The Age of Industrialisation – PYQs – Answers

Ans. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, merchants from the towns in Europe began moving to the countryside, supplying money to peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an international market.

Ans. The process in which fibres, such as cotton or wool, are prepared prior to spinning.

Ans. Even before factories began to be set up in England and Europe, there was large-scale industrial production for an international market. This was not based on factories. Rather this was based on cottage industries. This period was referred to as proto-industrialization by the historians. It was successful due to the following reasons:

(i) The peasants had been shut out of village commons due to enclosure movement.

(ii) Now they looked for alternative source of income.

Ans. Affects:

(i) Open fields were disappearing and commons were being enclosed so common people had no alternative sources of income.

(ii) Many had small plots of land which could not provide work for all family members.

(iii) Merchants offered them advances for which they agreed.

(iv) They got a source of income which supplemented their shrinking income from cultivation.

Ans. Cotton textile industry was concentrated in the cotton growing belt in the early years because:

(i) availability of raw cotton – e.g. belt of Maharashtra and Gujarat

(ii) nearness to market

(iii) transport

(iv) port facilities

(v) cheap labour

(vi) moist climate.

Ans. ‘Industrialization gave birth to Imperialism’:

(i) Imperialism was the ill-begotten child of industrialization.

(ii) Other things besides, industrialization chiefly needed two things. One of them being the constant supply of raw-materials and the other is that the finished goods be sold at the same speed.

(iii) The industrialized countries had introduced heavy import duties as protective tariffs to check the import from other countries.

(iv) Faced with the problem of finding new markets for their products, the producer nations chose such countries where industrialization had not yet reached.

(v) Hence, a race for bringing those areas under their effective occupation or effective influence started among the various industrialized nations.

(vi) As a consequence, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, etc. set up their colonies in Asia, Africa, South America, etc. These colonies served their two purpose of being the suppliers of cheap raw materials and any market for their finished goods.

(vii) Hence, a race of bringing those areas under their effective occupation or effective influence started among the various industrialized nations.

Ans. (i) Due to the expansion of world trade, the merchants wanted to expand their production.

(ii) They could create money problem for the merchants in their town.

(iii) Rulers had granted different guilds and the monopoly rights to produce and trade in specific products. So merchants were handicapped in towns.

(iv) Guilds regulated competition and prices.

(v) In the countryside, peasants and artisans were available for work.

Ans. (i) Factories in Manchester began producing cotton textiles for the domestic market.

(ii) The government put more import duties on the textile coming from India to encourage the local industries. Hence, the Indian weavers lost their overseas market.

(iii) Simultaneously, the Manchester goods began flooding the Indian markets also and it became difficult for the Indian weavers to complete with the low cost Manchester cloth.

(iv) The British Government in India also levied more taxes on the handloom units which made the Indian textiles costlier in Indian markets in comparison to the Manchester textiles.

(v) Due to the Civil War in USA the British had to purchase more raw cotton from India for their Manchester textile industries. It created an acute shortage of raw material for the weavers and Indian handloom industry collapsed.

Ans. (i) European leading companies gained power by acquiring trade concessions from local rulers.

(ii) The local trade from the old ports of Surat and Hoogly declined.

(iii) The local bankers slowly became bankrupt.

(iv) By the 1740s the value of trade dropped from Rs 16 million to Rs 3 million.

Ans. (i) By the 1860s, weavers faced a new problem. They could not get sufficient supply of raw cotton of good quality.

(ii) When the American Civil War broke out and cotton supplies from the US were cut off, Britain turned to India.

(iii) As raw cotton exports from India increased, the price of raw cotton shot up. Weavers in India were starved of supplies and forced to buy raw cotton at exorbitant prices. In this situation weavers couldn’t pay.

Ans. (i) The British cotton manufacture began to expand.

(ii) British manufacturers pressurized the Government to restrict cotton imports.

(iii) Manufacturers began to search the overseas markets for selling their cloth.

(iv) Indian textiles faced stiff competition in other international market.

(v) There was a decline in the share of the textile.

(vi) Tariffs were imposed on cloth imports into Britain.

Ans. (i) A vibrant sea trade operated through the main pre-colonial ports.

(ii) Surat on the Gujarat coast connected India with the Gulf and the Red Sea ports.

(iii) Masulipatnam on the Coromandal Coast and Hooghly in Bengal had trade links with the southeast Asian ports.

Ans. Indian cotton weavers faced the following problems in nineteenth century:

(i) Their export market collapsed and the local market shrank, being glutted with Manchester imports. Produced by machines at lower costs, the imported cotton goods were so cheap that weavers could not easily compete with them.

(ii) By the 1860s, they could not get the sufficient supply of raw cotton of good quality. When the American Civil War broke out and cotton supplies from the US were cut off, Britain turned to India. As raw cotton export from India increased, the price of raw cotton shot up. Weavers in India were starved of supplies and forced to buy raw cotton at exorbitant prices. In this situation weaving could not pay.

(iii) By the end of the nineteenth century, weavers and other craftsmen faced yet another problem. Factories in India began to production, flooding the market with machine goods.

Ans. (i) Earlier the gomasthas lived within the weaving villages and had a close relationship with the weavers. They helped the weavers in times of crisis

(ii) The new gomasthas were outsider, unfamiliar and arrogant.

(iii) They marched into the villages with Sepoys and Peons.

(iv) They often punished the weavers for delay in supply.

(v) The weavers could not bargain or demand for higher price because they were tied with the system of advance.

(vi) The price the weavers received was very low, so some weavers left their jobs and migrated to neighbouring villages.

(vii) Some weavers opposed the Company and its officials and revolted against them.

(viii) Many weavers closed down their workshops and started working as agricultural labours

Ans. (i) The East India Company tried to eliminate the existing traders and appointed ‘Gomasthas’ as supervisors.

(ii) The system of advances was introduced to have a direct control over the weavers.

Impact:

(i) Weavers devoted entire time to weaving.

(ii) They have forced to accept the prices fixed by the company.

(iii) There were reports of clashes of weavers with gomasthas.

Ans. Indian trade played a crucial role in the late 19th century world economy. British manufacturers flooded the Indian market. Foodgrain and raw material exports from India to British and the rest of the world increased. But the value of British exports to India was much higher than much higher than the value of British imports from India. Thus, Britain had a trade surplus with India.

 Britain used this surplus to balance its trade deficits with other countries that is, with countries from which Britain was importing more than it was selling to. By helping Britain balance its deficits, India played a crucial role in the late-19th century world economy. Britain’s trade surplus in India also helped pay the so-called ‘home charges’ that included private remittances home by British officials and traders, interest payments on India’s external debt and pensions of British officials in India.

Ans. Through the following ways British manufactures attempted to take over the Indian market—

 (i) They securing a variety of concessions from local courts, then the monopoly rights to trade. This resulted is decline of old ports of Surat and Hoogly and exports from these ports fell down and the local bankers slowly went bankrupt.

(ii) Bombay and Calcutta grew as new ports and trade through these new ports came to be controlled by British or some other European companies.

(iii) The British developed a system of management and control that would eliminate competition, control costs, and ensure regular supplies of cotton and silk goods.

(iv) Manchester imported the cotton textiles at lower costs, consequently the imported cotton goods were so cheap that local merchants could not easily complete with then.

(v) The factories established by British started the production, flooding the market with machine goods at cheap price.

Ans. (i) The jobber was an old and trusted worker, employed by the industrialist.

(ii) He got people from the villages, ensured them jobs.

(iii) He helped the workers to settle in the cities.

(iv) He provided them money in the times of crisis. He was a person with some power and authority

Functions

(i) The jobber got people from his village.

(ii) He ensured them jobs.

(iii) He helped the workers to settle in the cities.

(iv) He provided money in times of crisis.

Ans. Jobber was employed to get new recruits for the factories or industrialists.

The jobber misused his position and power in the following ways:

(i) Initially jobber cured people from the village ensuring them jobs. He also helped them settle in the city and lent them money in the times of crisis.

(ii) Gradually, jobbers got position and power.

(iii) They started demanding money and gifts for all the favours.

(iv) They also started to control the lives of the workers.

(v) Jobbers got people from his own village and restricted entries of others in the mills

Ans. Series of changes affected the pattern of industrialisation in India by the earth twentieth century. Some of these changes were: In the early twentieth century the growth of nationalism resulted in Indians moving towards Swadeshi and boycotting foreign cloth. Industrialists pressurised the government to safeguard their interests. The number of industries in India was increased after the two world wars. During the wars, the mills and factories in Britain were busy producing leather gods, bags, uniforms etc. for the wars. Imports into India increased. Now, Indian industrialists were left to supply to the Indian markets. New industries were established. Like USA and Japan Britain could not compete with the emerging economics after the two world wars. Indian exports to Britain also fell with the collapse of the British economy. Now the newly established industries in India had to observe for newer domestic and industrial markets and consolidate their position.

Ans. The history of many business groups goes back to trade with China. From the late eighteenth century, the British in India began exporting opium to China and took tea from China to England. Many Indians became junior players in this trade, providing finance, procuring supplies, and shipping consignments. Having earned through trade, some of these businessmen had visions of developing industrial enterprises in India. In Bengal, Dwarkanath Tagore made his fortune in the China trade before he turned to industrial investment, setting up six joint-stock companies in the 1830s and 1840s. Tagore’s enterprises sank along with those of others in the wider business crises of the 1840s, but later in the nineteenth century many of the China traders became successful industrialists. In Bombay, Parsis like Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata who built huge industrial empires in India, accumulated their initial wealth partly from exports to China, and partly from raw cotton shipments to England. Seth Hukumchand, a Marwari businessman who set up the first Indian jute mill in Calcutta in 1917, also traded with China. So did the father as well as grandfather of the famous industrialist G.D. Birla.

Ans.The workers were traditional craft-persons because –

(i) The large portion of the textile was produced within domestic units, not within factories.

(ii) In Britain, 500 varieties of hammers and 45 kinds of axes were produced. These required human skill not mechanical technology.

(iii) The rich people, aristocrats preferred things produced by hand, which symbolised refinement and class.

(iv) Handmade products were better finished, individually produced and carefully designed.

(v) So even the most powerful new technology that enhanced the productivity of labour manifold was slow to be accepted by industrialists.

Ans. (i) The First World War created a dramatically new situation. Till then industrial production had been slow.

(ii) British mills were busy with war production to meet the needs of the army. Manchester imports into India declined.

(iii) Indian mills now had a vast home market for supply.

(iv) As the war prolonged, Indian factories were called upon to supply war needs, jute bags, cloth for army uniforms, tents, leather boots, horse and mule saddlers and many other items.

(v) Many workers were employed as new factories were set up and old ones ran in multiple shifts.

(vi) Over the war years, industrial production boomed Manchester was unable to capture its old position in the Indian market after the war. Cotton production collapsed and export of cotton cloth from Britain fell dramatically.

Ans. (i) The early industrialists avoided a direct competition with the British factories.

(ii) The cotton mills started to produce coarse cotton yarn and this was exported to China.

(iii) As Swadeshi Movement gathered momentum industrialist pressurised government to increase tariff protection.

(iv) Exports to China declined and domestic markets were taken over by China.

(v) During the First World War, the British Government called upon the Indian mills to produce goods such as jute bags boots, etc. for the British Army.

(vi) As the war prolonged, England could not capture the Indian markets.

Ans. (i) Advertisements play a very vital role in the marketing of any product. One way in which new consumers are created is through advertisements.

(ii) Advertisements make products appear desirable and necessary.

(iii) They try to shape the minds of the people and create new needs.

(iv) Today, we live in a world where advertisements surround us. They appear in the newspapers, magazines, hoardings street wall, and television screens.

(v) From the very beginning of the industrial age; advertisements have played a part in expanding the markets for products and in shaping a new consumer culture.

Ans. (i) The Manchester made cloth carried a label with ‘Made in Manchester’ written in bold. This assured the buyers of the quality of the cloth.

(ii) The British manufacturers used images of Indian Gods and Goddesses on the labels. It symbolised the divine approval for the commodity. It also created familiarity with the Indian buyers.

(iii) Manufacturers got calenders printed with the images of Gods and the advertisement of their products advertisements make products appear desirable and necessary. The calendars were seen on the walls of hotels, tea shops, households, etc. These are used even by people who could not read.

(iv) Images of historical characters and heroes from the past were also displayed on calendars thus sending the message that the product was as worthy of respect as were these respectable characters.

(v) The Indian manufacturers printed the image of Bharat Mata and a nationalist message on the labels. They also printed ‘Made in India’ on the labels thus appealing to the nationalist sentiments. Most of the body products carried the image of Lord Krishna to appeal to the religious sentiments