Colonial Influence on India's Trade and Commerce
Trading activities during British rule
The British came to India in 1600 AD marking the establishment of ‘East India Company’ trading mainly in cotton, spices, silk, indigo dye, tea, opium, etc. Among all these items, trading in opium brought huge profits for the British merchants. The profits and gains earned from opium trade were then utilized for improving the production of food grains.
With time, India also established itself as a major exporter of textiles in the European markets along with Asia and Africa by the middle of 18th century CE, along with indigo and opium which also were in great demand by the late 18th century CE.
Boom in Cotton Textile Mill Industries in India
With the beginning of the 19th century, English machine-made clothes were superseded by the Indian cotton manufactures, which forced the British officials to import raw cotton from India and export finished goods by setting-up a spinning and weaving mill in India. With Bombay developing as an important centre for trade and commerce in western India, the British Government set-up the Bombay Spinning and Weaving Mill in Bombay in 1851. Bombay, in the early nineteenth century, became an important centre of trade as cotton goods from Britain were now imported to India and raw cotton was exported from the ports of Bombay. The success of Bombay Spinning and Weaving Mill resulted into the development of numerous cotton textile mills in India, which paved the way for India’s industrial revolution.
One such mill was The Empress Mill, established by Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata in Nagpur in the year 1874. It was the largest cotton mill in India. The establishment of the Empress Mill brought an upliftment in the set-up of textile mills outside Bombay. After 1885, the mills started approaching newer markets due to the improvement in the quality of cloth production produced by the adoption of modern techniques.
British Economic Policies in India
The economic policies adopted during the colonial period had a great impact on India’s economy, which started importing finished goods from Britain in large quantities and supplied only raw materials to the British manufacturers. This was happening due to the free trade policy adopted by Government of India which allowed free entry of finished goods from Britain. On the other hand, Indian goods were subjected to very heavy duties before entering the British markets.
Agricultural output of the country also gradually decreased due to the introduction of various systems of land settlement like the ‘zamindari system’ which enabled the zamindars (land owners) to enjoy all the profits gained in the agricultural production. Heavy revenue assessment from these land settlement systems not only deteriorated agricultural productivity of the country but also led to an increase in poverty.
