De-industrialisation of India

The economic de-industrialisation of India refers to a period of studied reduction in industrial based activities within the Indian economy from 1757 to 1947.

Parts of the Indian economy were controlled under the rule of the British East India Company from 1757 to 1858. This period involved protectionist policies, restricting, or tariffing, the sale of British and other Foreign manufactured goods within Company territory, and Indian goods and services within Britain, a 10% tariffs having been imposed on East Indian Company textile imports, into England, from 1685, and doubled to 20%, in 1690, with the 1698 Calico Acts restricting the importation of printed Indian textiles, and Scotland from the Duties on East India Goods Act 1707, while the Company had a monopoly on all English and later British trade, in either direction, form its 1661 charter revision, to the Charter Act 1813. From 1858, until 1947, much of the Indian economy was controlled directly under British imperial rule, also known as the British Raj.

Amiya Bagchi claimed that the de-industrialisation processes observed in India were a product of colonial rule intentionally aimed at benefiting the British economy. The Industrial Revolution in Europe was dependent on a significant rebalancing of the artisan and manufacturing activities in several European colonies in Asia including India.