When the English first came to India, they found that India produced the world's best cotton yarn and textiles in enormous quantities. They wasted no time in "importing" it from India. At that time, India controlled about a quarter of the world textile trade. Then along came the Industrial revolution in Britain and they started producing better and cheaper textiles. This mill produced cloth soon found its way back to India. The skilled Indian artisans were no match for the skilled mechanized artisans, the machines. Soon they lost the entire market, domestic as well as international and millions were rendered jobless. It was a bolt from the blue for Indian traders.
When the English had started importing cloth from India, they cushioned the impact on English weavers by erecting trade barriers. But, no such thing happened for the Indian weavers under the British rule. The Indians had very little time and the learning curve to adopt technology used in English mills was very steep. Also it did not help that the social equation in India (the 4 divisions in society - Brahmins (learners), Kshatriyas (Warriors/landowners), Vaishyas (merchants), and Kshudra (workers/artisans) had well defined job functions) did little to encourage tinkerers to develop mechanical solution for any problem. For any mechanical job, it made more sense to hire manual labor because it was cheap and widely available. As a result, India missed the train to Industrial revolution in the 19th century. The loss of jobs of Indian weavers was inevitable. They were victims of technological obsolescence!
History teaches us quite a few lessons and this is one of them. Today we watch the fascinating outcome of the Industrial revolution in awe. Imagine a world without machines, not many would call it utopia. What was a bane for the Indian weavers then, is considered to be the greatest boon by the current generation.
Such would not have been the case if Indians would have been able to keep abreast with the latest technology in the other parts of the world. But, they lacked what is one of its most prized possession today, the power of Information Technology. Had IT been as developed then as it is today, we may have had an entirely different history. Probably, India would have been a very advanced, industrial and developed country. It isn't very late even now but, for some reason, India has bypassed the industrial revolution and directly entered the age of Information revolution. As if it has understood that if we are leaders in IT, we can never become obsolete. One wonders if India really took a lesson out of history and this is the reason why we are now the IT hub of the world!
Agree with me? Disagree with me? Leave a comment……..
Author: Vj
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