Economic Impact of Imperialism in India Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Economic Impact of Imperialism in India - Essay Example Britain applied the most complex methods to abuse India's vast rich economic reserves. 200 years later of the British control India's economic set up was completely shattered. India in 1947 was a picture of economic underdevelopment with hunger, poverty; low national income etc. Indian agriculture had been cared for by the East India Company. This was chiefly because the major generators of state income were land revenue. Apart from this, the British government wanted to make India as its agricultural base. Since agricultural produce from India could make available cheap raw materials to industrial England. The Company tried a variety of experiments to make the most of the land revenue by falling back to the technique of domination and suppression of the peasants. The system of farming and collecting land revenue became obsolete. Cornwallis introduced the 'Permanent Settlement' which is nothing but a system of collecting land Revenue in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa in the year 1793. Following decision makers brought in the Ryotwari system in the Bombay Presidency and it was introduced in most parts of the Madras Presidency. The Mahalwari system showed exceedingly ravaging in the part of Uttar Pradesh. The Zamindary system promoted absentee landlordism. It final ly produced a host of mediators between the state and the cultivator. This complex system of land revenue created a group of moneylenders. These money lenders, in turn, oppressed the poor peasants by lending them at high interests. The poor cultivators could not repay those high interests and finally submitted their lands to those moneylenders. As a result, famine was the common feature of the time. Indian industries bore maximum atrocities under the British domination. The authority and wide-ranging sale of the Indian handicraft in Europe was aimed at the commercial interests of the Company. The Whig governments during the early years of the 18th century enforced heavy duties on Indians textiles imports in Britain. At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Indian markets were opened to the British for free trade. The British government was now allowed for British machine-made goods to be poured in India duty-free or at minimum cost only. A policy of one-way free trade was also introduced in India which made the Indian handicrafts lose its market. This brought about a great wretchedness to a key section of Indian population.