Industrialization in India

The period between the outbreak of the First World War and Independence is crucial to an understanding of the pattern of industrial development in India. It not only saw a considerable expansion of the private corporate sector but also the strengthening of the indigenous element within it. At the beginning of the period the industrial economy of India was oriented to the export of colonial products (jute, tea, etc.) under foreign business houses; by the end many new consumer and capital goods were being produced for the domestic market by indigenous entrepreneurs, undermining the economic foundations of the British Raj and strengthening the nationalist movement.

This far-reaching study considers all the interrelated historical, economic, political and cultural factors that influenced the pattern of development. With detailed case studies of the growth of fourteen crucial industries, it analyses why India, which was able to build a substantial industrial infrastructure with a stronger indigenous element than most underdeveloped countries, remained one of the poorest countries of the world and, as subsequent developments showed, pitifully dependent on the West.