Given the lively debate in contemporary politics and academia about the effects of British colonialism on the Indian economy, this paper attempts to trace the development of India's economic history since the 18th century, with a... more
Given the lively debate in contemporary politics and academia about the effects of British colonialism on the Indian economy, this paper attempts to trace the development of India's economic history since the 18th century, with a particular emphasis on the drain theory of wealth and the question of deindustrialisation. To arrive at probable conclusions, it reviews a broad set of scholarly papers on this issue and evaluates the data presented by a wide variety of writers. It is discovered that the construction of the drain of wealth theory has been rigorously questioned by researchers both at home and abroad, and its set of key premises remains unproven. On the other hand, the evidence for the deindustrialisation hypothesis is found to be significant, at least for the regions of Gangetic Bihar and Bengal, during the early 19th century.
