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India was the one of the largest economies in the world, for about two and a half millennia starting around the end of 1st millennium BC and ending around the beginning of
British rule in India The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...
. Around 500 BC, the
Mahajanapadas The Mahājanapadas ( sa, great realm, from ''maha'', "great", and ''janapada'' "foothold of a people") were sixteen kingdoms or oligarchic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE during the second urba ...
minted punch-marked silver coins. The period was marked by intensive trade activity and urban development. By 300 BC, the
Maurya Empire The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...
had united most of the Indian subcontinent including
Tamilakam Tamiḻakam (Tamil: தமிழகம்; Malayalam: തമിഴകം), refers to the geographical region inhabited by the ancient Tamil people, covering the southernmost region of the Indian subcontinent. Tamilakam covered today's Tamil Nad ...
, which was ruled by Three Crowned Kings. The resulting political unity and military security allowed for a common economic system and enhanced trade and commerce, with increased agricultural productivity. The Maurya Empire was followed by classical and early medieval kingdoms, including the
Cholas The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE d ...
, Pandyas, Cheras,
Guptas The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gold ...
,
Western Gangas Western Ganga was an important ruling dynasty of ancient Karnataka in India which lasted from about 350 to 1000 CE. They are known as "Western Gangas" to distinguish them from the Eastern Gangas who in later centuries ruled over Kalinga (m ...
,
Harsha Harshavardhana ( IAST Harṣa-vardhana; c. 590–647 CE) was a Pushyabhuti emperor who ruled northern India from 606 to 647 CE. He was the son of Prabhakaravardhana who had defeated the Alchon Huna invaders, and the younger brother of Rajy ...
,
Palas A ''palas'' () is a German term for the imposing or prestigious building of a medieval '' Pfalz'' or castle that contained the great hall. Such buildings appeared during the Romanesque period (11th to 13th century) and, according to Thompson ...
,
Rashtrakutas Rashtrakuta ( IAST: ') (r. 753-982 CE) was a royal Indian dynasty ruling large parts of the Indian subcontinent between the sixth and 10th centuries. The earliest known Rashtrakuta inscription is a 7th-century copper plate grant detailing the ...
and
Hoysalas The Hoysala Empire was a Kannadiga power originating from the Indian subcontinent that ruled most of what is now Karnataka between the 10th and the 14th centuries. The capital of the Hoysalas was initially located at Belur, but was later moved ...
. The
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...
had the largest economy of any region in the world for most of the interval between the 1st and 18th centuries. Maddison, Angus (2003):
Development Centre Studies The World Economy Historical Statistics: Historical Statistics
',
OECD Publishing The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
, , p. 261
Until 1000 AD, it was a
subsistence economy A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...
with
GDP per capita Lists of countries by GDP per capita list the countries in the world by their gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The lists may be based on nominal or purchasing power parity GDP. Gross national income (GNI) per capita accounts for inflo ...
just above
subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...
level, and with no GDP growth between 1 and 1000 AD. India experienced per-capita
GDP growth Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of ...
in the
high medieval The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 15 ...
era, coinciding with the
Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).
in the north and the
Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana and Mahar ...
in the south. By the late 17th century, most of the Indian subcontinent had been reunited under the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
, which for a time became the largest economy and manufacturing power in the world, producing about a quarter of global GDP, before fragmenting and being conquered over the next century.
Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...
, the empire's wealthiest province, that solely accounted for 40% of Dutch imports outside the west, had an advanced, productive
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
,
textile manufacturing Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...
and
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...
, in a period of proto-industrialization. By the 18th century, the Mysoreans had embarked on an ambitious economic development program that established the
Kingdom of Mysore The Kingdom of Mysore was a realm in South India, southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. From 1799 until 1950, it was a princely state, until 1947 in a subsidiary allia ...
as a major economic power. Sivramkrishna analyzing agricultural surveys conducted in Mysore by Francis Buchanan in 1800-1801, arrived at estimates, using "subsistence basket", that aggregated millet income could be almost five times subsistence level. The
Maratha Empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Sh ...
also managed an effective administration and tax collection policy throughout the core areas under its control and extracted
chauth Chauth (from Sanskrit, meaning ''one fourth'') was a regular tax or tribute imposed from the early 18th century by the Maratha Empire in the Indian subcontinent. It was an annual tax nominally levied at 25% on revenue or produce, hence the name, ...
from
vassal state A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back t ...
s. India experienced deindustrialisation and cessation of various craft industries under British rule, which along with fast economic and population growth in the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
, resulted in India's share of the world economy declining from 24.4% in 1700 to 4.2% in 1950, and its share of global industrial output declining from 25% in 1750 to 2% in 1900. Due to its ancient history as a trading zone and later its colonial status,
colonial India Colonial India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was occupied by European colonial powers during the Age of Discovery. European power was exerted both by conquest and trade, especially in spices. The search for the wealth and prospe ...
remained economically integrated with the world, with high levels of trade, investment and migration. The
Republic of India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, founded in 1947, adopted
central planning A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, pa ...
for most of its independent history, with extensive public ownership, regulation,
red tape Red tape is an idiom referring to regulations or conformity to formal rules or standards which are claimed to be excessive, rigid or redundant, or to bureaucracy claimed to hinder or prevent action or decision-making. It is usually applied to ...
and
trade barrier Trade barriers are government-induced restrictions on international trade. According to the theory of comparative advantage, trade barriers are detrimental to the world economy and decrease overall economic efficiency. Most trade barriers work o ...
s. After the 1991 economic crisis, the central government began policy of economic liberalisation.


Summary of Indian GDP (1-1947 AD)

From the 1st century AD to the start of British colonisation in India in the 17th century, India's GDP was between about 25 and 35% of the world's total GDP, Maddison, Angus (2003):
Development Centre Studies The World Economy Historical Statistics: Historical Statistics
',
OECD Publishing The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
, , pages 257-261
which dropped to 2% by
Independence of India The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged from Bengal. ...
in 1947. At the same time, the Britain's share of the world economy rose from 2.9% in 1700 up to 9% in 1870 alone, due to industrialisation.


Indus Valley Civilization

The
Indus Valley civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300  BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900& ...
, the first known permanent and predominantly urban settlement, flourished between 3500 BCE and 1800 BCE. It featured an advanced and thriving economic system. Its citizens practised
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
,
domesticated Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. A ...
animals, made sharp tools and weapons from
copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...
,
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...
and tin, and traded with other cities. Evidence of well-laid streets, drainage systems and water supply in the valley's major cities,
Dholavira Dholavira ( gu, ધોળાવીરા) is an archaeological site at Khadirbet in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District, in the state of Gujarat in western India, which has taken its name from a modern-day village south of it. This village is ...
,
Harappa Harappa (; Urdu/ pnb, ) is an archaeological site in Punjab, Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The Bronze Age Harappan civilisation, now more often called the Indus Valley Civilisation, is named after the site, which takes its name from a ...
,
Lothal Lothal () was one of the southernmost sites of the ancient Indus Valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt. Construction of the city is believed to have begun around 2200 BCE. Archaeological Survey of ...
,
Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Rakhigarhi Rakhigarhi or Rakhi Garhi is a village and an archaeological site belonging to the Indus Valley civilisation in Hisar District of the northern Indian state of Haryana, situated about 150 km northwest of Delhi. It was part of the mature ...
, reveals their knowledge of
urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
.


Ancient and medieval characteristics

Although ancient India had a significant urban population, much of India's population resided in villages, whose economies were largely isolated and self-sustaining. Agriculture was the predominant occupation and satisfied a village's food requirements while providing raw materials for hand-based industries such as textile, food processing and crafts. Besides farmers, people worked as barbers, carpenters, doctors ( Ayurvedic practitioners), goldsmiths and weavers.


Religion

Religion played an influential role in shaping economic activities.
Pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
towns like
Prayagraj Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the admini ...
,
Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...
,
Nasik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nash ...
and
Puri Puri () is a coastal city and a municipality in the state of Odisha in eastern India. It is the district headquarters of Puri district and is situated on the Bay of Bengal, south of the state capital of Bhubaneswar. It is also known as '' ...
, mostly centred around rivers, developed into centres of trade and commerce. Religious functions, festivals and the practice of taking a pilgrimage resulted in an early version of the hospitality industry. Economics in
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle bein ...
is influenced by
Mahavira Mahavira (Sanskrit: महावीर) also known as Vardhaman, was the 24th ''tirthankara'' (supreme preacher) of Jainism. He was the spiritual successor of the 23rd ''tirthankara'' Parshvanatha. Mahavira was born in the early part of the 6 ...
and his philosophy. He was the last of the 24
Tirthankars In Jainism, a ''Tirthankara'' (Sanskrit: '; English: literally a 'ford-maker') is a saviour and spiritual teacher of the ''dharma'' (righteous path). The word ''tirthankara'' signifies the founder of a '' tirtha'', which is a fordable passag ...
, who spread Jainism. Relating to economics, he emphasised the importance of the concept of '
anekanta ( hi, अनेकान्तवाद, "many-sidedness") is the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects. According to Jainism, ...
' (
non-absolutism ( hi, अनेकान्तवाद, "many-sidedness") is the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects. According to Jainism, ...
).


Family business

In the joint family system, members of a family pooled their resources to maintain the family and invest in business ventures. The system ensured younger members were trained and employed and that older and disabled members would be supported. The system prevented agricultural land from splitting with each generation, aiding yield from the benefits of scale. Such sanctions curbed rivalry in junior members and instilled a sense of obedience.


Organisational entities

Along with the family- and individually-owned businesses, ancient India possessed other forms of engaging in collective activity, including the
gana The word (; Sanskrit: गण) in Sanskrit and Pali means "flock, troop, multitude, number, tribe, category, series, or class". It can also be used to refer to a "body of attendants" and can refer to "a company, any assemblage or association of ...
, pani, puga,
vrata Vrata is a Sanskrit word that means "vow, resolve, devotion", and refers to pious observances such as fasting and pilgrimage ( Tirtha) found in Indian religions such as Jainism and Hinduism. It is typically accompanied with prayers seeking h ...
,
sangha Sangha is a Sanskrit word used in many Indian languages, including Pali meaning "association", "assembly", "company" or "community"; Sangha is often used as a surname across these languages. It was historically used in a political context t ...
, nigama and
Shreni In Ancient India, a shreni ( sa, श्रेणि, śreṇi or , Prakrit: ) was an association of traders, merchants, and artisans. Generally, a separate shreni existed for a particular group of persons engaged in the same vocation or activity. ...
. Nigama, pani and Shreni refer most often to economic organisations of merchants, craftspeople and artisans, and perhaps even para-military entities. In particular, the Shreni shared many similarities with modern corporations, which were used in India from around the 8th century BC until around the 10th century AD. The use of such entities in ancient India was widespread, including in virtually every kind of business, political and municipal activity. The Shreni was a separate legal entity that had the ability to hold property separately from its owners, construct its own rules for governing the behaviour of its members and for it to contract, sue and be sued in its own name. Ancient sources such as ''
Laws of Manu The ''Manusmṛiti'' ( sa, मनुस्मृति), also known as the ''Mānava-Dharmaśāstra'' or Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitution among the many ' of Hinduism. In ancient India, the sages often wrote the ...
'' VIII and
Chanakya Chanakya ( Sanskrit: चाणक्य; IAST: ', ; 375–283 BCE) was an ancient Indian polymath who was active as a teacher, author, strategist, philosopher, economist, jurist, and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauṭi ...
's ''
Arthashastra The ''Arthashastra'' ( sa, अर्थशास्त्रम्, ) is an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, political science, economic policy and military strategy. Kautilya, also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya, is ...
'' provided rules for
lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...
s between two or more Shreni and some sources make reference to a government official (''Bhandagarika'') who worked as an arbitrator for disputes amongst Shreni from at least the 6th century BC onwards.''
Jataka The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...
'' IV.
Between 18 and 150 Shreni at various times in ancient India covered both trading and craft activities. This level of specialisation is indicative of a developed economy in which the Shreni played a critical role. Some Shreni had over 1,000 members. The Shreni had a considerable degree of centralised management. The headman of the Shreni represented the interests of the Shreni in the king's court and in many business matters. The headman could bind the Shreni in contracts, set work conditions, often received higher compensation and was the administrative authority. The headman was often selected via an election by the members of the Shreni, and could also be removed from power by the general assembly. The headman often ran the enterprise with two to five
executive officer An executive officer is a person who is principally responsible for leading all or part of an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. In many militaries and police forces, an executive officer, o ...
s, also elected by the assembly.


Coinage

Punch marked silver
ingots An ingot is a piece of relatively pure material, usually metal, that is cast into a shape suitable for further processing. In steelmaking, it is the first step among semi-finished casting products. Ingots usually require a second procedure of s ...
were in circulation around the 5th century BC. They were the first metallic
coins A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...
minted around the 6th century BC by the
Mahajanapadas The Mahājanapadas ( sa, great realm, from ''maha'', "great", and ''janapada'' "foothold of a people") were sixteen kingdoms or oligarchic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE during the second urba ...
of the
Gangetic plains The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the North Indian River Plain, is a fertile plain encompassing northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, including most of northern and eastern India, around half of Pakistan, virtually all of Ba ...
and were India's earliest traces of
coinage Coinage may refer to: * Coins, standardized as currency * Neologism, coinage of a new word * '' COINage'', numismatics magazine * Tin coinage, a tax on refined tin * Protologism ''Protologism'' is a term coined in 2003 by the American literary ...
. While India's many kingdoms and rulers issued coins,
barter In trade, barter (derived from ''baretor'') is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. Economists disti ...
was still widely prevalent. Villages paid a portion of their crops as revenue while its craftsmen received a stipend out of the crops for their services. Each village was mostly self-sufficient.


Maurya Empire

During the
Maurya Empire The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...
(c. 321–185 BC), important changes and developments affected the Indian economy. It was the first time most of India was unified under one ruler. With an empire in place, trade routes became more secure. The empire spent considerable resources building and maintaining roads. The improved infrastructure, combined with increased security, greater uniformity in measurements, and increasing usage of coins as currency, enhanced trade. During this time India's share is estimated to have been from 32% to 35% of the world economy. ; West Coast Maritime trade was carried out extensively between
South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union terr ...
and
Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
and
West Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes ...
from early times until around the 14th century AD. Both the Malabar and
Coromandel Coast The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of the Indian subcontinent, bounded by the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west, extending over an ...
s were the sites of important trading centres from as early as the 1st century BC, used for import and export as well as transit points between the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
region and southeast Asia. Over time, traders organised themselves into associations which received state patronage. Historians Tapan Raychaudhuri and
Irfan Habib Irfan Habib (born August 10, 1931) is an Indian historian of ancient and medieval India, following the methodology of Marxist historiography in his contributions to economic history. He identifies as a Marxist and is well known for his strong ...
claim this state patronage for overseas trade came to an end by the 13th century AD, when it was largely taken over by the local Parsi, Jewish, Syrian Christian and Muslim communities, initially on the Malabar and subsequently on the Coromandel coast.


Silk Route

Other scholars suggest trading from India to West Asia and Eastern Europe was active between the 14th and 18th centuries. During this period, Indian traders settled in Surakhani, a suburb of greater
Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world an ...
, Azerbaijan. These traders built a
Hindu temple A Hindu temple, or ''mandir'' or ''koil'' in Indian languages, is a house, seat and body of divinity for Hindus. It is a structure designed to bring human beings and gods together through worship, sacrifice, and devotion.; Quote: "The Hin ...
, which suggests commerce was active and prosperous for Indians by the 17th century. Further north, the Saurashtra and
Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
coasts played an important role in maritime trade, and the
Gangetic plains The Indo-Gangetic Plain, also known as the North Indian River Plain, is a fertile plain encompassing northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, including most of northern and eastern India, around half of Pakistan, virtually all of Ba ...
and the
Indus valley The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
housed several centres of river-borne commerce. Most overland trade was carried out via the
Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass (خیبر درہ) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by traversing p ...
connecting the
Punjab region Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
with Afghanistan and onward to the Middle East and Central Asia. Although many kingdoms and rulers issued coins,
barter In trade, barter (derived from ''baretor'') is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. Economists disti ...
was prevalent. Villages paid a portion of their agricultural produce as revenue to the rulers, while their craftsmen received a part of the crops at harvest time for their services.


Delhi Sultanate

Before and during the
Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).
(1206–1526 AD), Islam underlay a
cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...
civilization. It offered wide-ranging international networks, including social and economic networks. They spanned large parts of
Afro-Eurasia Afro-Eurasia (also Afroeurasia, Eurafrasia or the Old World) is a landmass comprising the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The terms are compound words of the names of its constituent parts. Its mainland is the largest and most popul ...
, leading to escalating circulation of goods, people, technologies and ideas. While initially disruptive, the Delhi Sultanate was responsible for integrating the Indian subcontinent into a growing world system. The period coincided with greater use of mechanical technology in the Indian subcontinent. From the 13th century onwards, India began adopting some mechanical technologies from the
Islamic world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, including
gear A gear is a rotating circular machine part having cut teeth or, in the case of a cogwheel or gearwheel, inserted teeth (called ''cogs''), which mesh with another (compatible) toothed part to transmit (convert) torque and speed. The basic ...
s and
pulley A pulley is a wheel on an axle or shaft that is designed to support movement and change of direction of a taut cable or belt, or transfer of power between the shaft and cable or belt. In the case of a pulley supported by a frame or shell that ...
s, machines with cams and cranks. The
worm gear A worm drive is a gear arrangement in which a worm (which is a gear in the form of a screw) meshes with a worm wheel (which is similar in appearance to a spur gear). The two elements are also called the worm screw and worm gear. The terminol ...
roller
cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...
was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the 13th and 14th centuries, and is still used in India through to the present day. The incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin first appeared in the Indian subcontinent some time during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
. The production of
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
, which may have largely been spun in the villages and then taken to towns in the form of yarn to be woven into cloth
textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, different #Fabric, fabric types, etc. At f ...
s, was advanced by the diffusion of the spinning wheel across India during the Delhi Sultanate era, lowering the costs of yarn and helping to increase demand for cotton. The increasing use of the spinning wheel, and the incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin, led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production.


GDP estimates

According to economic historian
Angus Maddison Angus Maddison (6 December 1926 – 24 April 2010) was a distinguished British economist specialising in quantitative macro economic history, including the measurement and analysis of economic growth and development. Maddison lectured at sev ...
in ''Contours of the world economy, 1–2030 AD: essays in macro-economic history'', the Indian subcontinent was the world's most productive region, from 1 AD to 1600.


Mughal Empire

Economy in the Indian Subcontinent performed just as it did in ancient times, though now it would face the stress of extensive regional tensions. Parthasarathi estimated that 28,000 tonnes of bullion (mainly from the New World) flowed into the Indian subcontinent between 1600 and 1800, equating to 30% of the world's production in the period. An estimate of the annual income of Emperor
Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
's treasury in 1600 is $90 million (in contrast to the tax take of
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...
two hundred years later in 1800, which totaled $90 million). The South Asia region was estimated to be the largest in the world in economic terms in 1600, followed by China. During the time of Akbar, the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
was at its peak as it controlled the vast region of North India and had entered into alliances with the Deccan states. It enforced a uniform customs and tax-administration system. In 1700, the exchequer of the Emperor
Aurangzeb Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...
reported an annual revenue of more than £100 million, or $450 million, more than ten times that of his contemporary
Louis XIV of France , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of ...
, while controlling just seven times the
population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction usi ...
. By 1700, the Indian Subcontinent had become the world's largest economy, ahead of
Qing China The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...
and
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
, containing approximately 24.2% of the world's population, and producing about a quarter of world output. India produced about 25% of global industrial output into the early 18th century. India's GDP growth increased under the Mughal Empire, exceeding growth in the prior 1,500 years. The Mughals were responsible for building an extensive
road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types o ...
system, creating a uniform
currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general ...
, and the unification of the country. The Mughals adopted and standardized the
rupee Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, ...
currency introduced by Sur Emperor
Sher Shah Suri Sher Shah Suri ( ps, شیرشاه سوری) (1472, or 1486 – 22 May 1545), born Farīd Khān ( ps, فرید خان) , was the founder of the Sur Empire in India, with its capital in Sasaram in modern-day Bihar. He standardized the silver coin ...
. The Mughals minted tens of millions of coins, with purity of at least 96%, without debasement until the 1720s. The empire met global demand for Indian agricultural and industrial products. Cities and towns boomed under the Mughal Empire, which had a relatively high degree of
urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly th ...
, with up to 15% of its population living in towns (estimates vary), more than in Europe at the time and
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
in the 19th century. Several cities had a population between a quarter of a million and half a million, while some including
Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra ...
(in Agra Subah) hosted up to 800,000 people and
Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest ...
(in
Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...
) with over 1 million by some accounts. Shireen Moosvi estimates that 36% of the
workforce The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic reg ...
were in the 36% were in the
secondary Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...
and
tertiary sector The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the second ...
s, a higher percentage in non-primary sectors than Europe at the time where 65–75% have been estimated to have been engaged in agriculture in 1750.


Agriculture

Indian
agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...
production increased. Food crops included
wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
,
rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
, and
barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...
, while non-food
cash crop A cash crop or profit crop is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") in subsist ...
s included
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
,
indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', ...
and
opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy '' Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which ...
. By the mid-17th century, Indian cultivators had begun to extensively grow two crops from the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...
,
maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
and
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
.
Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
peasants learned techniques of
mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 ident ...
cultivation and
sericulture Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, '' Bombyx mori'' (the caterpillar of the domestic silkmoth) is the most widely used and intensively stud ...
, establishing
Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...
as a major
silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from th ...
-producing region. Agriculture was advanced compared to Europe, exemplified by the earlier common use of the seed drill. The Mughal administration emphasized
agrarian reform Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land (see land reform) or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land ...
, which began under the non-Mughal Emperor Sher Shah Suri.
Akbar Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
adopted this and added more reforms. The Mughal government funded the building of
irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...
systems, which produced much higher
crop yield In agriculture, the yield is a measurement of the amount of a crop grown, or product such as wool, meat or milk produced, per unit area of land. The seed ratio is another way of calculating yields. Innovations, such as the use of fertilizer, the c ...
s and harvests. One reform introduced by Akbar was a new land revenue system called ''zabt''. He replaced the
tribute A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of land which the state conq ...
system with a monetary tax system based on a uniform currency. The revenue system was biased in favour of higher value cash crops such as cotton, indigo,
sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus '' Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalk ...
, tree-crops, and opium, providing state incentives to grow cash crops, adding to rising market demand. Under the ''zabt'' system, the Mughals conducted extensive
cadastral surveying Cadastral surveying is the sub-field of cadastre and surveying that specialises in the establishment and re-establishment of real property boundaries. It involves the physical delineation of property boundaries and determination of dimensions, area ...
to assess the cultivated area. The Mughal state encouraged greater land cultivation by offering tax-free periods to those who brought new land under cultivation. According to evidence cited by economic historians
Immanuel Wallerstein Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his wo ...
,
Irfan Habib Irfan Habib (born August 10, 1931) is an Indian historian of ancient and medieval India, following the methodology of Marxist historiography in his contributions to economic history. He identifies as a Marxist and is well known for his strong ...
,
Percival Spear Thomas George Percival Spear (1901–1982) was a British historian of modern South Asia, in particular of its colonial period. He taught at both Cambridge University and St. Stephen's College, Delhi. Personal life and education Born in B ...
, and Ashok Desai, per-capita agricultural output and standards of consumption in 17th-century
Mughal India The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
was higher than in 17th-century Europe and early 20th-century British India.


Manufacturing

Until the 18th century, Mughal India was one of the most important
manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...
centers in
international trade International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy) In most countries, such trade represents a significa ...
. Key industries included
textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, different #Fabric, fabric types, etc. At f ...
s,
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...
and
steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...
. Processed products included cotton textiles,
yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manu ...
s, thread,
silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from th ...
,
jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is '' Corchorus ol ...
products, metalware, and foods such as
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or do ...
,
oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
s and
butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condim ...
. This growth of manufacturing has been seen as a form of proto-industrialization, similar to 18th-century
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
prior to the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
.
Early modern Europe Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the late 15th century to the late 18th century. Histor ...
imported products from Mughal India, particularly cotton textiles,
spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices a ...
s, peppers,
indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', ...
, silks and
saltpeter Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . This alkali metal nitrate Salt (chemistry), salt is also known as Indian saltpetre (large deposits of which were historically mined in India). It is an ionic salt of potassium ...
(for use in
munitions Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weap ...
). European fashion, for example, became increasingly dependent on Indian textiles and silks. From the late 17th century to the early 18th century, Mughal India accounted for 95% of British imports from
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
, and the
Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...
province alone accounted for 40% of Dutch imports from Asia.
Om Prakash Om Prakash (born Om Prakash Chibber 19 December 1919 – 21 February 1998) was an Indian film actor. He was born in Jammu as Om Prakash Chibber and went on to become a well-known character actor of Bollywood. His most well-known movies are Na ...
,
Empire, Mughal
, ''History of World Trade Since 1450'', edited by John J. McCusker, vol. 1, Macmillan Reference US, 2006, pp. 237–40, ''World History in Context'', accessed 3 August 2017
Demand for European goods in Mughal India was lighter, Europe's exports being largely limited to some
woolen Woolen (American English) or woollen (Commonwealth English) is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast t ...
s,
ingot An ingot is a piece of relatively pure material, usually metal, that is cast into a shape suitable for further processing. In steelmaking, it is the first step among semi-finished casting products. Ingots usually require a second procedure of sha ...
s, glassware, mechanical clocks, weapons, particularly blades for Firangi swords, and a few luxury items. The trade imbalance caused Europeans to export large quantities of silver and to a lesser extent gold to Mughal India to pay for
South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...
n imports. Indian goods, especially those from Bengal, were also exported in large quantities to other Asian markets, such as
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
and
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
. The largest manufacturing industry was
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
textile manufacturing Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...
, which included the production of
piece goods Piece goods were the textile materials sold in cut pieces as per the buyer's specification. The piece goods were either cut from a fabric roll or produced with a certain length, also called yard goods. Various textiles such as cotton, wool, silk, ...
,
calico Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...
s and
muslin Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured. Muslin of uncommonly delicate hands ...
s, available unbleached in a variety of colours. The cotton
textile industry The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, textile, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be Natural material, natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry. Industry p ...
was responsible for a large part of the empire's international trade. The most important center of cotton production was the Bengal Subah province, particularly around
Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest ...
. Bengal alone accounted for more than 50% of textiles and around 80% of silks imported by the Dutch. Bengali silk and cotton textiles were exported in large quantities to Europe, Indonesia, Japan, and Africa, where they formed a significant element in the exchange of goods for slaves, and treasure. In Britain
protectionist Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
policies, such as 1685-1774 Calico Acts, imposed tariffs on imported Indian textiles. Mughal India had a large
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...
industry, particularly in the Bengal Subah province. Economic historian Indrajit Ray estimates shipbuilding output of Bengal during the 16th and 17th centuries at 223,250 tons annually, compared with 23,061 tons produced in nineteen colonies in North America from 1769 to 1771. ; Bengal Subah
Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...
was the Mughal' empire's wealthiest province, globally prominent in industries such as
textile manufacturing Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...
and
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...
. and exporting silk and cotton textiles, steel, saltpeter and agricultural and industrial products.
Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
's capital city
Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest ...
was the empire's financial capital, with a population said to exceed one million. Domestically, much of India depended on Bengali products such as rice, silks and cotton textiles. ; Post–Mughal Empire (1730-1818) In the early half of the 18th century, Mughal Empire fell into decline, with Delhi sacked in
Nader Shah's invasion of the Mughal Empire Emperor Nader Shah, the Shah of Iran (1736–47) and the founder of the Afsharid dynasty, invaded Northern India, eventually attacking Delhi in March 1739. His army had easily defeated the Mughals at the Battle of Karnal and would eventually c ...
, the treasury emptied, tens of thousands killed, and many thousands more carried off, with their livestock, as slaves, weakening the empire and leading to the emergence of post-Mughal states. The Mughals were replaced by the
Marathas The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a ...
as the dominant military power in much of India, while the other smaller regional kingdoms who were mostly late Mughal tributaries, such as the
Nawab Nawab ( Balochi: نواب; ar, نواب; bn, নবাব/নওয়াব; hi, नवाब; Punjabi : ਨਵਾਬ; Persian, Punjabi , Sindhi, Urdu: ), also spelled Nawaab, Navaab, Navab, Nowab, Nabob, Nawaabshah, Nawabshah or Nobab, ...
s in the north and the
Nizam The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, Mar ...
s in the south, declared autonomy. However, the efficient Mughal tax administration system was left largely intact, with Tapan Raychaudhuri estimating revenue assessment actually increased to 50 percent or more, in contrast to China's 5 to 6 percent, to cover the cost of the wars. Similarly in the same period, Maddison gives the following estimates for the late Mughal economy's income distribution: Among the post-Mughal states that emerged in the 18th century, the dominant economic powers were
Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...
(under the
Nawabs of Bengal The Nawab of Bengal ( bn, বাংলার নবাব) was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the ''de facto'' independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar, ...
) and the South Indian
Kingdom of Mysore The Kingdom of Mysore was a realm in South India, southern India, traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. From 1799 until 1950, it was a princely state, until 1947 in a subsidiary allia ...
(under
Hyder Ali Hyder Ali ( حیدر علی, ''Haidarālī''; 1720 – 7 December 1782) was the Sultan and ''de facto'' ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the att ...
and
Tipu Sultan Tipu Sultan (born Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu, 1 December 1751 – 4 May 1799), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery.Dalrymple, p. 243 He i ...
). The former was devastated by the
Maratha invasions of Bengal The Maratha invasions of Bengal (1741-1751), also known as the Maratha expeditions in Bengal, refers to the frequent invasions by the Maratha forces in the Bengal Subah (Bengal, Bihar, parts of modern Orissa), after their successful campaign i ...
, which experienced six invasions, over a decade, claimed to have killed hundreds of thousands, blocked trade with the Persian and Ottoman empires, and weakened the territory's economy to the point the Nawab of Bengal agreed to a peace treaty with the Marathas. The agreement made Bengal Subah a tributary to the Marathas, agreeing to pay Rs. 1.2 million in tribute annually, as the Chauth of Bengal and Bihar. The Nawab of Bengal also paid Rs. 3.2 million to the Marathas, towards the arrears of chauth for the preceding years. The chauth was paid annually by the Nawab of Bengal, up to his defeat at the
Battle of Plassey The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar ...
by the
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
in 1757. Jeffrey G. Williamson argued that India went through a period of
deindustrialization Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interp ...
in the latter half of the 18th century as an indirect outcome of the collapse of the Mughal Empire, and that British rule later caused further deindustrialization. According to Williamson, the Mughal Empire's decline reduced agricultural productivity, which drove up food prices, then nominal wages, and then textile prices, which cost India textile market share to Britain even before the latter developed factory technology, though Indian textiles maintained a competitive advantage over British textiles until the 19th century. Prasannan Parthasarathi countered that several post-Mughal states did not decline, notably Bengal and Mysore, which were comparable to Britain into the late 18th century.


British rule

A year after the loss of the British
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
trading base of
Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...
, to the new
Nawab Nawab ( Balochi: نواب; ar, نواب; bn, নবাব/নওয়াব; hi, नवाब; Punjabi : ਨਵਾਬ; Persian, Punjabi , Sindhi, Urdu: ), also spelled Nawaab, Navaab, Navab, Nowab, Nabob, Nawaabshah, Nawabshah or Nobab, ...
of the
Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah ( bn, সুবাহ বাংলা; fa, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal ( bn, মোগল বাংলা), was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire (and later an independent state under the Nawabs of Be ...
,
Siraj ud-Daulah Mirza Muhammad Siraj-ud-Daulah ( fa, ; 1733 – 2 July 1757), commonly known as Siraj-ud-Daulah or Siraj ud-Daula, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his reign marked the start of the rule of the East India Company over Beng ...
, it won a decisive victory over the Nawab, and his
French East India Company The French East India Company (french: Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was a colonial commercial enterprise, founded on 1 September 1664 to compete with the English (later British) and Dutch trading companies in th ...
allies, at the
Battle of Plassey The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar ...
, in 1757. The victory was achieved through agreeing to appoint the Nawab's military commander,
Mir Jafar Sayyid Mīr Jaʿfar ʿAlī Khān Bahādur ( – 5 February 1765) was a military general who became the first dependent Nawab of Bengal of the British East India Company. His reign has been considered by many historians as the start of the expa ...
, as a Company friendly replacement, if he turned
Siraj ud-Daulah Mirza Muhammad Siraj-ud-Daulah ( fa, ; 1733 – 2 July 1757), commonly known as Siraj-ud-Daulah or Siraj ud-Daula, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his reign marked the start of the rule of the East India Company over Beng ...
's numerically superior forces on his masters household, and partitioned the Nawab's treasury, to compensate both parties. The Company regained, and fortified Calcutta, later gaining the right to collect tax revenues, on the Nawabs behalf, in the Bengal Subah, from 1765, a right to trade tax free, fortify the cities and factories it established, along with a right to establish local armies, turning the mercantile company, into the effective state apparatus, and later proxy for the British Crown. Following the
Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the for ...
, the British Crown would intervene and establish a formal colonial administration in the Company controlled territory.


British East India Company rule

Immediately following the East India Company gaining the right to collect revenue, on behalf of the Nawab of Bengal, the Company largely ceased a century and a half practice of importing
gold and silver ''Gold and Silver'' (Spanish:''Oro y plata'') is a 1934 Mexican drama film directed by Ramón Peón and starring Carmen Guerrero, Adolfo Girón and Alfredo del Diestro.Riera p.124 The film's art direction was by Fernando A. Rivero. Cast * Carmen ...
, and for more than a decade, which it had hitherto used to pay for the goods shipped back to Britain, the American colonies, East Asia, or on to African Slavers, to be bartered for Slaves in the Atlantic Slave trade: In addition, as under Mughal rule, land and opium revenue collected in the
Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia an ...
helped finance the Company's administration, raise Sepoy armies, and fund wars in other parts of India, and later further afield, for example the
Opium Wars The Opium Wars () were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century. The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and the United Kingdom, and was triggered by the Chinese government's ...
, with additional capital raised, at typically 10%, from Banias money lenders. In the period 1760–1800, Bengal's
money supply In macroeconomics, the money supply (or money stock) refers to the total volume of currency held by the public at a particular point in time. There are several ways to define "money", but standard measures usually include currency in circu ...
was greatly diminished. The closing of some local mints and close supervision of the rest, the fixing of exchange rates and the standardization of
coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order ...
age added to the economic downturn. During this period, the East India Company began tax administration reforms in a fast expanding empire spread over , or 35 percent of Indian domain, with regional land, opium and salt taxes set, and collected. Indirect rule was established on
protectorate A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over most of its in ...
s and buffer states. During the period 1780–1860 India changed from an exporter of processed goods paid for in
bullion Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes fro ...
to an exporter of
raw materials A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feeds ...
and a buyer of manufactured goods. The abolition of the Atlantic
slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
trade, from 1807, both eliminated a significant export market, and encouraged
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...
plantations to organize the import of South Asian labor. By 1820, India had fallen from the top rank to become the second-largest economy in the world, behind China. British economic policies gave them a monopoly over India's large market and cotton resources. ; Textiles In the 1750s fine cotton and silk was exported from India to markets in Europe, Americas, Asia, and Africa. With East India Company supplied cotton pieces comprising approximately 30%, by value, of the trade goods bartered for Slaves in the Anglo-African
Triangular trade Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset ...
, and featuring in the French and Arab slave trades. From the late 18th century British industry began to lobby their government to reintroduce the Calico Acts, and again start taxing Indian textile imports, while in parallel allow them access to the markets of India. Which the UK parliaments partly conceded to, with removal of the East India Company's two hundred year old monopoly on most British trade with India, via the Charter Act of 1813, forcing the till then protected Indian market to open to British goods, which could now be sold in India without Company
tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and p ...
s or
duties A duty (from "due" meaning "that which is owing"; fro, deu, did, past participle of ''devoir''; la, debere, debitum, whence "debt") is a commitment or expectation to perform some action in general or if certain circumstances arise. A duty may ...
. Starting in the early 19th century, British textiles began to appear in the Indian markets, with the value of the textile imports growing from £5.2 million in 1850 to £18.4 million in 1896. Raw cotton was imported without tariffs to British factories, which manufactured textiles and sold them back to India, also without tariffs. Indian historian, Rajat Kanta Ray, noted the relative decline of the Indian cotton textile industry started in the mid-1820s. The pace of its decline was, however, slow though steady at the beginning, but reached a crisis by 1860, when 563,000 textile workers lost their jobs. Ray estimates that the industry shrank by about 28% by 1850. However, it survived in the high-end and low-end domestic markets. Ray argued that British discriminatory policies undoubtedly depressed the industry's exports, but suggests its decay is better explained by technological innovations in Britain. With Amiya Bagchi estimating the impact of the invention of the
Spinning mule The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres. They were used extensively from the late 18th to the early 20th century in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of tw ...
on the employment of handspinners: Indian textiles had maintained a competitive advantage over British textiles up until the 19th century, when Britain eventually overtook India as the world's largest cotton textile manufacturer. In 1811, Bengal was still a major exporter of cotton cloth to the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...
and the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
. However, Bengali cotton exports declined over the course of the early 19th century, as British imports to Bengal increased, from 25% in 1811 to 93% in 1840. The second quarter of the 19th century, raw materials, which chiefly consisted of raw cotton, opium, and indigo, accounted for most of India's exports. By the end of the 1930s Indian textiles, and raw cotton, jute, hemp, and silk exports exceed $200 million, annually. ; Mining Exploitable mineral deposits had started to be identified under the East India Company, with the first
Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
mines, along with the
Geological Survey of India The Geological Survey of India (GSI) is a scientific agency of India. It was founded in 1851, as a Government of India organization under the Ministry of Mines, one of the oldest of such organisations in the world and the second oldest survey ...
established to identify and map the available resources in the territory. A modern Iron and steel industry in India would be established in the Second half of the 19th century, with over 3 million tonnes of
metals A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typical ...
produced annually, and 25 million tonnes of coal, by the 1940s. ; Roads The East India Companies’ trade, and industry enabling
metalled road A road surface (British English), or pavement (American English), is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, hoggin, cobbles ...
network was expanded from the , constructed to 1850, to by 1943. ; Indian Ordnance Factories In 1787, a
Gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...
Factory was established at Ishapore; it began production in 1791, it is now the
Rifle Factory Ishapore The Rifle Factory Ishapore (also known as Ishapore Arsenal) is an Indian state-owned arms manufacturing unit located at Ichhapur in the state of West Bengal. History The first arms manufacturing facility on the site was a gunpowder factory, w ...
, beginning in 1904. In 1801, Gun & Shell Factory, Calcutta was established and the production began on 18 March 1802. There were eighteen ordnance factories before India became independent in 1947. ; Paper and Publishing Under the EIC the first Indian authored publications, printed, on locally produced paper, produced in locally established paper mills, appeared, from the Hicky's Bengal Gazette, to by the 1940s, a hundred thousand tonnes of paper was being produced, annually.


British Raj

The formal dissolution of the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
heralded a change in British treatment of Indian subjects. During the
British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...
, massive railway projects were begun in earnest and government jobs and guaranteed pensions attracted a large number of upper caste Hindus into the civil service for the first time. British cotton exports absorbed 55 percent of the Indian market by 1875. In the 1850s the first cotton mills opened in Bombay, posing a challenge to the cottage-based home production system based on family labour. Real GDP per capita grew 14 per cent during 1870-1906. ; Fall of the Rupee During the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, the US Dollar halved in value to 1.54 by 1864. After its victory in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), Germany extracted a huge indemnity from France of £200,000,000, and then moved to join
Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
on a gold monetary standard. France, the US, and other industrialising countries followed Germany in adopting gold after the
Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the ...
. Countries such as Japan that did not have the necessary access to gold or those, such as India, that were subject to imperial policies remained mostly on a silver standard. Silver-based and gold-based economies then diverged dramatically. The worst affected were silver economies that traded mainly with gold economies. Silver reserves increased in size, causing gold to rise in relative value. The impact on silver-based India was profound, given that most of its trade was with Britain and other gold-based countries. As the price of silver fell, so too did the exchange value of the
rupee Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, ...
, when measured against sterling. ; Agriculture and industry The Indian economy grew at about 1% per year from 1890 to 1910, in line with, and largely dependent on increased agricultural output, through schemes such as the
Punjab Canal Colonies The Punjab Canal Colonies is the name given to parts of western Punjab which were brought under cultivation through the construction of canals and agricultural colonisation during the British Raj. Between 1885 and 1940, nine canal colonies were cre ...
, Ganges canal, and cultivation of 4,000,000 acres of Assam jungle, which the growth of land under cultivation only keptIng pace with a population that doubled in the same period. The result was little change in Real income levels. Agriculture was still dominant, with most peasants at the subsistence level. Entrepreneur
Jamsetji Tata Jamsetji (Jamshedji) Nusserwanji Tata (3 March 1839 – 19 May 1904) was an Indian pioneer industrialist who founded the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate company. Named the greatest philanthropist of the last century by several pol ...
(1839–1904) began his industrial career in 1877 with the Central India Spinning, Weaving, and Manufacturing Company in Bombay. While other Indian mills produced cheap coarse yarn (and later cloth) using local short-staple cotton and simple machinery imported from Britain, Tata did much better by importing expensive longer-stapled cotton from Egypt and buying more complex ring-spindle machinery from the United States to spin finer yarn that could compete with imports from Britain. In the 1890s, Tata launched plans to expand into the heavy industry using Indian funding. The Raj did not provide capital, but aware of Britain's declining position against the US and Germany in the steel industry, it wanted steel mills in India so it promised to purchase any surplus steel Tata could not otherwise sell. By the end of the 1930s, Cotton, Jute, Peanuts, Tea, Tobacco, and Hides accounted for the majority of the $500+ million of agricultural derived, annual exports. ; Railways British investors built a modern railway system in the late 19th century—it became the then fourth-largest in the world and was renowned for the quality of construction and service. The government was supportive, realising its value for military use and for economic growth. The railways at first were privately owned and operated, and run by British administrators, engineers and skilled craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians. A plan for a rail system was first advanced in 1832. The first train ran from Red Hills to Chintadripet bridge in
Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
, inaugurated in 1837. It was called ''Red Hill Railway''. It was used for freight transport. A few more short lines were built in the 1830s and 1840s. They did not interconnect and were used for freight forwarding. The East India Company (and later the colonial government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to five percent during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99-year lease, with the government retaining the option to buy them earlier. In 1854 Governor-General
Lord Dalhousie James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie (22 April 1812 – 19 December 1860), also known as Lord Dalhousie, styled Lord Ramsay until 1838 and known as The Earl of Dalhousie between 1838 and 1849, was a Scottish statesman and co ...
formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions. A series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion. In 1853, the first passenger train service was inaugurated between Bori Bunder in
Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
and
Thane Thane (; also known as Thana, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city in Maharashtra, India. It is situated in the north-eastern portion of the Salsette Island. Thane city is entirely within Thane taluka, one of the seven taluk ...
, covering a distance of . The route mileage of this network increased from in 1860 to in 1880 – mostly radiating inland from the port cities of Bombay,
Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
and
Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...
. Most of the railway construction was done by Indian companies supervised by British engineers. The system was sturdily built. Several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread across India. By 1900 India had a full range of rail services with diverse ownership and management, operating on broad, metre and narrow gauge networks. Headrick argues that both the Raj lines and the private companies hired only European supervisors, civil engineers and even operating personnel, such as locomotive engineers. The government's Stores Policy required that bids on railway contracts be submitted to the India Office in London, shutting out most Indian firms. The railway companies purchased most of their hardware and parts in Britain. Railway maintenance workshops existed in India, but were rarely allowed to manufacture or repair locomotives. TISCO first won orders for rails only in the 1920s. Christensen (1996) looked at colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service and private-versus-public interests. He concluded that making the railways dependent on the state hindered success, because railway expenses had to go through the same bureaucratic budgeting process as did all other state expenses. Railway costs could therefore not respond to needs of the railways or their passengers. In 1951, forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated to form a single unit named the ''Indian Railways''. The existing rail systems were abandoned in favor of zones in 1951 and a total of six zones came into being in 1952. ; Chemicals The first refineries were established to produce kerosene, petrol, paints and over chemicals, locally, with production increasing once local deposits had been identified, to by the 1940s, sixty million gallons of petrochemicals were being produced annually. ; Economic impact of Imperialism Debate continues about the economic impact of British imperialism on India. The issue was first raised by
Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
who in the 1780s vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that
Warren Hastings Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first Governor-General ...
and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society, and elaborated on in the 19th century by
Romesh Chunder Dutt Romesh Chunder Dutt ( bn, রমেশচন্দ্র দত্ত; 13 August 1848 – 30 November 1909) was an Indian civil servant, economic historian, writer and translator of ''Ramayana'' and ''Mahabharata''. Dutt is considered a natio ...
. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continued this line of reasoning, saying that British rule in the 18th century took the form of plunder and was a catastrophe for the traditional economy. According to the economic drain theory, supported by Ray, the British depleted food, and money stocks and imposed high taxes that helped cause the terrible famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal. Ray also argued British India failed to offer the necessary encouragement, technology transfers, and protectionist frameworks, to permit British India to replicate Britain's own industrialisation, before its independence. British historian
P. J. Marshall Peter James Marshall (born 1933 in Calcutta) is a British historian known for his work on the British Empire, particularly the activities of British East India Company servants in 18th-century Bengal, and also the history of British involvemen ...
reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the Mughal era gave way to poverty and anarchy, arguing that the British takeover was not a sharp break with the past. British control was delegated largely through regional rulers and was sustained by a generally prosperous economy through the 18th century, except for the frequent, deadly famines. Marshall notes the British raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal tax rates. Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing the region, Marshall presents a British nationalist interpretation in which the British were not in full control, but instead were controllers in what was primarily an Indian-run society and in which their ability to keep power depended upon cooperation with Indian elites. Marshall admitted that much of his interpretation is rejected by many historians. Some historians point to company rule as a major factor in both India's
deindustrialization Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interp ...
and Britain's
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
,Shombit Sengupta
Bengals plunder gifted the British Industrial Revolution
'' The Financial Express'', 8 February 2010
suggesting capital amassed from Bengal following its 1757 conquest supported investment in British industries such as
textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution Textile manufacture during the British Industrial Revolution was centred in south Lancashire and the towns on both sides of the Pennines in the United Kingdom. The main drivers of the Industrial Revolution were textile manufacturing, iron found ...
as well as increasing British wealth, while contributing to deindustrialization in Bengal. Other
economic historians Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and in ...
have blamed the colonial rule for the current dismal state of India's economy, with investment in Indian industries limited since it was a colony. Under British rule, India's a number of native manufacturing industries shrank. The economic policies of the
British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...
caused a severe decline in the
handicrafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...
and handloom sectors, with reduced demand and dipping employment; the
yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manu ...
output of the handloom industry, for example, declined from 419 million pounds in 1850 to 240 million pounds in 1900. During the British
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
's rule in India, production of food crops declined, mass impoverishment and destitution of farmers and numerous famines. The result was a significant transfer of capital from India to England, which led to a massive drain of revenue rather than any systematic effort at modernisation of the Indian economy. Economic historians have investigated regional differences in taxation, and public good provision, across the British Raj, with a strong positive correlation found between education spending, and
Literacy in India Literacy in India is a key for social-economic progress. The 2011 census, indicated a 2001–2011 literacy growth of 97.2%, which is slower than the growth seen during the previous decade. An old analytical 1990 study estimated that it would tak ...
; with historic Provincial policies still impacting comparative economic development, productivity, and employment. Other economic historians debate the impact of
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
’s establishment of the
Swadeshi movement The Swadeshi movement was a self-sufficiency movement that was part of the Indian independence movement and contributed to the development of Indian nationalism. Before the BML Government's decision for the partition of Bengal was made public in ...
, and All India Village Industries Association, in the 1930s, to promote an alternative, self sufficient, indigenous, village economy, approach to development, over the Classical Western economic model; along with the impact of the
Nonviolent resistance Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, ...
movement, with the mass boycottIng of industrial goods, tax strikes, and abolition of the
salt tax A salt tax refers to the direct taxation of salt, usually levied proportionately to the volume of salt purchased. The taxation of salt dates as far back as 300BC, as salt has been a valuable good used for gifts and religious offerings since 6050B ...
, on public revenues, public programs, growth and industrialisation, in the last quarter of the British Raj. India served as both a significant supplier of raw goods to British manufacturers and a large captive market for British manufactured goods. ; Relative decline in productivity India accounted for 25% of the world's industrial output in 1750, declining to 2% of the world's industrial output in 1900. Britain replaced India as the world's largest textile manufacturer in the 19th century. In terms of
urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly th ...
, Mughal India had a higher percentage of its population (15%) living in urban centres in 1600 than British India did in the 19th century. ; Productivity Comparison Stephen Broadberry, Johann Custodis, and Bishnupriya Gupta, in 2014, offered the following comparative estimates for: Several economic historians claimed that in the 18th century
real wages Real wages are wages adjusted for inflation, or, equivalently, wages in terms of the amount of goods and services that can be bought. This term is used in contrast to nominal wages or unadjusted wages. Because it has been adjusted to account ...
were falling in India, and were "far below European levels". This has been disputed by others, who argued that real wage decline occurred in the early 19th century, or possibly beginning in the late 18th century, largely as a result of "''globalization forces''". Clingingsmith and Williamson argue India deindustrialized, in the period between 1750 and 1860, due to two very different causes, before reindustrialization. Between 1750 and 1810, they suggest the loss of Mughal hegemony allowed new despotic rulers to revenue farm their conquered populations, seeing tax and rent demands increase to 50% of production, compared to the 5–6% extracted in China during the period, and levied largely to fund regional warfare. Combined with the use of labour and livestock for martial purposes, grain and textile prices were driven up, along with nominal wages, as the populous attempted to meet the demands, reducing the competitiveness of Indian handicrafts, and impacting the regional textile trade. Then from 1810 to 1860, the expansion of the British factory system drove down the relative price of textiles worldwide, through productivity advances, a trend that was magnified in India as the concurrent transport revolution dramatically reduced transportation costs, and in a sub-continent that had not seen metalled roads, the introduction of mechanical transport exposed once protected markets to global competition, hitting artisanal manufacture, but stabilizing the agricultural sector. Angus Maddison states: ; Absence of industrialisation Historians have questioned why India failed to industrialise. As the global cotton industry underwent a technological revolution in the 18th century, while Indian industry stagnated after adopting the
Flying shuttle The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It allowed a single weaver to weave much wider fabrics, and it could be mechanized, allowing for automatic machine l ...
, and industrialisation began only in the late 19th century. Several historians have suggested that this was because India was still a largely agricultural nation with low
Commodity money Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as their value in buying goods. This is in contrast to representa ...
wage levels, arguing that nominal wages were high in Britain so cotton producers had the incentive to invent and purchase expensive new labour-saving technologies, and that wages levels were low in India so producers preferred to increase output by hiring more workers rather than investing in technology.


Colonial Boom

During 1906-50, real GDP per capita of India fell 5.7 per cent while that of the UK grew 45 per cent and the USA grew 111 per cent.
British colonial rule The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
created an institutional environment that stabilized Indian society, though they stifled trade with the rest of the world. They created a well-developed system of
railways Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...
,
telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
s and a modern legal system. Extensive irrigation systems were built, providing an impetus for growing cash crops for export and for raw materials for Indian industry, especially jute, cotton, sugarcane, coffee, rubber, and tea. In 1928, 48% of the cotton spindles installed outside Europe, North America and Japan were in India (Dunn and Hardy, 1931: 25). In 1935, 50% of the steel produced outside Europe, North America and Japan was produced in India (BKS, 1950: 265-74). The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), headed by
Dorabji Tata Sir Dorabji Tata (27 August 1859 – 3 June 1932) was an Indian businessman of the British Raj, and a key figure in the history and development of the Tata Group. He was knighted in 1910 for his contributions to industry in British India. ...
, opened its plant at
Jamshedpur Jamshedpur (, ) or Tatanagar is the largest and most populous city in Jharkhand and the first planned industrial city in India. It is a Notified Area Council and Municipal corporation, Municipal Corporation and also the headquarter of the East ...
in
Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...
(present day in
Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . I ...
) in 1908. It became the leading iron and steel producer in India, with 120,000 employees in 1945. TISCO became an India's symbol of technical skill, managerial competence, entrepreneurial flair, and high pay for industrial workers. During the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, the railways were used to transport troops and grains to Bombay and Karachi en route to Britain, Mesopotamia and East Africa. With shipments of equipment and parts from Britain curtailed, maintenance became much more difficult; critical workers entered the army; workshops were converted to make artillery; locomotives and cars were shipped to the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
. The railways could barely keep up with the sudden increase in demand. By the end of the war, the railways had deteriorated badly. In the Second World War the railways' rolling stock was diverted to the Middle East, and the railway workshops were again converted into munitions workshops.
Inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...
emerged a national issue during the World Wars with negligible rise in real GDP. Non-royal private wealth was encouraged by colonial administrations during these times. Houses of Birla and Sahu Jain began to challenge the Houses of Martin Burn, Bird Heilgers and Andrew Yule. About one-ninth of the national population were urban by 1925. ; Economic Bust The first economic boom cycle ended with the
Great Depression in India The Great Depression in India was a period of economic depression in the Indian subcontinent, then under British colonial rule. Beginning in 1929 in the United States, the Great Depression soon began to spread to countries around the globe. A glo ...
. The colonial administration did little to alleviate debt stress. The worst consequences involved deflation, which increased the burden of the debt on villagers. Total economic output did not decline between 1929 and 1934. The worst-hit sector was jute, based in Bengal, which was an important element in overseas trade; it had prospered in the 1920s but prices dropped in the 1930s. Employment also decline, while agriculture and small-scale industry exhibited gains. The most successful new industry was sugar, which had meteoric growth in the 1930s. Gold-Silver ratio quintupled to 100-1 during 1920-40 triggering a sterling crisis worse than the 1890s. The Bank of England records the Indian central bank held a positive balance of £1,160 million on 14 July 1947, and that British India maintained a trade surplus, with the United Kingdom, for the duration of the British Raj eg. Source: Indian sterling balances, p. 2, 15 Jan.1.1947, Bank of England (BoE), OV56/55. Studies of the comparative tax burdens in the British Empire, by days of labour required to meet the per capita tax bill, income tax rates, and gross colonial revenues indicate the tax burden in India required approximately half the number of days of labour to meet, as that of the UK, and a third that of some settler colonies, such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Hong Kong, which some economic historians speculate deprived the Colonial Indian administration of the revenue necessary to provide the public goods to accelerate economic development, literacy, and industrialisation, as experienced elsewhere in the empire. The newly independent but weak Union government's treasury reported annual revenue of £334 million in 1950. In contrast, Nizam Asaf Jah VII of
Hyderabad State Hyderabad State () was a princely state located in the south-central Deccan region of India with its capital at the city of Hyderabad. It is now divided into the present-day state of Telangana, the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka, and ...
was widely reported to have a fortune of almost £668 million then. About one-sixth of the national population were urban by 1950. A US Dollar was exchanged at 4.79 rupees.
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, writing in 1857, suggested the Nominal (Silver) per capita income of East India Company, in 1854, was approximately 1:12 that of the UK, as was the Nominal per capita tax burden 1:12 of the UK, 1:10 of France, and 1:5 of Prussia. Explaining why the EIC administration was perpetually running local deficits, and in need to borrow monies in India, to fund the administration. Economic historians such as Prasannan Parthasarathi have criticized these estimates, arguing primary sources show Real (grain) wages in 18th-century
Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
and
Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude o ...
were comparable to Britain. According to evidence cited by
Immanuel Wallerstein Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his wo ...
,
Irfan Habib Irfan Habib (born August 10, 1931) is an Indian historian of ancient and medieval India, following the methodology of Marxist historiography in his contributions to economic history. He identifies as a Marxist and is well known for his strong ...
,
Percival Spear Thomas George Percival Spear (1901–1982) was a British historian of modern South Asia, in particular of its colonial period. He taught at both Cambridge University and St. Stephen's College, Delhi. Personal life and education Born in B ...
and Ashok Desai, per-capita agricultural output and standards of consumption in 17th-century
Mughal India The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
was higher than in 17th-century Europe and early 20th-century
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
. Sivramkrishna analysed agricultural surveys conducted in Mysore by Francis Buchanan in 1800-1801, arrived at estimates, using "subsistence basket", that aggregated millet income could be almost five times subsistence level, while corresponding rice income is three times that much. That could be comparable to advance part of Europe. However due to the scarcity of data, more research is needed, before drawing any conclusion. Shireen Moosvi estimates that Mughal India had a
per-capita income The median income is the income amount that divides a population into two equal groups, half having an income above that amount, and half having an income below that amount. It may differ from the mean (or average) income. Both of these are ways of ...
1.24% higher in the late 16th century than British India had in the early 20th century, although the difference would be less if increasing purchasing power in terms of manufactured goods were taken into account. She also estimates that the
secondary sector In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construction. ...
contributed a higher percentage to the Mughal economy (18.2%) than it did to the economy of early 20th-century British India (11.2%). According to economic historian
Paul Bairoch Paul Bairoch (24 July 1930 in Antwerp – 12 February 1999 in Geneva) was a (in 1985 naturalised) Swiss economic history, economic historian of Belgian descent who specialized in urban history and historical demography. He published or co-authored ...
, India as well as China had a higher
GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
(PPP) per capita than Europe in 1750. For 1750, Bairoch estimated the GNP per capita for the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
to be $182 in 1960
US dollars The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from Dollar, other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American ...
($ in 1990 dollars) and for the non-Western world to be $188 in 1960 dollars ($ in 1990 dollars), exceeded by both China and India. Other estimates he gives include $150–190 for England in 1700 and $160–210 for India in 1800. Bairoch estimated that it was only after 1800 that Western European per-capita income pulled ahead. Others such as
Andre Gunder Frank Andre Gunder Frank (February 24, 1929 – April 25, 2005) was a German-American sociologist and economic historian who promoted dependency theory after 1970 and world-systems theory after 1984. He employed some Marxian concepts on political ...
, Robert A. Denemark,
Kenneth Pomeranz Kenneth Pomeranz, FBA (born November 4, 1958) is University Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1980, where he was a Telluride Scholar, and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1988, ...
and
Amiya Kumar Bagchi Amiya Kumar Bagchi (born 1936) is an Indian political economist. Biography His academic career began when he started teaching in Presidency College, Kolkata. In the 1960s, he taught in the Faculty of Economics in Cambridge (where he was Fello ...
also criticised estimates that showed low per-capita income and GDP growth rates in Asia (especially China and India) prior to the 19th century, pointing to later research that found significantly higher per-capita income and growth rates in China and India during that period.


Republic of India

; "Hindu rate of growth" The phrase "
Hindu rate of growth The Hindu rate of growth is a term used by advocates of liberalisation referring to the lower annual growth rate of the economy of India before the economic reforms of 1991, which stagnated around 3.5% from 1950s to 1980s, while per capita incom ...
" was used by some socialists to refer to the low annual growth rate of the
economy of India The economy of India has transitioned from a mixed planned economy to a mixed middle-income developing social market economy with notable state participation in strategic sectors. * * * * It is the world's fifth-largest economy by nomin ...
before 1991, suggesting that the blame for low growth lies with the Hinduism. It remained around 5.3% from the 1950s to 1980s, while per capita income growth averaged 3.1% a year. During the same period,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
grew by 10% and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
by 12%. The Indian economy of this period is characterised as
Dirigism Dirigisme or dirigism () is an economic doctrine in which the state plays a strong directive (policies) role contrary to a merely regulatory interventionist role over a market economy. As an economic doctrine, dirigisme is the opposite of ''lai ...
.


Socialist Boom

Before independence a large share of tax revenue was generated by the land tax. Thereafter land taxes steadily declined as a share of revenues. The economic problems inherited at independence were exacerbated by the costs associated with the
partition Partition may refer to: Computing Hardware * Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive * Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job Software * Partition (database), the division of a ...
, which had resulted in about 2 to 4 million refugees fleeing past each other across the new borders between India and
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
. Refugee settlement was a considerable economic strain. Partition divided India into complementary economic zones. Under the British,
jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is '' Corchorus ol ...
and cotton were grown in the eastern part of
Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
(East Pakistan, after 1971,
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
), but processing took place mostly in the western part of Bengal, which became the Indian state of
West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
. As a result, after independence India had to convert land previously used for food production to cultivate cotton and jute. Growth continued in the 1950s, the rate of growth was less positive than India's politicians expected. Toward the end of Nehru's term as prime minister, India experienced serious food shortages. Beginning in 1950, India faced
trade deficits The balance of trade, commercial balance, or net exports (sometimes symbolized as NX), is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports over a certain time period. Sometimes a distinction is made between a balance ...
that increased in the 1960s. The
Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...
had a major
budget deficit Within the budgetary process, deficit spending is the amount by which spending exceeds revenue over a particular period of time, also called simply deficit, or budget deficit; the opposite of budget surplus. The term may be applied to the budget ...
and therefore could not borrow money internationally or privately. As a result, the government issued bonds to the
Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible for ...
, which increased the
money supply In macroeconomics, the money supply (or money stock) refers to the total volume of currency held by the public at a particular point in time. There are several ways to define "money", but standard measures usually include currency in circu ...
, leading to
inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...
. The
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 or the Second Kashmir War was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. The conflict began following Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was d ...
led the US and other countries friendly towards Pakistan to withdraw foreign aid to India, which necessitated devaluation. India was told it had to liberalise trade before aid would resume. The response was the politically unpopular step of devaluation accompanied by liberalisation. Defence spending in 1965/1966 was 24.06% of expenditure, the highest in the period from 1965 to 1989. Exacerbated by the drought of 1965/1966, the devaluation was severe. GDP per capita grew 33% in the 1960s, reaching a peak growth of 142% in the 1970s, before decelerating to 41% in the 1980s and 20% in the 1990s. From FY 1951 to FY 1979, the economy grew at an average rate of about 3.1 percent a year, or at an annual rate of 1.0 percent per capita. During this period, industry grew at an average rate of 4.5 per cent a year, compared with 3 per cent for agriculture. Lawrence H. Officer, "Exchange rate between the United States dollar and forty other countries, 1913–1999". Economic History Services, EH.Net, 2002. URL: Real GDP per capita grew 59 per cent during 1950-77. Prime minister
Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...
proclaimed a national
emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...
and suspended the Constitution in 1975. About one-fifth of the national population were urban by 1975. ; Steel Prime Minister
Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
was a believer in socialism and decided that India needed maximum steel production. He, therefore, formed a government-owned company, Hindustan Steel Limited (HSL) and set up three steel plants in the 1950s. ; Economic Bust The second economic boom cycle ended with the 1979 oil crisis that triggered fiscal deficits through the 1980s. In 1975 India's GDP (in 1990 US dollars) was $545 billion, $1,561 billion in the USSR, $1,266 billion in Japan, and $3,517 billion in the US. Real GDP per capita grew 51 per cent during 1977-94.


Capitalist Boom

Economic liberalisation in India The economic liberalisation in India refers to the opening of the country's economy to the world with the goal of making the economy more market and service-oriented, thus expanding the role of private and foreign investment. Indian economic ...
since the 1990s led to paradigm shift in growth and structure of national income. Real GDP per capita grew 142 per cent during 1994-2013. About one-fourth of the national population was urban by 2000. The Indian steel industry began expanding into Europe in the 21st century. In January 2007 India's Tata bought European steel maker
Corus Group Corus may refer to: Places *Çörüş, Gazipaşa, a village in Antalya Province, Turkey Facilities and structures * Corus Quay, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; an office tower Fictional locations * Corus, a fictional world that is the setting for the ...
for $11.3 billion. In 2006
Mittal Steel Mittal Steel Company N.V. was an Indian company and one of the world's largest steel producers by volume and turnover. After a merger in 2005, it is now part of ArcelorMittal. History Mittal Steel Company was formed as Ispat International in 19 ...
(based in London but with Indian management) acquired
Arcelor Arcelor S.A. was the world's largest steel producer in terms of turnover and the second largest in terms of steel output, with a turnover of €30.2 billion and shipments of 45 million metric tons of steel in 2004. The company was created in 2002 ...
for $34.3 billion to become the world's biggest steel maker,
ArcelorMittal ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourgian multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg City. It was formed in 2006 from the takeover and merger of Arcelor by Indian-owned Mittal Steel. ArcelorMittal is the second larg ...
, with 10% of world output. The government started the
Golden Quadrilateral The Golden Quadrilateral ( hi, स्वर्णिम चतुर्भुज, Svarnim Chaturbhuj; abbreviated GQ) is a national highway network connecting several major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India. It forms a ...
road network connecting
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
,
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
,
Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
and
Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
with various Indian regions. The project, completed in January 2012, was the most ambitious infrastructure project of independent
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. ; Economic Bust The Novel Coronavirus pandemic led to a recession in the Indian economy. Real GDP per capita grew 39 per cent during 2013-21. For
purchasing power parity Purchasing power parity (PPP) is the measurement of prices in different countries that uses the prices of specific goods to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries' currency, currencies. PPP is effectively the ratio of the price of ...
comparisons, the US dollar is converted at 9.46 rupees. Despite continuous real GDP growth of at least 5% since 2009, the Indian economy was mired in bureaucratic hurdles.


See also

*
Golden Age of India Certain time periods have been named "golden ages" where development in the Indian subcontinent flourished. Ancient India Gupta Empire The period between the 4th and 6th centuries CE is known as the Golden Age of India because of the considerab ...
*
Demographics of India India is the second most populated country in the world with a sixth of the world's population. According to official estimates, India's population stood at 1.38 billion. Between 1975 and 2010, the population doubled to 1.2 billio ...
* GDP of India (1–1947 CE) *
History of agriculture in the Indian subcontinent History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
*
Banking in India Modern banking in India originated in the mid of 18th century. Among the first banks were the Bank of Hindustan, which was established in 1770 and liquidated in 1829–32; and the General Bank of India, established in 1786 but failed in 1791. ...
*
History of India According to consensus in modern genetics, anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. Quote: "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by m ...
*
Indian maritime history Indian maritime history begins during the 3rd millennium BCE when inhabitants of the Indus Valley initiated maritime trading contact with Mesopotamia. As per Vedic records, Indian traders and merchants traded with the far east and Arabia. D ...
*
List of regions by past GDP (PPP) These are lists of regions and countries by their estimated real gross domestic product (GDP) in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the value of all final goods and services produced within a country/region in a given year. GDP dollar (inte ...
*
List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita These are lists of regions and countries by their estimated Real versus nominal value, real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the value of all final goods and services produced within a country/reg ...
*
List of countries by past and projected GDP (nominal) This is an alphabetical list of countries by past and projected gross domestic product (nominal) as ranked by the IMF. Figures are based on official exchange rates, not on the purchasing power parity (PPP) methodology. Values are given in million ...
*
Economic history of the Indian subcontinent An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...


References


Bibliography


Pre 1947

* Anstey, Vera. ''The economic development of India'' (4th ed. 1952), 677pp; thorough scholarly coverage; focus on 20th century down to 1939 * Bowen, H. V. ''Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756–1833'' (2006), 304pp * Balachandran, G., ed. ''India and the World Economy, 1850–1950'' Oxford University Press, 2005. . * Chattopadhyaya, D. P., & Chaudhuri, B. B. (2005). Economic history of India from eighteenth to twentieth century. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations. * Chaudhuri, K. N. ''Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750'' (1985) * * Deyell, John S. 2019
"Indian Kingdoms 1200–1500 and the Maritime Trade in Monetary Commodities"
in ''Currencies of the Indian Ocean World'', 49-69. Springer. *Dutt, Romesh C. ''The Economic History of India under early British Rule'', first published 1902, 2001 edition by
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, * * Ludden, David, ed. ''New Cambridge History of India: An Agrarian History of South Asia'' (1999). * * Habib, Irfan. ''Agrarian System of Mughal India'' (1963, revised edition 1999). * Habib, Irfan. ''Indian Economy, 1858–1914'' (2006). * * Kumar, Prakash. ''Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India'' (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 334 pp * Lal, Deepak. ''The Hindu Equilibrium: India c. 1500 B.C.–2000 A.D.'' (2nd ed. 2005). * Lal, K. S. (1995). Growth of scheduled tribes and castes in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. * Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. * Lockwood, David. ''The Indian Bourgeoisie: A Political History of the Indian Capitalist Class in the Early Twentieth Century'' (I.B. Tauris, 2012) 315 pages; focus on Indian entrepreneurs who benefited from the Raj, but ultimately sided with the Indian National Congress. * Majumdar, R. C. (2010). Corporate life in ancient India. Charleston, SC: Bibliolife. * Mahajan, Nupam P. (1999
India's First Coinage
Retrieved 24 February 2005. * Micklethwait, John & Wooldridge, Adrian (2003). ''The Company: a short history of a revolutionary idea''. Modern library chronicles. . * . * Sarkar, Jadunath, Economics of British India, Kolkata: Sarkar. * Raychaudhuri, Tapan and Irfan Habib, eds. ''The Cambridge Economic History of India: Volume 1, c. 1200–c. 1750'' (1982). * Roy, Tirthankar. ''The Economic History of India 1857–1947'' (2002, 2006, 2011). * Roy, Tirthankar.
India in the World Economy from Antiquity to the Present
' (2012). * * * Tomlinson, B. R. ''The Economy of Modern India, 1860–1970'' (
The New Cambridge History of India ''The New Cambridge History of India'' is a major multi-volume work of historical scholarship published by Cambridge University Press. It replaced ''The Cambridge History of India'' published between 1922 and 1937. The new history is being publis ...
) (1996
excerpt and text search
* Tomlinson, B. H. "India and the British Empire, 1880–1935", ''Indian Economic and Social History Review'', (October 1975), 12#4 pp. 337–80 *
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
, '' The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism'' * Yazdani, Kaveh. ''India, Modernity and the Great Divergence: Mysore and Gujarat (17th to 19th C.)'' (Leiden: Brill), 2017. xxxi + 669 pp.
online review
*


Gazetteers and statistics

* ''The Imperial Gazetteer of India'' (26 vol, 1908–31), highly detailed description of all of India in 1901
online edition
*


Since 1947

* Bardhan, Pranab. ''Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India'' by (Princeton University Press; 2010) 172 pages; * Datt, Ruddar & Sundharam, K.P.M. (1965). ''Indian Economy'' (51st Revised ed. (2005)). S.Chand. . * Das, Gurcharan. ''India Unbound: The Social and Economic Revolution from Independence to the Global Information Age'' (2002). * Frankel, Francine R. ''India's Political Economy, 1947–1977: The Gradual Revolution'' (1978). * Lal, Deepak. ''The Hindu Equilibrium: India c. 1500 B.C.-2000 A.D.'' (2nd ed. 2005). * Larue, C. Steven. ''The India Handbook'' (1997) (Regional Handbooks of Economic Development). * * * Majumdar, Sumit K. ''India's Late, Late Industrial Revolution: Democratizing Entrepreneurship'' (Cambridge University Press; 2012), 426 pages; focus on the entrepreneur-led revolution since 1990 * Myrdal, Gunnar. ''Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations'' (3 vol, 1968) 2284 pages; also 4th vol. on methodology (1970), focus on India and neighbors; by winner of Nobel prize in economics * * * Roy, Tirthankar. ''Economic History of India 1857–1947'' (3d ed., 2011). * Rudolph, Lloyd I. ''In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State'' (1987). * Sankaran, S. ''Indian Economy: Problems, Policies and Development'' (Margham Publications, 7th ed. 1994). * Tomlinson, B. R. et al. ''The Economy of Modern India, 1860–1970'' (1996) (The New Cambridge History of India) * * Wolpert, Stanley, ed. ''Encyclopedia of India'' (4 vol. 2005) comprehensive coverage by scholars *


External links


Infographic: Share of world GDP throughout history , Infogram
* . * Pearce, H. Thomas (Spring 2003).
Weber's study of the Hindu ethic and the caste system
'. * * ''Limca Book of Records'' (1993). Bisleri Beverages Limited. .

Precolonial times to present.
The IMF database
* {{Asia in topic, Economic history of