Outline the prominent feature of colonial India
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Outline the prominent Outline the prominent feature of colonial India of colonial IndiaOutline the prominent feature of colonial IndiaOutline the prominent feature of colonial India
Outline the prominent feature of Outline the prominent feature of colonial India India.
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Colonial India had the following four basic features:
Firstly, colonialism was the complete but complex integration and enmeshing of India’s economy and society with the world capitalist system carried out for a period of roughly 200 years in a subordinate or subservient position. It is to be noted here that dependence or subservience of the colonial economy and society was the crucial or determining aspect “and not mere linkage or integration with world capitalism or the world market”.
Secondly, “colonialism in India is encompassed by the twin notions of unequal exchange (Aghiri Emanuel) and internal disarticulation of the economy and the articulation of its different disarticulated parts, through the world market and imperialist hegemony, with the metropolitan economy (S. Amin and Hamaz Alvi).”
In fact, this was one of the principal forms of colonial exploitation through which India led British industries by supplying raw materials and foodstuff and bought manufactured goods from biscuits, shoes to machinery, cars and railway engines from Britain.
As a result of this ‘unequal trade policy’, India was increasingly reduced to the status of an agricultural appendage and a subordinate trading partner of Britain in the latter part of the 18th and the earlier part of the 19th century.
Thirdly, as far as the process of economic development is concerned, .the generation as well as utilisation of economic surplus is crucial for any economy. The advancement of the Indian economy had been largely halted during the British regime due to the low availability of actual social surplus or internal savings available for investment in the economy. Such scarcity of internal savings is attributed to drain of wealth or unilateral transfer of surplus to the metropolis through unrequited exports.
The fourth basic feature of colonialism “was the crucial role played by the colonial state in the subordination of India to Britain and in construction, determining and maintaining other features of the colonial structure.” Being an important colony of Britain, India was managed and administered by Britain.