For much of the human history, Asian countries like India and China together accounted for over 50% of worlds GDP. In particular India with its fertile lands is seen as land of riches. But, how come such a rich country is enslaved by Europeans, which fall behind India in every indicator till 1700. In this article I want to share my views based on what I read and understood.
Requirement
For millennia there was a high demand of Indian made goods like textiles, spices and Jewelry in Europe. For this, Europeans have a requirement to have trade ties with India but not the other way around. Again that doesn't mean that there are no Indian traders. Indian traders at that time navigated across seas from China in the east to Europe in the west and traded goods. They moved their goods in large Indian made ships. There are records of Indians building huge ships before(Navy of Marathas, Cholas and Rastrakutas are a few examples). But, at that point the major requirement is for Europeans to have trade ties with India. Europe desperately tried to find sea route to India but not the other way. This requirement helped them to find new unknown lands like America which brought them great riches. They even called native American's as Indians as the sea route they are actually looking to find is to India.
Industrialization
The needs and requirements for Europe, especially British led to industrialization of Europe. New industry and machinery made everything really fast, efficient and cheap. Now, they don't need skilled work produced by Indian's. But, they only need the raw material. This led to rapid deindustrialization of India while Europe is getting industrialized. The reason for this is not that Indians are bad with innovation or adopting new technologies. But, the real reason is the political instability and lack of support at that precise time. In addition to that, the discriminative policies adopted by British by adding extra charges on Indian made goods and made them less attractive in world market. They were able to make the famous Indian goods till 18th century as obsolete goods.
Timing
India till then attracted many foreign kings on its west side due to its riches. This happened every time when a large empire goes down and consolidation of power didn't happen yet. The time when East India company made early gains in 1757 is one such time. Due to the policies brought by Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb, there is a huge rebellion across India and the Moghul's are not in a position of real power any more. Maratha in the West, Deccan sultanate in the south, Bengal sultanate in the East are in fight with each other for dominance. While Marathas looks winning at that time, their sudden loss to Durrani's of Afghanistan has greatly weakened Marathas. This is a perfect timing for British East India Company with their mercenaries, to capture one Indian kingdom at a time by playing good cop bad cop and finally establish themselves as undisputed leaders controlling whole country either directly or through vassal kingdoms.
Conclusion
The combination of all these 3 factors resulted in rapid colonization of India and also resulted in a study decline of India's wealth.
Below is an informational video(around 15minutes) which touches this topic further.
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