industries.
• The prospect of high profits drew foreign capitalists to Indian industry. India and its neighbours provided a ready market for many goods; labour was extremely cheap; raw materials were readily available and inexpensive; and for many goods, India and its neighbours provided a ready market.
• Many Indian products, such as tea, jute, and manganese, were in high demand all over the world.
• Profitable investment opportunities at home, on the other hand, were becoming scarce. At the same time, the colonial government and officials were eager to assist and show favours in any way they could. In many industries, foreign capital easily outstripped Indian capital.
• Only the cotton textile industry had a large Indian presence from the start, and the sugar industry was developed by Indians in the 1930s. From the start, Indian entrepreneurs had to contend with the power of British managing agencies and banks.
• To enter a field of business, Indian entrepreneurs had to submit to the British managing agencies that dominated that field. Even Indian-owned companies were frequently under the control of foreign-owned or controlled managing agencies.
• Indians also struggled to obtain credit from banks, the majority of which were controlled by British financiers. Even when they were able to obtain loans, they had to pay exorbitant interest rates, whereas foreigners were able to borrow on much more favourable terms.
• Naturally, Indians began to establish their own banks and insurance companies over time. Foreign banks held more than 70% of all bank deposits in India in 1914; by 1937, their share had dropped to 57%.
• To maintain their dominance in Indian economic life, British enterprises in India took advantage of their close ties with British suppliers of machinery and equipment, shipping, insurance companies, marketing agencies, government officials, and political leaders. Furthermore, the British government pursued a deliberate policy of favouring foreign capital over domestic capital.
• The British government's railway policy also discriminated against Indian business; railway freight rates favoured imports at the expense of domestic trade. Distributing Indian goods was more difficult and expensive than distributing imported goods.
• Another serious flaw in India's industrial effort was the near-complete lack of heavy or capital goods industries, which are required for rapid and independent industrial development. India lacked large-scale iron and steel plants, as well as machinery manufacturing facilities.
• Engineering industries were represented by a few small repair shops, while metallurgical industries were represented by a few iron and brass foundries.
• Only in 1913 did India produce its first steel. As a result, India lacked basic industries such as steel, metallurgy, machine manufacturing, chemical manufacturing, and oil production. India also lags in terms of electric power development.
• Apart from machine-based industries, plantation industries such as indigo, tea, and coffee grew in the nineteenth century. They were almost entirely owned by Europeans. Indigo was once used as a dye in the textile industry.
• Indigo dyeing was first introduced to India at the end of the 18th century, and it grew in popularity in Bengal and Bihar. Indigo planters gained notoriety for their oppression of peasants who were forced to grow indigo by them.
• In his play Neel Darpan, written in 1860, the famous Bengali writer Dinbandhu Mitra vividly depicted this oppression. The introduction of synthetic dyes dealt a serious blow to the indigo industry, which eventually faded away.
• After 1850, the tea industry grew in Assam, Bengal, south India, and the Himachal Pradesh hills. Because it was foreign-owned, the government aided it with grants of rent-free land and other benefits.
• The use of Tea spread throughout India over time, and it also became a popular export item. In South India, coffee plantations grew during this time.
• Plantations and other foreign-owned industries benefited the Indian people very little. Profits were taken out of the country. They spent a large portion of their salary budget on high-paid foreign employees.
• The majority of their technical staff was from other countries. The majority of their products were sold in foreign markets, and the money earned was used by the British government.
• The only benefit that these industries provided to Indians was the creation of low-wage jobs. However, the majority of the workers in these businesses were paid very little and worked in extremely difficult conditions for long periods. Furthermore, the plantations were run in a near-slave-like manner.
• India's industrial development was, on the whole, excruciatingly slow and painful. In the nineteenth century, it was mostly confined to the cotton and jute industries, as well as tea plantations, and in the 1930s, it was mostly confined to sugar and cement.
• Cotton and jute textile workers accounted for 40% of all factory workers as recently as 1946. In terms of production and employment, India's modern industrial development paled in comparison to the economic development of other countries or countries with similar economic needs to India.
• It did not compensate for the displacement of indigenous handicrafts, and it had little impact on poverty and land overcrowding issues.
• The paltry nature of Indian industrialization is demonstrated by the fact that only about 2.3 million people were employed in modern industrial enterprises in 1951, out of a population of 357 million.
• Furthermore, after 1858, the decline and decay of the urban and rural handicraft industries continued apace. Despite a population increase of nearly 40%, the number of people employed in processing and manufacturing fell from 10.3 million in 1901 to 8.8 million in 1951, according to the Indian Planning Commission.
• The government did not attempt to safeguard, rehabilitate, reorganise, or modernise these ancient indigenous industries.
• Furthermore, even modern industries had to develop on their own, frequently in opposition to British policy. British manufacturers viewed Indian textile and other industries as competitors, putting pressure on the Indian government to actively discourage rather than encourage industrial development in India.
• As a result of British policy, the growth of Indian industries was artificially restricted and slowed. In addition, Indian industries, which were still in their infancy, required protection.
• They arose at a time when the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States had already established powerful industries and were thus unable to compete.
•, All other countries, including the United Kingdom, had protected their fledgling industries by levying high import tariffs on foreign manufacturers. India, on the other hand, was not a free country.
• Its policies were shaped in the United Kingdom and in the interests of British industrialists who forced a Free Trade policy on their colony. For the same reason, the British government refused to provide any financial or other assistance to newly established Indian industries, as European and Japanese governments had done for their infant industries at the time.
• It would not even make adequate arrangements for technical education, which remained extremely behind the times until 1951, contributing to the country's industrial lag. There were only 7 engineering colleges in the country in 1939, with 2217 students.
• Many Indian projects, such as those involving the construction of ships, locomotives, automobiles, and aeroplanes, were unable to get off the ground due to the government's refusal to assist. Finally, in the 1920s and 1930s, the British Indian government was forced to grant some tariff protection to Indian industries due to pressure from the rising nationalist movement and the Indian capitalist class.
• However, the government discriminated against Indian-owned businesses once again. Indian-owned industries like cement, iron and steel, and glass were denied or given insufficient protection.
• Foreign-dominated industries, such as the match industry, were, on the other hand, given the protection they sought. Furthermore, despite Indian protests, British imports were granted special privileges under the system of "imperial preferences."
• Another feature of Indian industrial development was how lopsided it was across the country. Only a few regions and cities in India were home to the country's industries.
• Large swaths of the country remained in a state of complete underdevelopment. This unequal regional economic development not only resulted in large regional income disparities but also had an impact on national integration.
• It complicated the task of forming a unified Indian nation.
• The birth and growth of two new social classes in Indian society—the industrial capitalist class and the modern working class—was a significant social consequence of even the country's limited industrial development.
• Even though these classes only made up a small portion of the Indian population, they represented new technology, a new economic system, new social relations, new ideas, and a new outlook.
• They were free of the burdens of old traditions, customs, and lifestyles. Above all, they had an all-India perspective. Furthermore, both of these new classes were keenly interested in the country's industrial development. As a result, their economic and political importance and roles were disproportionately large in comparison to their numbers.