How was the life of Indian weavers affected by the Indian trade under company rule ?
Answers
The Indian weavers whose craftmanship had made Indian textiles famous all over the world suffered during the British rule.
The British produced huge amounts of goods with the help of machines. The cheap machine made textiles from Britain flooded the Indian markets. This led to a loss of demand for the weavers' goods.
The railways helped the Company to reach these textiles to the remotest parts of India and get raw materials from there. So the Indian weavers found it very difficult to compete with them.
The British followed the policy of free trade and could dictate the terms of trade. They forced the Indian weavers to sell their goods below market price and hired them to work at low wages.
The Company exported cotton from India. So the weavers had to buy it at higher prices.
Heavy taxes were levied on the Indian goods in the English market while British goods had duty free access into the Indian markets.
Due to all this many weavers were forced to give up their ancestral trade.
Life of Indian weavers under british can be explained by following points:• At the end of the nineteenth century, less than 20% of total workforce was employed in technologically advanced industrial sectors. This shows that the traditional industry could not be displaced by the new industries.
• Machine-made goods were standardized and could not match the high quality finish of hand-made goods. The people from the upper classes preferred things produced by hand.
• After establishment of east india company they posted an indirect control over the waevers by their paid agents called “gomasthas”. They (gomasthas) used to supervise the weavers and check the cloth.
• This indirect control of british over weavers barred them from trade with any other dealer.
• In 19th century cotton weavers in India faced two problems. British machine-made goods flooded Indian market. So for Indian weavers export market collapsed and local market shrank.
• The imported textile goods were so cheap that Indian goods could not compete with them. Indian weavers presented a picture of decline and desolation.
• Indian weavers could not get sufficient supply of raw cotton of good quality. Raw cotton was exported, so price of raw cotton went up. Indian weavers were forced to buy raw cotton at exorbitant price. In this situation they could hardly make any profit.
• By the end of 19th century the Indian weavers faced another problem. Indian factories began production. Weavers could not survive because they could not compete with machine made goods.