Limited Industrial Development, Colonial Infrastructure and the Drain of Wealth

It would be inaccurate to say that no modern industry developed in India under British rule. A small number of modern industries did emerge — most notably cotton textile mills (concentrated in and around Bombay) and jute mills (concentrated in and around Calcutta), and later, in the early twentieth century, iron and steel production. However, this industrial development was narrow and lopsided rather than broad-based: it was concentrated in a few sectors and a few regions, was often financed and controlled by British capital, and grew mainly to serve commercial interests connected to Britain (for example, jute mills processing raw jute largely for export) rather than as part of a deliberate, balanced strategy of Indian industrialisation covering many sectors and regions.

Infrastructure development followed a similar colonial logic. The British did build a substantial railway network across India, along with ports and some irrigation works, and these are sometimes cited as a positive colonial legacy. But the design and location of this infrastructure reveals its real purpose: railway lines were laid out chiefly to connect raw-material-producing regions in the interior to port cities, from which raw materials could be shipped to Britain and finished British goods could be distributed back into the interior. The network was not primarily planned around the needs of Indian industry or the convenience of the Indian population; it was planned around the logistics of colonial trade. …