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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

“Weaving”, says R.C. Dutt, “was the national industry of the people and spinning was the pursuit of millions of women.” Indian textiles went to England and other parts of Europe, to China and Japan and Burma and Arabia and Persia and parts of Africa. Elucidate.

  • UPSC 2013
  • Economic Impact of British Colonial Rule

R.C. Dutt's observation captures a precolonial reality often obscured by the later story of decline — that India, before the full weight of colonial policy fell on it, was the world's pre-eminent textile manufacturing economy.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • Weaving and Spinning as the Backbone of the Economy
  • Centres of Regional Excellence
  • The Global Reach of Indian Textiles
  • A Scale That Even Rising British Industry Initially Feared
  • The Reversal That Gives the Statement Its Poignancy

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