Recap

Key points of the chapter

• Studying the economy before independence is necessary to understand and value the development achieved afterwards.
• Colonial economic policy was concerned mainly with protecting and promoting British interests, not with developing India or improving the lives of its people.
• Agriculture stagnated and often deteriorated, even though the largest section of the population depended on it. The land-settlement systems, low technology, poor irrigation and minimal fertiliser use all kept productivity low.
• India's world-famous handicraft industries were ruined, while no significant modern industrial base was allowed to replace them — a deliberate policy of de-industrialisation.
• Foreign trade was reshaped to make India an exporter of raw materials and an importer of British finished goods, producing a large export surplus that fed the drain of Indian wealth rather than benefiting India.
• The demographic profile was poor: low literacy (especially among women), inadequate public health, high mortality (particularly infant mortality), and low life expectancy, with widespread poverty.
• The occupational structure barely changed, with agriculture holding the bulk of the workforce and only slow, regionally uneven movement toward manufacturing and services. …