Describe the changes that colonial rule brought to India.
a) It destroyed the handloom industry. When cheap factory manufactured clothes came to India, the Indian handloom industry could not survive in the competition.
b) The Indian economy was strongly linked to the world capitalist system.
c) Before colonisation, India was a country exporting manufactured goods to the world market. But after colonization, India became a place for collecting raw materials for the British factories, agricultural products for their consumption and market to sell their finished goods. Thus all the benefits went to England.
d) New groups – especially Europeans – entered the. trade and commerce market. The new groups either worked with the existing trading communities or ousted them from their trade.
e) In India, a market economy came. It helped some new trade communities to grow. They tried to take advantage of the new circumstances. These communities continued to remain powerful even after independence.
