☀ STRUCTURAL CHANGE

Understanding of Colonial Experience

• Understanding of colonial experience, while comprehending modern India is of significant importance as many modern ideas and institutions reached India through colonialism.
• The colonial rule has had a tremendous impact on Indian society in all aspects like railways, industries, postal system (social, cultural, economic, political).
• The previous rulers were unable to control the entire country (except Akbar, Ashoka), but the British controlled India with their aim of profit attainment.
• It is also because such an exposure to modern ideas was contradictory or paradoxical. For example, Indians in the colonial period read about western liberalism and freedom.
• Yet they lived under a western, colonial rule that denied Indians liberty and freedom. It is a contradiction of this kind that shaped many of the structural and cultural changes in modern India.

 Use of English

• The use of English language as an outcome of changes due to colonialism has many sided impacts and yet paradoxical. English is not only widely used in India but we now have an impressive body of literary writings by Indians in English. This knowledge of English has given Indians an edge in the global market.
• But, English still continues to be a mark of privilege and not knowing English is considered a disadvantage in the job market. On the other hand, those who were traditionally deprived access to formal education such as the Dalits, knowledge of English may open doors of opportunities that were formally closed.

Understanding Colonialism

• Colonialism simply means the establishment of rule by one country over another. In the modern period western colonialism has had the greatest impact.
• India’s past has been marked by the entry of numerous groups of people at different times who have established their rule over different parts of what constitutes modern India today.
• History is full of examples of the annexation of foreign territory and the domination of weaker by stronger powers. Nevertheless, there is a vital difference between the empire building of pre-capitalist times and that of capitalist times. 
• On the whole they did not interfere with the economic base. They simply took the tribute that was skimmed off the economic surplus that was produced traditionally in the subjugated areas.

(l). British Capitalism

• In contrast British colonialism which was based on a capitalist system directly interfered to ensure greatest profit and benefit to British capitalism.
• Every policy was geared towards the strengthening and expansion of British capitalism like forest laws plantation, land laws and their ownership, altered the way production and distribution of goods took place etc.
• Colonialism led to considerable movement of people. It led to movement of people from one part to another within India. For instance people from present day Jharkhand moved to Assam to work on the tea plantations.
• A newly emerging middle class particularly from the British Presidency regions of Bengal and Madras moved as government employees and professionals like doctors and lawyers moved to different parts of the country.
• People were carted in ships from India to work on other colonised lands in distant Asia, Africa and Americas. Many died on their way. Most could never return. Today many of their descendants are known as people of Indian origin.

(ll). Capitalism

• Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and organised to accumulate profits within a market system.
• Capitalism in the west emerged out of a complex process of European exploration of the rest of the world, its plunder of wealth and resources, an unprecedented growth of science and technology, its harnessing to industries and agriculture.
• Its dynamism, its potential to grow, expand, innovate, use technology and labour in a way best assured to ensure greatest profit.
• Western colonialism was inextricably connected to the growth of western capitalism. 

(lll). Nation State as Dominant Political Form

• If capitalism became the dominant economic system, nation states became the dominant political form.
• Today we all live in nation states and that we all have a nationality or a national citizenship, but earlier Societies were not always organised on these lines.
• Nation states are closely associated with the rise of nationalism. The principle of nationalism assumes that any set of people have a right to be free and exercise sovereign power. It is an important part of the rise of democratic ideas.
• Nationalism implied that the people of India or of any colonised society have an equal right to be sovereign.
• Indian nationalist leaders were quick to grasp this irony. They declared that freedom or swaraj was their birth- right and fought for both political and economic freedom.

Urbanisation and Industrialisation

The Colonial Experience

• Industrialisation refers to the emergence of machine production, based on the use of in animate power resources like steam or electricity.
• Over 90 per cent of people in the west live in towns and cities, where most jobs are to be found and new job opportunities are created. Therefore, we usually associate urbanisation with industrialisation.
• Britain is the first society to undergo industrialization & was the earliest to move from being rural to an urban country.
• In India the impact of the very same British industrialisation led to deindustrialisation in some sectors. And decline of old urban centres.
• Industrialisation requires setting of factories and employing labour.
• Manchester: Industrial city in England. Cotton from India was sent to Manchester, processed into silk made cloth and sold in India for cheaper prices. Along with Surat and Masulipatnam, Dhaka and Thanjavur were ruled by kings and they too lost their courts.
• Artisans, painters, dancers, singers lost their importance. (working class) had to look for alternative jobs.
• Where there were industries, population increased and people from rural areas migrated to urban areas.
• Unlike Britain where the impact of industrialization led to more people moving into urban areas but in India the initial impact of the same British industrialisation led to more people moving into agriculture. 

Cities

• Cities had a key role in the economic system of empires. Coastal cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai were favoured as from here primary goods could be easily exported and manufactured goods could be cheaply imported.
• Colonial cities were the prime link between the economic or core centres in Britain and periphery or margins in colonised India.
• Cities were the concrete expression of global capitalism. For example, Bombay during British India was planned and re-developed so that by 1900 over three-quarters of India’s raw cotton was shipped through the city.
• Urbanisation in the colonial period led to the decline of some earlier urban centres and the emergence of new colonial cities. Kolkata was one of the first of such cities.
• Cities were also important as a trading post, for defensive purposes and for military engagements.

Tea Plantations

• Our early industrialisation and urbanisation in the modern period were governed by colonial interests. Due to which industrialisation and urbanisation did not happen in India as it happened in Britain. Tea industry began in India in 1851.
• Case study: Tea plantation in Assam : Most of the tea gardens were situated in Assam. Since Assam was sparsely populated and the tea plantations were often located on uninhabited hillsides, bulk of the sorely needed labour had to be imported from other provinces. Therefore people had to be moved from Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to work there.
• Life of Labourers : Living and working conditions were poor and harsh weather conditions caused diseases.
• Low wages : Penal laws made by the British to punish the offender or workers if they did not report on time, try to run away or went against them. But their laws were in favour of the plantation owners. Because industry was privately and publicly owned. 

Industrialisation in Independent India

• Colonial states had an important role in the way industrialisation and urbanisation took place in India.
• The independent Indian state played an active role in promoting industrialisation.
• For Indian nationalists the issue of economic exploitation under colonial rule was a central issue.
• Indian nationalists saw rapid industrialisation of the economy as the path towards both growth and social equity.
• Development of heavy and machine-making industries, expansion of the public sector and holding of a large cooperative sector were considered very important.
• A modern and prosperous India, as visualised by Jawaharlal Nehru, was to be built on an edifice of giant steel plants or gigantic dams and power stations.

Urbanisation in Independent India

• Globalisation has led to enormous expansion and change of cities.
• Urban-Rural Areas Impact: People move from rural to urban areas in search of jobs, better standard of living, sense of anonymity.
• Migration: Social reason, sense of anonymity, ability to choose one's own job. Economic reason, better job opportunities, standard of living. 
• It is also evident that industrialisation and urbanisation implies not just changes in production systems, technological innovations, density of settlements but also ‘a way of life’. 

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