Given below are two statements: one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other is labelled as Reason (R).
Assertion (A): Under the policy of protection, Indian producers had no incentive to improve the quality of their goods.
Reason (R): The policy of protection was based on the notion that industries of developing countries could not compete with goods of more developed economies.
In the light of the above statements, choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).
Assertion (A): Under the policy of protection, Indian producers had no incentive to improve the quality of their goods. — True. Producers could sell low quality items at a high price, so they did not try to improve.
Reason (R): The policy of protection was based on the notion that industries of developing countries could not compete with goods of more developed economies. — True. Planners believed Indian industries were not yet able to compete with goods from developed economies.
Why R does not explain A?
R tells us why protection was adopted. It does not tell us why producers stopped caring about quality. The real reason for A is the captive market: imports were restricted, so consumers had to buy whatever Indian producers made, and producers lost nothing by keeping quality low.
NCERT (2026-27): “2.5 Trade Policy: Import Substitution … The policy of protection was based on the notion that industries of developing countries were not in a position to compete against the goods produced by more developed economies. It was assumed that if the domestic industries were protected they would learn to compete in the course of time. …” “… The protection from foreign competition was also being criticised on the ground that it continued even after it proved to do more harm than good. Due to restrictions on imports, the Indian consumers had to purchase whatever the Indian producers produced. The producers were aware that they had a captive market; so they had no incentive to improve the quality of their goods. … Competition from imports forces our producers to be more efficient.” |