Students compare census tables for a district in the Gangetic plain over several decades of British rule. In each count the handloom weavers and brass-workers are fewer, while those recorded as cultivators and farm labourers rise. In the provincial capital nearby, the same tables record occupations that earlier counts did not show at all: mill managers, clerks in trading firms, English-trained schoolteachers, lawyers and factory hands living in rented rooms near the mills.
Sociologists hold that industrialisation, as the new occupations in the provincial capital show, is not just about new machine-based production. What, in other words, is it about?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Changes in the Indian social structure
Option (1) Changes in the Indian social structure — Correct. Industrialisation is also a story of new social groups and new social relationships, so it is about changes in the Indian social structure. The mill managers, clerks, lawyers and factory hands in the passage are such new groups.
Option (2) The growth of a nationalist and anti-colonial consciousness — Incorrect. Nationalist and anti-colonial consciousness grew from the clash between colonial rule and the ideas of nationalism and democratic rights. It is a political development. The new occupations in the passage point to new social groups and relationships, which is a matter of social structure.
Option (3) The creation of Indians who would manage British colonialism — Incorrect. This describes the aim of colonial schooling, which set out to train Indians to run British rule. It is about the purpose of education. The new social groups that industrialisation brought lie outside it.
Option (4) The global spread of capitalism and its drive for profit — Incorrect. Capitalism, with its drive for profit and expansion, is the economic system behind colonialism. It names the force behind colonial rule. The new social groups and relationships that industrialisation created are a separate matter of social structure.
NCERT (2026-27): “The Colonial Experience … |