About This Section
This is a collection of important questions with complete model answers covering the whole of Chapter 4 — The Age of Industrialisation. They are grouped by marks — 1-mark, 3-mark and 5-mark — for thorough Board preparation.
1-Mark Questions
Q1. What is meant by proto-industrialisation? Ans. Large-scale production for an international market before the coming of factories.
Q2. Who created the cotton mill? Ans. Richard Arkwright.
Q3. Who invented the Spinning Jenny, and in which year? Ans. James Hargreaves, in 1764.
Q4. What was a gomastha? Ans. A paid servant of the Company appointed to supervise weavers.
1-Mark Questions (continued)
Q5. Where and when was the first cotton mill in India set up? Ans. In Bombay, in 1854.
Q6. Who set up the first iron and steel works in India, and where? Ans. J.N. Tata, at Jamshedpur (in 1912).
Q7. What device helped handloom weavers improve productivity in the twentieth century? Ans. The fly shuttle.
Q8. What message did Indian manufacturers convey through their advertisements? Ans. The swadeshi message — buy products made by Indians.
3-Mark Questions
Q9. Why did some industrialists in nineteenth-century Europe prefer hand labour over machines? Ans. Because there was plenty of cheap labour and no labour shortage, so machines (which needed large capital) were unnecessary. Much demand was seasonal, and the market often wanted intricate, hand-made goods that machines could not produce, so hand labour suited these needs.
3-Mark Questions (continued)
Q10. How did the East India Company procure regular supplies of cotton and silk textiles from Indian weavers? Ans. After gaining power, the Company appointed gomasthas to supervise weavers and eliminate the old traders. Through the system of advances, it gave weavers loans to buy raw material, in return for which they had to hand over all their cloth to the gomastha and could not sell to others — ensuring a regular supply at controlled prices.
3-Mark Questions (continued)
Q11. Why did the port of Surat decline by the end of the eighteenth century? Ans. As the European companies gained monopoly power, they shifted trade to their own ports (Bombay and Calcutta). Exports from Surat fell dramatically, the credit dried up, and local bankers went bankrupt — Surat's trade collapsing from Rs 16 million to Rs 3 million.
5-Mark Questions
Q12. Explain how Manchester goods came to capture the Indian market and its effects on Indian weavers. Ans. As cotton industries grew in England, industrialists secured import duties to keep out competition and persuaded the Company to sell British cloth in India. Cheap, machine-made Manchester cloth flooded India — cotton piece-goods rose to over 50 per cent of Indian imports by the 1870s. Indian weavers faced two blows: their export market collapsed (piece-goods exports fell from 33 to 3 per cent) and their local market was glutted. In the 1860s, the American Civil War raised raw cotton prices, starving weavers of supplies — so weaving 'could not pay'.
5-Mark Questions (continued)
Q13. Why did industrial production in India increase during the First World War? Ans. With British mills busy with war production, Manchester imports declined, giving Indian mills a vast home market. Indian factories were also called on to supply war needs — jute bags, uniforms, tents, boots and saddles. New factories opened, old ones ran multiple shifts, more workers were hired, and industrial production boomed; after the war Manchester could not recapture the Indian market.
Q14. How did advertisements help expand the market for industrial goods? Ans. Advertisements made products appear desirable and necessary and created a new consumer culture. Manchester used labels ('MADE IN MANCHESTER') and images of Indian gods to gain trust; manufacturers printed calendars reaching even the illiterate; royal figures were used to build respect; and Indian producers used the swadeshi message to sell their goods.