CBSE Class 10 Social Science The Age of Industrialisation Worksheet

Question. Highlight any three benefits of industrialization on the society.
Answer : Three benefits of Industrialization on the society are as follows :
(i) New railway stations came up and railway lines were extended, tunnels were dug up.
(ii) Building activities were intensified in the cities, opening up greater opportunities of employment for youth.
(iii) Roads were widened to make transport facility better.

Question. What was the impact of colonisation of India on the Indian traders ?
Answer : As colonial control over Indian trade tightened, the space within which Indian merchants could function became increasingly limited. They were barred from trading with Europe in manufactured goods, and had to export mostly raw materials and food grains, raw cotton, opium, wheat and indigo required by the British.
They were also gradually edged out of the shipping business. The points are enumerated as follows:
(i) The European companies gradually gained power — first securing a variety of concessions from local courts, then the monopoly rights to trade.
(ii) It resulted in a decline of the old ports of Surat and Hoogly through which local merchants had operated. Exports from these ports fell dramatically.
(iii) The credit that had financed the earlier trade began drying up and the local bankers slowly became bankrupt.

Question. What were the advantages of cotton mill ?
Answer : The advantages of cotton mill are enumerated as follows :
(i) Production process was carefully supervised.
(ii) Quality of cloth could be controlled.
(iii) More amount of production in less time. 
(iv) Labour could be easily managed.

Question. What were the roles of trade guilds ?
Answer : The roles of trade guilds are enumerated as follows :
(i) Trained craftmen, maintain control over production and regulate prices.
(ii) Enjoyed monopoly rights to produce and trade certain products.
(iii) Had the right to restrict entry of outsiders.

Question. Write a short note on the growth of factories in colonial India.
Answer : The first cotton mill in Bombay came up in 1854 and it went into production two years later. By 1862 four mills were at work with 94,000 spindles and 2,150 looms. Around the same time jute mills came up in Bengal, the first being set up in 1855 and another one seven years later, in 1862. In north India, the Elgin Mill was started in Kanpur. In the 1860s, and a year later the first cotton mill of Ahmedabad was set up. By 1874, the first spinning and weaving mill of Madras began production.

Question. Why were there clashes between the weavers and the Gomasthas ? Explain.
Answer : Clashes between the weavers and the Gomasthas can be explained as follows :
(i) As we know that earlier merchants had often lived within the weaving village, and had a close relationship with the weavers, looking after their needs but the new Gomasthas were outsiders with no long term social link with the village, they acted arrogantly, marched into villages with sepoys and peons, and punished weavers for delay in supply.
(ii) The weavers lost the space to bargain for prices and sell to different buyers; the price they received from the company was miserably low.

Question. Describe the role of ‘Jobbers‘ in the beginning of twentieth century in India.
Answer : Role of jobbers were very significant in the beginning of twentieth century in India.
(i) Industrialists usually employed a jobber to get new recruits. Very often the jobber was an old and trusted worker.
(ii) He got people from his village, ensured them jobs, and helped them settle in the city.
(iii) He provided them money in times of crisis.
The jobber therefore became a person with some authority and power.

Question. Why did the elite of Britain prefer hand made goods in the mid-nineteenth century ? Explain.
Answer : The elite of British prefer handmade goods in the midnineteenth century because of the following reasons :
(i) Handmade products came to symbolise refinement and class. Handmade cloths were costlier and of better quality.
(ii) They were better finished, individually produced and carefully designed.
(iii) Machine-made goods were for masses, in the colonies not for classes.

Question. Explain what is meant by proto-industrialisation.
Answer : The term ‘proto’ refers to the first or nascent form of something. By the term “proto-industrialisation”, we mean the period in which the European countries produced goods for the foreign markets on a wider scale. This phase started before the development of factories in the European countries. In the protoindustrial period, hand-made products were made for the international market.

Question. Why did Britain find it difficult to recapture the Indian market after the World War-I ? Explain.
Answer : In the aftermath of the World War-I, Britain found it difficult to regain control over the Indian markets. The reasons are as follows :
(i) According to some historians, post-war economic recovery proved difficult. Historically, Britain was the leading economy of the world in the pre-war period. However, Britain faced a protracted crisis in the economic domain.
(ii) When Britain was pre-occupied with war, industries emerged in India and Japan. In the aftermath of the war, Britain found it very difficult to exercise way over the Indian markets and to compete with Japan on an international level.
(iii) Britain also borrowed liberally from the US to cope with the increasing war expenditure. As a matter of fact, Britain was encumbered with huge external debts and became highly insolvent.

Question. Explain the features of pre-colonial trade scenario in India.
Answer : The features of pre-colonial trade scenario in India are enumerated as follows :
(i) Silk and cotton goods from India dominated the international market in textiles.
(ii) Armenian and Persian merchants took the goods from Punjab to Afghanistan, Eastern Persia and Central Asia. Bales of fine textiles were carried on came back via the northwest frontier, through mountain passes and across deserts.
(iii) A vibrant sea trade operated through the main precolonial ports. Surat on the Gujarat coast connected India to the Gulf and Red Sea ports; Masulipatam on the Coromandel coast and Hoogly in Bengal had trade links with Southeast Asian ports.

Long Answer Type Questions 

Question :  India has no problem with the availability of workers. Why are children forced into labour ? Are wages the main problem ? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer : The reasons are enumerated as follows :
(i) Yes, wage is the main issue. India is a developing country. The wages provided to the people for even 8 hrs of work are not sufficient for the survival of the whole family in a sufficient way.
(ii) The families are also big in India and often joint families living together. This creates a pressure on the resources available to them, be it food, clothing etc.
(iii) The availability of cheap labour becomes a hindrance. The labours are left with no choice of negotiations. They are forced to work for more than the stipulated time for extra income.
(iv) As the income is meagre, parents send their children to work. Many ace school drop outs too.

Question :  The Gomasthas were paid agents of the company. Do you think that they too contributed in the economic degradation of the country?
Answer : The Gomasthas contributed to some extent in the degradation of the economy. They were mere paid agents of the company. Thus, they took no interest in the conditions of the farmers and craftsmen. They were outsiders, thus, they had no interest in knowing and solving the problems of the weavers, craftsmen, farmers. They even tortured the weavers. They never spoke on behalf of the weavers or tried to negotiate even. The weavers were under the control of the Gomasthas. They suffered much of the loss because of the fact that the Gomasthas did not support them.

Question : Why did some industrialists in nineteenth century Europe prefer hand labour over machines ? 
Answer : In the nineteenth-century Europe, some British industrialists prioritised hand labour instead of machine labour. The points are enumerated as follows:
(i) The prices of new technologies and machines were exorbitantly high. Therefore, the industrialists and the producers did not to use them.
(ii) Machines often broke down and their repair was very expensive.
(iii) Poor peasants and artisans flocked to the cities in quest for employment. Therefore, the supply of workers outweighed the demand. The workers were available at a cheap rate.
(iv) Market demand of variety of designs and colour could not be satisfied by the machine-made products. The handmade labour was effective in this regard.

Question : What were the advertising techniques used to sell products in India ?
Answer : The advertising techniques that used to sell products in India are enumerated as follows :
(i) The Manchester industrialists began selling cloth in India. They put labels on the cloth bundles. The label was needed to make the place of manufacture and the name of the company familiar to the buyer. The label was also to be a mark of quality.
(ii) Images of Indian gods and goddesses regularly appeared on these labels. It was as if the association with gods gave divine approval to the goods being sold. The imprinted image of Krishna or Saraswati was also intended to make the manufacture from a foreign land appear somewhat familiar to Indian people.
(iii) Like the images of gods, figures of important personages, of emperors and nawabs, adorned advertisement and calendars. The message very often seemed to say if you respect the royal figure, then respect this product; when the product was being used by kings, or produced under royal command, its quality could not be questioned.
(iv) By the late-nineteenth century, manufacturers were printing calendars to popularise their products.

Question. Why did some industrialists in nineteenth century Europe prefer hand labour over machines ?
Answer : In the nineteenth century Europe, some British industrialists prioritized hand labour instead of machine labour. The points are enumerated as follows :
(i) The prices of new technologies and machines were exorbitantly high. Therefore, the industrialists and the producers did not use them.
(ii) Machines often broke down and their repair was very expensive.
(iii) Poor peasants and artisans flocked to the cities in quest for employment. Therefore, the supply of workers outweighed the demand. The workers were available at a cheap rate.
(iv) Market demand of variety of designs and colour could not be satisfied by the machine-made products. The hand-made labour was effective in this regard.

Question. “Series of changes affected the pattern of industrialization in India by the early twentieth century.“ Analyze the statement.
Answer : As the Swadeshi Movement gathered momentum, nationalists mobilised people to boycott foreign cloth.
Industrial groups organised themselves to protect their collective interests, pressurising the government to increase tariff protection and grant other concessions.
From 1906, moreover, the export of Indian yarn to China declined since produce from Chinese and Japanese mills flooded the Chinese market. So industrialists in India began shifting from yarn to cloth production.
Cotton goods production in India doubled between 1900 and 1912. Yet, till the First World War, industrial growth was slow. The war created a dramatically new situation. With British mills busy with war production to meet the needs of the army, Manchester imports into India declined. Suddenly, Indian mills had a vast home market to supply. As the war prolonged, Indian factories were called upon to supply war needs: jute bags, cloth for army uniforms, tents and leather boots, horse and mule saddles and a host of other items. New factories were set up and old ones ran in multiple shifts. Many new workers were employed and everyone was made to work longer hours. Over the war years, industrial production boomed.

Question. What role did the Indian merchants play in the growth of industries before 1750?
Answer : (i) The British in India began exporting opium to China and took tea from China to England.
Many Indians became junior players in this trade, providing finance, procuring supplies, and shipping consignments. Having earned through trade, some of these businessmen had visions of developing industrial enterprises in India.
(ii) In Bengal, Dwarkanath Tagore made his fortune in the China trade before he turned to industrial investment, setting up six joint-stock companies in the 1830s and 1840s.
(iii) In Bombay, Parsis like Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata who built huge industrial empires in India accumulated their initial wealth partly from exports to China and partly from raw cotton shipments to England. Sonic merchants from Madras traded with Burma while other had links with the Middle East and East Africa.
(iv) There were yet other commercial groups, but they were not directly involved in external trade. They operated within India, carrying goods from one place to another, banking money, transferring funds between cities, and financing traders.

Question. Explain any five causes of Industrial Revolution in England.
Answer : The five causes of Industrial Revolution in England are enumerated as follows :
(i) Growing international markets in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to the demand of more products not just inside the country but in other colonies and countries as well.
(ii) Series of new inventions by James Watt, James Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright contributed significantly in the growth of factories and production process hastened as well as smoothened.
(iii) Availability of raw resources from the countryside and new freshly acquired colonies like America, India etc. made production process easier.
(iv) Availability of capital for investment was easily available as they had earned huge profits from trade and overseas investments.
(v) Increase in demand for a diverse range of products both inside the country as well as in other countries was a significant factor. This made people invest in business and factories to produced more.

Question. “Consumers are created, with advertisements” — support this statement with three examples.
                                                                          OR
Explain the methods used by producers to expand their markets in nineteenth century.
Answer : (i) Advertisement : Advertisements make products appear desirable and necessary. They try to shape the minds of people and create new needs.
Advertisements have played a part in expanding the markets for products, and in shaping a new consumer culture.
(ii) Labelling : When the Manchester industrialists began selling cloth in India, they put labels on the cloth bundles. The label was needed to make the place of manufacture, and the name of the company familiar to the buyer. The label was also to be a mark of quality.
(iii) Images of Gods : Images of lndian gods and goddesses regularly appeared on these labels. It was as if the association with gods gave divine approval to the goods being sold. The imprinted image of Krishna or Saraswati was Also intended to make the manufacture from a foreign land appear somewhat familiar to Indian people.
(iv) Figures of important personages : Figures of important personage such as emperors and nawabs, adorned advertisement and calendars. 
The message very often seemed to say, if you respect the royal figure, then respect this product; when the product was being used by kings, or produced under royal command, its quality could not be questioned.

Question. How did the East India Company procure regular supplies of cotton and silk textiles from Indian weavers ?
Answer : After establishing political power in India, the East India Company tried to acquire right to cotton textile and silk goods trade. It also started to procure regular supplies of these goods from Indian weavers. This could be achieved by them after taking a series of steps. First,
they established their management and a direct control over the weavers by hiring their paid servants called Gomasthas. Gomasthas supervised weavers, examined the quality of goods and ensured regular supplies.
Second, the Company prevented weavers from dealing with their buyers by giving them ‘advances’ against purchase orders. Thus, the weavers after taking loans could not sell their cloth to any other trader and had to work under the Company’s Gomasthas.

Question. How did cotton factories become an intimate part of the English landscape in the early 19th century ? Explain.
Answer : Cotton factories became an intimate part of the English landscape in the early 19th century. This can be explained as follows :
(i) Series of inventions in the 18th century increased the efficiency of carding, twisting, spinning, etc.
(ii) Creation of cotton mill by Richard Arkwright.
(iii) Centralised and integrated process.
(iv) Proper supervision and control.
(v) New mills and new technologies.

Question. Why did industrial production in India increase during the First World War ?
Answer : India witnessed increased industrial production during the First World War due to the following reasons :
(i) British industries became busy in producing and supplying war needs. Hence, they stopped exporting British goods or cloths for colonial markets like that in India.
(ii) It was a good opportunity for Indian industries to fill in empty Indian markets with their products.
Therefore, industrial production in India increased.
(iii) Also the British colonial government asked Indian factories to supply the war needs like jute bags, cloth or army uniforms, tents and leather boots, horse and mule saddles, etc.
(iv) The increased demands of variety of products led to the setting up of new factories and old ones increased their production.
(v) Many new workers were employed and everyone was made to work longer hours.
These were the various reasons responsible for the boom in the industrial production in India during the First World War.

Question. Industrialisation was a mixed blessing. Explain with the help of suitable examples.
Answer : (i) Cheap goods : Machines produced fine quality goods which were easily available to all sections of the society at cheap rates.
(ii) New industrialists : It gave birth to a new section of entrepreneurs who invested in industries and factories even in the colonies, who later became bigger investors and players in this arena.
(iii) Growth of industrial sector : With the coming of the industries, new avenues opened up for people who no longer profited from agriculture. New employment avenues opened up.
There were the miseries attached to Industrial Revolution too.
(i) One major problem was the condition of workers.
The supply of workers was more than the demand.
This created a lot of problems for them. Many of them failed to get work.
(ii) The workers got work depending on the availability of work and seasonably affected employment rates. Most of the workers remained unemployed for a fair part of the year.
(iii) Low wages and poverty was an important issue.
The workers received low wages that worsened their conditions. They lived in poor condition on the roads, under the bridges. They had poor living standards.
(iv) The weaving industry was badly affected. The weavers were exploited: they lost their works because of the coming of machines and given poor payments in return of hard work. Their conditions worsened more in colonies like India.

Question. How did the abundance of labour in the market affect the lives of the workers in Britain during nineteenth century ?
                                                                                                    OR
“The process of industrialisation brought with it miseries for the newly emerged class of industrial workers.” Explain.
Answer : There was abundance of labour in the market of Britain during nineteenth century compared to the work available which led to the problem of unemployment :
(i) Seasonality of work : Most of the workers were employed in a fixed or particular season only. This resulted in unemployment for most of the time of the year.
(ii) Low real wages : High supply of labour resulted in low wages and workers were easily replaced if any wage issue was created.
(iii) Poverty : As wages were low, most of the workers lived in harsh conditions of extreme poverty. They did not have enough money to feed their entire families at times.
(iv) Housing problem : As the number of workers kept on increasing in the cities, mostly without work,
had a problem in finding healthy and hygienic conditions. Most of them lived on roads, under the bridges or in the unclean bylanes.

Question. ”India became a supplier of raw materials instead of finished products.” Discuss the statement.
Answer : The points are enumerated as follows :
(i) The industries in England required large amount of raw materials. The resources were sent from India. This affected the availability of resources within the country.
(ii) Finer quality of cotton, and silk were exported to England and the artisans were left with poorer quality. The products made by the Indian artisans and weavers were very poor in quality.
(iii) As the standard of the quality of products decreased, Indian aristocrats and elites started purchasing more of machine made goods, which were imported from England.
(iv) This led to the decline of weaving and other indigenous industries of India. Thus, the phase of deindustrialisation started.
(v) There was a dearth of resources availables in the country due to incessant exports. This put a heavy pressure on the artisans. They had to buy resources at extremely high rates which most of the craftsmen could not afford. Thus, they had to stop producing the products and look for other alternatives.

Source/Case Based Questions 

Question : Read the extract and answer the questions that follow: 
The earliest factories in England came up by the 1730s. But it was only in the late eighteenth century that the number of factories multiplied. The first symbol of the new era was cotton. Its production boomed in the late nineteenth century. In 1760 Britain was importing 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton to feed its cotton industry. By 1787 this import soared to 22 million pounds. This increase was linked to a number of changes within the process of production. Let us look briefly at some of these. A series of inventions in the eighteenth century increased the efficacy of each step of the production process (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling). They enhanced the output per worker, enabling each worker to produce more, and they made the production of stronger threads and yarn possible. Then Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill. Till this time, as you have seen, cloth production was spread all over the countryside and carried out within village households. But now, the costly new machines could be purchased, set up and maintained in the mill. Within the mill all the processes were brought together under one roof and management. This allowed a more careful supervision over the production process, a watch over quality, and the regulation of labour, all of which had been difficult to do when production was in the countryside. In the early nineteenth century, factories increasingly became an intimate part of the English landscape. So visible were the imposing new mills, so magical seemed to be the power of new technology, that contemporaries were dazzled. They concentrated their attention on the mills, almost forgetting the by lanes and the workshops where production still continued. 

(i) When was the earliest factories in England came up?What was the symbol of new era?
Answer : (a) The earliest factories in England came up by the 1730s.
(b) The first symbol of new era was cotton. 

(ii) Who created the first cotton mill in England?
Answer : Richard Arkwright was created the first cotton mill in England. 

(iii) What will happen after the advent of industrialisation?
Answer :(a) Industrialisation enhanced the output per worker, enabling each worker to produce more.
(b) They made the production of stronger threads and yarn possible.

Read the extract and answer the questions that follow:
In the countryside poor peasants and artisans began working for merchants. This was a time when open fields were disappearing and commons were being enclosed. Cottagers and poor peasants who had earlier depended on common lands for their survival, gathering their firewood, berries, vegetables, hay and straw, had to now look for alternative sources of income.
Many had tiny plots of land which could not provide work for all members of the household. So when merchants came around and offered advances to produce goods for them, peasant households eagerly agreed. By working for the merchants, they could remain in the countryside and continue to cultivate their small plots. Income from proto-industrial production supplemented their shrinking income from cultivation.
It also allowed them a fuller use of their family labour resources.
Within this system a close relationship developed between the town and the countryside. Merchants were based in towns but the work was done mostly in the countryside. A merchant clothier in England purchased wool from a wool stapler, and carried it to the spinners; the yarn (thread) that was spun was taken in subsequent stages of production to weavers, fullers, and then to dyers. The finishing was done in London before the export merchant sold the cloth in the international market. London in fact came to be known as a finishing centre.

1. What is proto-industrialisation?
Answer : The phase of industrialisation before the industrial revolution is referred as proto-industrialisation.

2. Differentiate between stapler and fuller?
Answer : A stapler is a person who ‘staples’ or sorts wool according to its fibre, whereas fuller is a person who fulls or gathers cloth by pleating.

3. Why London came to be known as finishing centre in the eighteenth century?
Answer : During eighteenth century, finishing of clothes was done in London before the merchants sold the clothes in the international market. Thus, London came to be known as finishing centre.

Read the sources given below and answer the questions that follow:
Source A- The Early Entrepreneurs
The history of many business groups goes back to trade with China. From the late eighteenth century, the British in India began exporting opium to China and took tea from China to England. Many Indians became junior players in this trade, providing finance, procuring supplies, and shipping consignments. Having earned through trade, some of these businessmen had visions of developing industrial enterprises in India. In Bengal, Dwarkanath Tagore made his fortune in the China trade before he turned to industrial investment, setting up six joint-stock companies in the 1830s and 1840s. Tagore’s enterprises sank along with those of others in the wider business crises of the 1840s, but later in the nineteenth century many of the China traders became successful industrialists. In Bombay, Parsis like Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata who built huge industrial empires in India, accumulated their initial wealth partly from exports to China, and partly from raw cotton shipments to England.
Source B- Small-scale Industries Predominate
While factory industries grew steadily after the war, large industries formed only a small segment of the economy. Most of them – about 67 per cent in 1911 were located in Bengal and Bombay. Over the rest of the country, small-scale production continued to predominate. Only a small proportion of the total industrial labour force worked in registered factories:
5 per cent in 1911 and 10 per cent in 1931. The rest worked in small workshops and household units, often located in alleys and bylanes, invisible to the passer-by.
Source C-Market for Goods
One way in which new consumers are created is through advertisements. As you know, advertisements make products appear desirable and necessary. They try to shape the minds of people and create new needs. Today we live in a world where advertisements surround us.
They appear in newspapers, magazines, hoardings, street walls, television screens. But if we look back into history we find that from the very beginning of the industrial age, advertisements have played a part in expanding the markets for products, and in shaping a new consumer culture.

Source A- The Early Entrepreneurs
1. How did the early entrepreneurs accumulate capital for running their cloth mills?
Answer : The early entrepreneurs accumulated capital through their other trade networks. For example- Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata who built huge industrial empire in India, accumulated his initial wealth partly from exports to China and partly from raw cotton shipments to England.

Source B- Small-scale Industries Predominate
2. What was the reason behind the predominance of small scale industries?
Answer : The reason behind the predominance of small scale industries was that the handicrafts people adopt new technology for improving their production.

Source C- Market for Goods
3. Why Manchester industrialists used images of gods and goddesses for putting labels on their clothes?
Answer : It was done so that the association with gods gave divine approval to the goods being sold.

Read the source given below and answer the questions that follow:
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
merchants from the towns in Europe began moving to the countryside, supplying money to peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an international market. With the expansion of world trade and the acquisition of colonies in different parts of the world, the demand for goods began growing.
But merchants could not expand production within towns. This was because here urban crafts and trade guilds were powerful. These were associations of producers that trained craftspeople, maintained control over production, regulated competition and prices, and restricted the entry of new people into the trade. Rulers granted different guilds the monopoly right to produce and trade in specific products. It was therefore difficult for new merchants to set up business in towns. So they turned to the countryside.
In the countryside poor peasants and artisans began working for merchants.

Answer the following MCQs by choosing the most appropriate option:

1. Following feature can’t be related with 17th and 18th century developments:
(a) Race to colonize the different parts of the world 
(b) Demand of the goods increased in the international market
(c) European countries established their colonies to get raw material
(d) Introduction of railways for the fast transportation of goods
Answer : D

2. Why countryside people were easily agreed to work for the merchants?
(a) They did not had enough land holding to sustain their family
(b) Merchants pressurized them to do work
(c) Landlords forced peasants to work for the merchants
(d) An order was issued by the ruler which forced them to work for merchants
Answer : A

3. Merchants moved towards countryside because:
(a) Peasants were more laborious as compared to urban workers
(b) Due to fear of losing profit, urban traders restricted the entry of merchants in towns
(c) From countryside, merchants could easily transport goods in international market
(d) Merchants did not like the strictness of guilds
Answer : B

4. Following conclusion cannot be drawn from the passage:
(a) Merchants were new in the market as compared to urban traders
(b) Urban traders trained their workers to get standard products
(c) Urban traders were closer to the rulers
(d) Urban traders were willing to capture the trade of merchants
Answer : D

Creating Based Questions

Question : Use the information provided along with the terms given in the box to form a coherent passage to show the process of industrialisation and the most dynamic industries in Britain. Also include information that is not mentioned below to complete it.
Upper classes, symbolised refinement and class, designed, machine made goods Victorian Britain..... preferred handmade products..... goods were better finished, individually produce(d)... export to the colonies.
Answer : In Victorian Britain, the upper classes - the aristocrats and the bourgeoisie - preferred things produced by hand. Handmade products came to symbolise refinement and class. They were better finished, individually produced, and carefully designed. Machine-made goods were for export to the colonies. 

Question : Use the information provided along with the terms given in the box to form a pathway to show how colonial control over Indian trade tightened. Also include information that is not mentioned below to complete it.  Colonial trade, export, raw materials, indigo, British  Colonial control tightene(d)... scope decrease(d)... they were barred from trading with Europe..... raw materials and food grains were exporte(d).... edged out of shipping business
Answer : As colonial control over Indian trade tightened, the space within which Indian merchants could function became increasingly limited. They were barred from trading with Europe in manufactured goods, and had to export mostly raw materials and food grains - raw cotton, opium, wheat and indigo, required by the British. They were also gradually edged out of the shipping business.

Points to remember for Contemporary India Chapter 04 The Age of Industrialisation

The industrialisation is considered to be the backbone of economic development. Modernisation began with the age of industrialisation in Europe. The industrialisation is often associated with the growth of factory industry.

Before the Industrial Revolution
History of industrialisation started with the establishment of first factories. But there is a problem with such idea. There was large-scale industrial production even before factories began in England and this production was not dependent on factories. This phase of industrialisation is known as proto-industrialisation.

Expansion of World Trade
In the towns, urban crafts and trade guilds were very powerful. Different guilds were granted the rights of production and trade for a specific products by the rulers.
These guilds controlled the production and restricted the entry of new merchants in the trade. The new merchants thus moved to countryside for expanding production and persuaded them to produce for international market. With the expansion of world trade and the aquisition of colonies in different parts of the world, the demand for goods began growing. World trade expanded at a very fast rate during the 17th and 18th century.
In the countryside, the income of poor peasants and artisans was not sufficient, so they began working for the merchants.

Proto-Industrialisation System as a System of Commercial Exchange
The proto-industrial system was a network of commercial exchange. It was controlled by the merchants. Income from proto-industrial production supplemented peasants income from cultivation. A merchant clothier in England first purchased wool from a wool stapler and supplied it to the spinners. The thread that was spun was taken in different stages of production to weavers, fullers4 and then to dryers.
The finished products passed through several stage and reached the market of London. Gradually, London came to be known as a finishing centre. At each stage of production 20-25 members were employed by each merchants.
The goods were produced by a vast number of producers working within their family farms, instead of factories.

The Coming Up of the Factory
The earliest factories in England came up by the 1730s. However, the number of factories multiplied in the late 18th century. Cotton textile was the main industry at that time.
A series of inventions in the eighteenth century increased the efficacy5 of each step of the production process which included carding6, twisting, spinning and rolling. Richard Arkwright is credited to create the cotton mill. Within the mill, all the processes were carried out at one place. In the 19th century, factory system increased largely in England.

The Pace of Industrial change
Cotton and metal became the most dynamic industries in Britain. Cotton was the leading sector in the first phase of industrialisation upto the 1840s followed by iron and steel industry.
The new machinery and industries could not easily displace traditional industries. At the end of 19th century, less than 20 per cent of the total workforce was employed in technologically advanced industrial sectors.
Textile was a dynamic sector, but a large portion of the output was not produced within factories. Most of the textiles were primarily produced within domestic units.
Ordinary and small innovations were seen in non-mechanised sectors like food processing, building, furniture making, production of implements, pottery, glasswork and tanning.
The technological changes occurred slowly. They did not spread largely across the country. Merchants and industrialists were cautions about using new expensive technology. James Watt improved the steam engine produced by Newcomen and patented the new engine in 1781.
Mathew Boulton manufactured the new model of steam engine. But it was not easily accepted by the industrialists. At the beginning of the 19th century, there were only 321 steam engines all over the England.

Hand Labour and Steam Power
In Britain, there was no shortage of human labour. Poor peasants and vagrants7 moved to the cities in search of jobs so workers were available at low wages. In many industries, the demand for labour was seasonal. For example, gas works and breweries, book binding and printing, ship repairing, etc needed seasonal labour.

Preference for Handmade Products
A range of products could be produced only with hand labour. These required human skill, instead of mechanical technology. In Victorian Britain, handmade products which were refined symbolised a class. Handmade products were preferred by the aristocrats and the bourgeoisie. These handmade products were better finished and carefully designed. Machine made goods were exported for the people of colonies.

Life of the Workers
The life of workers at that time was pathetic as
• The possibility of getting a job depended on existing networks of friendship and relations.
• Many job seekers had to wait for weeks, spending nights under bridges and in night shelters set up by private individuals.
• After the busy season was over, labourers looked for even odd jobs which were difficult to find till the mid-19th century.
• The wages increased in the early 19th century, but this increase was balanced by an increase in prices of commodities.
• The income of workers depended on the number of days of their work.
• About 10 per cent of the urban population was extremely poor till the mid-19th century.

Technology and Employment
The fear of unemployment made workers unfriendly to the introduction of new technology. When the Spinning Jenny was introduced in the woollen industry, women who survived on hand spinning began opposing new machines.
After the 1840, building activities like construction of railways, roads, railway lines, etc increased in the cities which needed large-scale employment.
The number of labourers employed in the transport industry doubled in the 1840s which again doubled in the next 30 years.

Industrialisation in the Colonies
British colonies like India industrialised with the development of factory industries and non-mechanised sector.

The Age of Indian Textiles
Silk and cotton products of India dominated the international market before the age of machine industries. Armenian and Persian merchants took the goods from Punjab to Afghanistan, Eastern Persia and Central Asia.
Surat, Masulipatnam and Hooghly were the most important ports, which were used for trade. Many Indian merchants and bankers were involved in financing production, carrying goods and supplying to exporters.
By the 1750s, with the arrival of the European companies, the Indians started losing their control over the trade. The European companies were gaining power by securing a variety of concessions from local courts. Some of the companies got monopoly rights to trade. All this resulted in a decline of the old ports like Surat and Hooghly, and emergence of new ports like Bombay and Calcutta. This change was an indication of the growth of new colonial power.

Situation of Weavers
In 1760s, the Indian fine textiles were in great demand in Europe. So, the East India Company was keen on expanding textile exports from India.
In 1760s and 1770s, the East India Company faced problems in getting a regular supply of goods for export. This is because it faced competition from the French, Dutch, Portuguese and local traders. After the Company established its political power it developed a system of management and control. By this system, it started to eliminate its competitors and tried to assert a monopoly over right to trade.
The company adopted a system of loans to the weavers to prevent them dealing with other buyers. In many places of Bengal and Carnatic, weavers left villages and migrated to different villages. Sometimes, they even revolted against the Company and refused to take loans.

Gomasthas
The East India Company started appointing gomasthas i.e. paid servant to supervise weavers, collect supplies and examine the quality of the cloth. The new gomasthas, having no social links with the villages, acted arrogantly and punished the weavers for delay in supplies. They marched into villages with sepoys and peons and often punished the weavers by beating with stick.

Manchester Comes to India
In 1811-12, the share of cotton textile industry was 33 per cent of India’s export and by 1850-51, it was just 3 per cent. In the 19th century, textile industries in England developed.
The industrialists pressurised the government to impose import duties on cotton textiles, so that Manchester goods could sell in Britain without facing any competition. At the same time industrialists persuaded the East India Company to sell British manufactures in Indian markets. By 1870s, cotton import from England was over 50 per cent of the value of Indian imports.

Problems Faced by Indian Weavers
The problems faced by Indian weavers were
• Indian export market collapsed. The local market was filled with Manchester goods (goods imported from Britain). These imported cotton goods were so cheap that Indian weavers could not easily compete with them.
• As cotton exports from India increased due to the Civil War in USA, weavers in India did not get sufficient and good quality cotton and they were forced to buy raw cotton from Britain at higher prices.

Factories Come Up
Cotton and jute mills were the first to be established in India. The first cotton mill was set up in 1854 in Bombay and the first jute mill was set up in 1855 in Bengal.
In North India, Elgin Mill was started in Kanpur in 1860s and a year later, first cotton mill was setup in Ahmedabad.
By 1874, the first spinning and weaving mill of Madras began production. Most of these industries were set-up by Indian entrepreneurs.

The Early Entrepreneurs
From the late 18th century, the British in India began exporting opium to China and took tea from China to England.
Many Indian businessmen were involved in this trade. Some famous industrialists of 19th century were Dwarkanath Tagore, Dinshaw Petit, Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata, Shiv Narayan Birla (Grandfather of GD Birla), Seth Hukumchand, etc.
Dwarkanath Tagore set up six joint stock companies in the 1830s and 1840s. JN Tata set up first iron and steel works in India at Jamshedpur in 1912. Seth Hukumchand set up the first Indian jute mill in Calcutta in 1917.

Colonial Limitations Over Indian Merchants
As colonial power gained control over Indian trade, the scope of business for Indian merchants became limited.
Indian merchants were not allowed to trade with Europe in manufactured goods.
Indian merchants were allowed to export only raw materials and foodgrains like cotton, opium, wheat and indigo which were required by the British. EuropeanManaging Agencies controlled a large sector of Indian industries till the First World War. Some of them were Bird Heiglers & Co. Andrew Yule and Jardine Skinner & Co. In most cases, Indian financiers provided the capital while the European Agencies made all investment and business decision.

Migration of Workers in Search of Jobs
With the expansion of factories, the demand for workers increased. Peasants and artisans who found no work in the village went to the industrial centres in search of work. Many workers travelled distant places in the hope of work in the mills. For example, from the United Provinces, they even went to work in Bombay or Calcutta.
The problems faced by workers were
• Getting job was not easy.
• Number of workers were more as compared to jobs.
• Entry to the mills was restricted.
Industrialists employed a jobber to get new recruits. Jobber was an old and trusted worker. Jobber got people from his village, ensured them jobs, helped them settle in the city and provided them money in times of crisis.
The Jobber became a person with some authority and power.
He controlled the lives of workers and demanded money and gift for his favour.

The Peculiarities of Industrial Growth
The European industrialists were mainly interested in industrial products which they could export. These products were not for sale in India.
Indian businessmen began setting up industries in the late 19th century and by the first decade of the 20th century, a series of changes affected the pattern of industrialisation.
These were
• As swadeshi movement became stronger, the nationalist leaders urged the people to boycott foreign goods.
• Industrialists in India started cotton cloth production and the British mills became busy to produce goods for the army as the First World War started.
• India began shifting from yarn to cloth production, as India’s yarn export to China has declined due to production of Chinese and Japanese mills which flooded chinese market.
• New factories were set up during the war to supply war needs and Indian industrial production increased.
• After the war, Manchester could never capture its old position and the economy of Britain was collapsed.

Small-Scale Industries Predominate
Large industries were mainly located in Bengal and Bombay and formed only a small segment of the economy.
Over the rest of the country, small-scale production continued to predominate. Handicrafts production actually expanded in the 20th century by adopting new technology like looms with a fly shuttle11.
Amongst weavers some produced coarse cloth while others wove finer qualities. The coarse cloth was purchased by the poor. Its demand fluctuated due to bad harvests or famines.
The finer varieties were bought by the rich. Famines did not affect the sale of fine varieties such as Baluchari and Banarasi saris.Mills could not imitate the intricate12 designs of the weavers.

Market for Goods
Advertisement, labelling and calendars were used to popularise products by both British and Indian manufactures.
Advertisement through newspapers, magazines and hoardings were used by the producers to expand their market.
Advertisement makes products appear desirable and necessary. It played a very significant role from the very beginning of the industrial age, for developing a new consumer culture.

Initial Stages of Advertising in India
When Manchester industrialists began selling cloth in India, they put labels on the cloth bundles ‘MADE IN MANCHESTER’. Sometimes, the images of Indian Gods, Goddesses (e.g. Krishna, Saraswati) were used on these labels. By the late 19th century, manufacturers were printing calendars to popularise their products as calendars were used even by people who could not read. Besides, the images of Gods, figures of important persons, emperors and nawabs were used in advertisements and calendars. Advertisements sometimes became a medium of the nationalist message of Swadeshi which guaranteed the quality of the product.

Conclusion
The age of industries has meant major technological changes, growth of factories and the making of a new industrial labour force. Small-scale production and hand technology also played key role in the industrial landscape.