Crafts And Industries

In pre-colonial times, India was a flourishing centre of craft and industry. There were several skilled artisans who were engaged in different kinds of industries. In cities, they worked in workshops or karkhanas, while in the villages, they operated from home, helped by family members. This system of production was known as cottage industry. However, with the coming of European trading companies and the eventual establishment of British rule in India, there Was a gradual decline of the traditional industries in india. This process known as de-industrialisation was largely fuelled by the Industrial Revolution in Britain.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN BRITAIN AND DE- INDUSTRIALISATION IN INDIA 

Artisans and craftspeople in India received a lot of patronage in the pre-British era—both from the rulers and the aristocracy. This began to change with the establishment of Company rule in India, which in turn coincided with the period of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. 

• As a result of the Industrial Revolution, Britain began to make large quantities of different goods, especially textiles. These industries needed a continuous supply of raw materials. So the agents of the English East India Company began to force Indian peasants to grow cash crops like cotton, indigo, tea, coffee as raw material, and sell it to them at low prices. 
• The goods produced in the British factories also needed large markets. So, the British began to aggressively promote the sale of their factory-made goods in India—they imposed heavy duties on Indian goods entering Britain but exempted British goods entering India from paying duties. This made the already cheap British cloth cheaper still. This policy was known as one-way free trade. In this manner, British policies had dealt a crushing blow to Indian crafts by the 19th century. 
• With the decline of traditional industries, many artisans lost their jobs. They also lost the patronage of the aristocracy, as the British had stripped them off their wealth and power too. Thus, many artisans were forced to return to agricultural activities in their villages. Prosperous centres of craft like Dhaka and Murshidabad also went into decline. This process of decline of urban centres and the migration of people from cities to villages is known as de-urbanisation; and the gradual process through which economic activities move back to agriculture from industries is known as de-Industrialisation. 

MODERN INDIAN INDUSTRY UNDER BRITISH RULE 

While on the one hand, British rule and their policies led to the decline of traditional crafts and industries in India, on the other, the age of modern, large-scale industries also began in India during this period. The initial efforts towards this development were taken by the British in their own interest. As their hold over India strengthened, they took to manufacturing goods in India itself, in order to save cost. Thus they began to improve the conditions of the factories they had set up as traders, and built new ones. These factories were equipped with modern machines and employed Indian labourers. Further in order to link sources of raw materials to the factories, and the finished products to the markets, the British took to improving modes of transport and communication. So they built roads and railways. In the course of time, a modern post and telegraph system was also put in place. 

The plantation industry - Plantation industries were one of the first kind of industries to be set up by the British in India. Huge estates were taken up for the cultivation of cash crops such as cotton, indigo, tea, coffee and rubber. We saw in the last chapter how a lot of these areas were originally used by Indians for food crop production. Most of these plantations were owned by Europeans where Indians were employed as labourers, and made to work under extreme conditions. Large-scale tea cultivation was introduced by the British in Assam and then in Darjeeling in the early 19th century, while coffee was grown in the southern parts of India. 

The textile industry - The birth of the modern textile Industry In India took place In Mumbai in 1854, with the setting up of the first cotton mill by a Parsi gentleman—Cowasjee Nanabhoy. Bombay's proximity to the cotton-growing black soil region of western India made it the ideal location for cotton mills. Soon, cotton mills were set up in Ahmedabad, Madras, Kanpur, Sholapur and Nagpur. As the number of cotton mills increased, artisans, weavers and peasants flocked to them in search of employment and were readily absorbed.  However, it was only after the First World War, when textile imports from Britain declined, that Indian cotton mills could flourish.

The iron and steel industry - Throughout the 19th century, India imported steel manufactured in Britain. Then, in 1907, a steel factory was set up in Jamshedpur by Parsi entrepreneur, Jamsetji Tata. The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) started manufacturing steel in 1912. When imports of steel from Britain reduced drastically due to the First World War, TISCO began manufacturing rails for the Indian railways. By the end of the war, TISCO became one of the largest manufacturers of steel in India. The iron and steel industry received a further boost during the Second World War. 

Jute mills, flour mills and min mills and timber mills, leather tanneries, sugar industries that mineral industries were some of the other manufacturing industries that were set up in the latter half of the 19th century and 20th century by Indian industrialists. 

However,  in spite of British initiatives and the efforts of enterprising Indian industrialists, the process of industrial development was very slow in India until independence. The reasons for this were many.

• Indians found it difficult to get loans from banks. 
• The railway freight rates were lower for the distribution of foreign imported goods than for domestic goods. 
• The British would import the machinery needed for setting up factories from Britain. Indian manufacturers, however, did not always have the means to build the machines or the funds to buy them. 

Crafts And Industries

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