UPSC Prelims 2020 Question:

Which of the following statements correctly explains the impact of Industrial Revolution on India during the first half of the nineteenth century?

Explanation:

• During the first half of the nineteenth century, colonial India experienced deindustrialization as a result of colonial rule of Britishers. Decay of India's traditional cottage and handicraft industries was a direct result of the English industrial revolution and colonisation of India.
  
  
• In the first part of the nineteenth century, the Indian textile industry did not see a significant introduction of machines. In contrast, modern textile mills with foreign technology began to emerge in Bombay, Ahmedabad, and Calcutta in the 1850s. Only following World War I did Indian industrialization begin to advance quickly.
  
  
• The first railway line in India was laid between Bombay and Thane in 1853. Railway expansion was relatively slow even till mid-1860. Only in the latter half of the 19th century that Railway expansion gathered space in India.
  
  
• The one-way free trade policy of the colonial economy allowed for the very cheap import of British goods into India. 
  
  

Therefore, option (1) is the correct answer.

Subject: History | Miscellaneous(hist)