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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

‘The British industrial policy in the nineteenth century ruined the Indian handicrafts.’ Comment.

  • UPSC 2001
  • Economic Impact of British Colonial Rule

India entered the nineteenth century as one of the world's foremost manufacturing economies and closed it as a predominantly agrarian one — a reversal too rapid and too state-shaped to be dismissed as coincidence.

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What the full answer covers

  • India's Pre-Colonial Manufacturing Strength
  • The Policy Turn: From Exporting to Importing Country
  • Machine Competition and the Flooding of Indian Markets
  • Railways as an Extension of Industrial Policy
  • Reinforcing Social and Political Factors
  • Consequences: Deindustrialisation, Ruralisation and Urban Decay
  • …and 1 more sections, with a conclusion

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