Exam-useful questions from this chapter, grouped by marks, each with a full model answer. Try writing the answer yourself first, then check it against this one.
1 1-Mark Questions
Q. Define colonialism, as given at the start of this chapter.
Answer: At one level, colonialism simply means the establishment of rule by one country over another; in the modern period, western colonialism has had the greatest impact.
Q. Define capitalism.
Answer: Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and organised to accumulate profits within a market system.
Q. What is a nation-state?
Answer: A nation-state is a government with sovereign power within a defined territorial area, whose people are citizens of a single nation.
Q. Define industrialisation.
Answer: Industrialisation is the emergence of machine production, based on the use of inanimate power resources like steam or electricity.
Q. In which year, and mainly in which region, did the tea industry begin in India?
Answer: The tea industry began in India in 1851, with most of the tea gardens situated in Assam.
Q. Who leased the three villages by the river Hugli (Kolikata, Gobindapur and Sutanuti) to set up a trading post, and in which year?
Answer: English merchant Job Charnock leased the three villages of Kolikata, Gobindapur and Sutanuti, by the river Hugli, in 1690.
Q. What did the Swadeshi movement do, according to this chapter?
Answer: The Swadeshi movement strengthened Indians’ loyalty to the national economy.
Q. What percentage of India’s population was urban in 2011, according to the chapter?
Answer: 31.16% of India’s population, or 377.10 million people, lived in towns in 2011.
2 2-Mark Questions
Q. How did pre-capitalist empires differ from capitalist British colonialism in the way they treated a conquered economy?
Answer: Apart from outright pillage, pre-capitalist conquerors benefited mainly by exacting a continuous flow of tribute skimmed off the traditional economic surplus, without, on the whole, interfering with the economic base. British colonialism, based on capitalism, directly interfered: changing land laws, deciding which crops to grow, and altering production and distribution: to maximise British capitalist profit.
Q. Name two different kinds of movement of people caused by colonialism.
Answer: Within India: people moved from present-day Jharkhand to Assam for tea plantations, and a new middle class from Bengal and Madras moved as government employees and professionals. Overseas: people were carried by ship to work on other colonised lands in Asia, Africa and the Americas; today many of their descendants are known as people of Indian origin.
Q. What does Box 1.1 tell us about the recruitment of labour for Mauritius?
Answer: From 1834 to 1920, ships left Indian ports regularly, carrying people of various religions, genders, classes and castes to work a minimum of five years on Mauritius plantations. The recruiting ground for many decades was centred in Bihar districts such as Patna, Gaya, Arrah, Saran, Tirhoot, Champaran, Munger, Bhagalpur and Purnea.
Q. Give two figures that show how rapidly Britain urbanised between 1800 and 1900.
Answer: In 1800, well under 20% of Britain’s population lived in towns or cities of over 10,000 people; by 1900 this had risen to 74%. London’s population itself grew from about 1.1 million in 1800 to over 7 million by the start of the twentieth century.
Q. What is meant by deindustrialisation, and how did it affect India under British rule?
Answer: Deindustrialisation is the decline of existing industry. In India, British industrialisation caused deindustrialisation in some sectors as traditional cotton and silk manufactures declined in the face of Manchester competition, and cities such as Surat and Masulipatnam also declined further in this period.
Q. Why did towns like Thanjavur, Dhaka and Murshidabad decline under colonial rule?
Answer: When the British took over the Indian states these towns belonged to, the towns lost their courts and, therefore, some of their artisans and court gentry.
Q. According to Box 1.3, why could land ownership and English education not create a genuine Indian middle class?
Answer: Land ownership remained unconnected to agricultural productivity, and education in English remained unconnected to the mainstream of Indian cultural traditions: so neither alternative could build a real middle class; instead, in the book’s words, zamindars became parasites in land and graduates became job hunters.
Q. Why were coastal cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai favoured under colonial rule?
Answer: These cities made it easy to export primary commodities and cheaply import manufactured goods, making them the prime link between the economic core in Britain and the periphery in colonised India: ‘the concrete expression of global capitalism’.
3 4-Mark Questions
Q. Explain the connection between the rise of western capitalism and western colonialism, and its impact on India, as described in this chapter.
Answer: Western colonialism was inextricably connected to the growth of western capitalism: capitalism in the west emerged out of European exploration of the world, plunder of its wealth and resources, and an unprecedented growth of science and technology harnessed to industry and agriculture. This had a lasting impact on how capitalism developed in a colonised country like India: colonialism led to very distinct patterns of industrialisation and urbanisation, such as deindustrialisation in some sectors alongside the growth of some towns around mechanised factory industries from the end of the 19th century.
Q. Explain, with reference to swaraj, the contradiction between colonialism and nationalism that the chapter describes.
Answer: Colonial rule meant foreign rule, such as British rule over India, while nationalism held that the people of any colonised society had an equal right to be sovereign. This was a direct contradiction: a colonial power denying self-rule to a people while nation states were becoming the dominant political form, built on the principle that any set of people has a right to be free and exercise sovereign power. Indian nationalist leaders grasped this irony quickly and declared that swaraj (freedom) was their birthright, fighting for both political and economic freedom.
Q. How was India’s experience of industrialisation different from Britain’s, according to this chapter?
Answer: In Britain, the first society to undergo industrialisation, industrialisation went with a large-scale shift of population into towns and cities: by 1900, 74% of the population lived in towns or cities of more than 10,000 people, up from well under 20% in 1800. In India, the very same British industrialisation led to deindustrialisation in some sectors (traditional cotton and silk exports declined in the face of Manchester competition) and the decline of old urban centres, and, unlike Britain, its initial impact led more people to move into agriculture rather than into cities, as the 1911 Census Report shows.
Q. Describe the role colonial port cities played in linking Britain and India, with examples.
Answer: Cities had a key role in the economic system of empires; coastal cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai were favoured because they made export of primary commodities and import of manufactured goods easy, forming the prime link between the British economic core and the Indian periphery. By 1900, over three-quarters of India’s raw cotton was shipped through Bombay; Calcutta exported jute to Dundee; Madras sent coffee, sugar, indigo dyes and cotton to Britain.
Q. Using Box 1.4, describe the difference between the European town and the native town in a South Asian colonial city.
Answer: The European town had spacious bungalows, elegant apartment houses, planned streets with trees on both sides, and clubs for afternoon and evening get-togethers; the open space was reserved for Western recreational facilities such as race and golf courses, soccer and cricket. Where domestic water supply, electric connections and sewage links were available or technically possible, European-town residents utilised them fully, whereas their use was quite restricted in the native town (Dutt, 1993). So colonial planning gave the European town services that the native town could use only in restricted form.
Q. Describe how labour was recruited for tea plantations in colonial Assam, and what this shows about colonial governance.
Answer: Since Assam was sparsely populated and the plantations were often located on uninhabited hillsides, the bulk of the labour had to be brought from other provinces. Bringing thousands of people every year required financial and other incentives, which the planters were unwilling to offer, so they resorted to fraud and coercion and persuaded the government to pass penal laws: recruitment was carried on for years, mostly by contractors, under the Transport of Native Labourers Act (No. III) of 1863 of Bengal, amended in 1865, 1870 and 1873. This shows that colonial administrators were clear that harsh measures were taken against labourers to benefit the planters, and were fully aware that the laws of a colonised country did not have to stick to the democratic norms the British followed in Britain.
Q. Explain M.S.A. Rao’s three types of urban impact on Indian villages in the first two decades after independence.
Answer: First, villages with a sizeable number of people who migrate to far-off cities for employment while family stays behind, as in Madhopur, where migrants send money home and visit periodically. Second, villages situated near an industrial town such as Bhilai, where some villages are totally uprooted and the lands of others are partially acquired, while an influx of immigrant workers stimulates a demand for houses and a market inside the village but creates problems of ordering relationships between native residents and immigrants. Third, the growth of metropolitan cities, in which a few villages are totally absorbed while only the land of many others, excluding the inhabited area, is used for urban development.
Q. What vision did Indian nationalists have for industrialisation in independent India, and how was it acted on?
Answer: For Indian nationalists, economic exploitation under colonial rule had been a central issue, and modern ideas made people realise that poverty was preventable. They saw rapid industrialisation as the path to both growth and social equity, so the newly independent state prioritised the development of heavy and machine-making industries, expansion of the public sector, and a large cooperative sector: leading to new industrial towns such as Bokaro, Bhilai, Rourkela and Durgapur.
4 6-Mark Questions
Q. ‘Colonialism brought into being new political, economic and social structural changes.’ Discuss this statement with reference to land, forests, movement of people and the growth of a new middle class.
Answer: British colonialism, unlike earlier pre-capitalist empires, directly interfered with the structures it ruled over rather than simply taking tribute. In land and forests, it changed land-ownership laws, decided which crops ought to be grown, altered how goods were produced and distributed, cleared forests for tea plantations, and brought in Forest Acts that prevented pastoralists from entering many forests that had earlier provided valuable forage for their cattle. It also caused large movements of people: within India, from present-day Jharkhand to Assam’s tea plantations, and of a new middle class of government employees and professionals from Bengal and Madras; and overseas, as labourers carried by ship to other colonised lands (Box 1.1: to Mauritius from 1834 till 1920, for a minimum of five years, recruited for many decades mainly from Bihar districts), many of whose descendants are today known as people of Indian origin. On the growth of a new middle class, Box 1.3 shows that the substitutes colonial rule offered, land ownership and facilities for education in English, were not sufficient: the first remained unconnected with agricultural productivity and the second with the mainstream of Indian cultural traditions, so they could not create any genuine middle class; in Mukherjee’s words, ‘the zamindars become parasites in land and the graduates job hunters’. Together these changes show colonialism working as a structure and system that reshaped Indian society. Some changes were deliberate and some unintended: western education, introduced to create Indians who would manage British colonialism, instead led to the growth of a nationalist and anti-colonial consciousness.
Q. Compare the experience of industrialisation and urbanisation in Britain with that in colonial India, using the facts and figures given in the chapter.
Answer: In Britain, the first society to industrialise, industrialisation and urbanisation went hand in hand: in 1800 well under 20% of the population lived in towns or cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants, rising to 74% by 1900, while London grew from about 1.1 million people to over 7 million, by far the largest city the world had seen, a vast manufacturing, commercial and financial centre. In India, the very same British industrialisation produced a different pattern. It led to deindustrialisation in some sectors: traditional exports of cotton and silk manufactures declined in the face of ‘Manchester competition’, and old cities such as Surat and Masulipatnam declined further, while towns such as Thanjavur, Dhaka and Murshidabad lost their courts and, therefore, some of their artisans and court gentry when the British took over Indian states. Unlike in Britain, the initial impact of British industrialisation in India led more people to move into agriculture rather than towns, as the 1911 Census Report shows. Urban growth did occur: colonial port cities such as Bombay, Calcutta and Madras grew because they served colonial export interests (raw cotton, jute, coffee, sugar, indigo), and from the end of the 19th century mechanised factory industries made some towns much more heavily populated.
Q. Using colonial port cities and the tea plantations as two case studies, show how colonialism shaped India’s structural change to serve British, not Indian, interests.
Answer: Colonial port cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai were favoured because primary commodities could be easily exported and manufactured goods cheaply imported through them, making them ‘the concrete expression of global capitalism’: Bombay was planned and re-developed so that by 1900 over three-quarters of India’s raw cotton was shipped through it, Calcutta exported jute to Dundee, and Madras sent coffee, sugar, indigo dyes and cotton to Britain. Kolkata itself grew from three villages Job Charnock leased in 1690 for a trading post and the fort established in 1698, and its colonial planning (Box 1.4) gave the European town planned streets, open space and civic services, whose use was quite restricted in the native town. The tea industry shows the same pattern from the labour side: begun in 1851, with most gardens in Assam, it employed 4,79,000 permanent and 93,000 temporary workers in 1903, recruited through fraud and coercion backed by the Transport of Native Labourers Act (No. III) of 1863 (amended 1865, 1870, 1873), while the planters lived lives of luxury (Box 1.6). Both case studies show that India’s early industrialisation and urbanisation were governed by colonial interests, in line with the chapter’s point that every policy of British colonialism was geared towards strengthening and expanding British capitalism.
Q. How did independent India try to address the structural changes left behind by colonialism, in both industry and cities?
Answer: On industry, Indian nationalists treated the economic exploitation of the colonial period as a central issue and, inspired partly by the Swadeshi movement’s strengthening of loyalty to the national economy, saw rapid industrialisation as the route to both growth and social equity. This led the independent state to actively promote the development of heavy and machine-making industries, expand the public sector, and build a large cooperative sector, giving rise to new industrial towns such as Bokaro, Bhilai, Rourkela and Durgapur (Chapter 5 of the book takes up Indian industrialisation from the early years of independence to the post-1990 liberalisation period). On cities, independent India saw continued urbanisation: recent years of globalisation have led to enormous expansion and change of cities, and the ‘Smart City’ scheme is expected to speed up urbanisation further (detailed in Chapter 6). Sociologically, M.S.A. Rao identified three distinct kinds of urban impact spreading out from this growth into the surrounding villages: out-migration for city employment, impact from nearby industrial towns like Bhilai, and absorption by expanding metropolitan cities: and the population data bears this out: India’s urban share rose from 17.29% in 1951 to 31.16% in 2011, even though the pace of that growth (the decennial growth rate) actually slowed between 1981 and 2001 before a marginal recovery.
5 Case Studies
(A) 2 marks Which real towns named in the chapter faced a similar fate, and why?
Answer: Thanjavur, Dhaka and Murshidabad are named in the chapter as towns that lost their courts when the British took over Indian states, and, therefore, some of their artisans and court gentry.
(B) 2 marks Which sociological term from the chapter describes the town’s silk trade collapsing?
Answer: This is an example of deindustrialisation: the decline of existing industry: which the chapter says happened in some sectors of India’s traditional manufacturing (cotton and silk exports) under British industrial competition.
(C) 2 marks Why does the passage’s ending: weaver families shifting to farming: match a pattern the chapter specifically highlights as unusual?
Answer: The chapter highlights that, unlike in Britain where industrialisation pulled people into cities, the initial impact of British industrialisation in India led MORE people to move into agriculture: exactly what happens to the weaver families in the passage, confirmed by the 1911 Census Report’s own account of artisans abandoning their craft for farming.
(A) 2 marks Identify the sociologist and the two types of urban impact illustrated by this passage.
Answer: M.S.A. Rao (1974) identified these as two of his three types of urban impact on villages: the first man’s story matches the first type: out-migration to a distant city for employment while family remains in the village, as in the Madhopur example. The steel-plant story matches the second type: villages situated near an industrial town, as in the Bhilai example.
(B) 2 marks Which real village example from the chapter most closely matches the first situation, and what proportion of its migrants worked in the two cities named?
Answer: Madhopur, a village in north-central India, closely matches this: 77 of its 298 households have migrants, and a little less than half of all the migrants work in Bombay and Calcutta specifically.
(C) 2 marks What social problem does the chapter say can arise from the situation described for the steel-plant villages?
Answer: The chapter notes that an influx of immigrant workers into villages near an industrial town raises the demand for houses and expands the local market, but also creates problems in ordering the relationship between native residents and the immigrants.