For generations a weaver family in Murshidabad supplied fine silk to the nawab's household. After the British took over the state, orders from the palace stopped, and cheap mill cloth from England filled the local market. The sons left the loom: one became a clerk in Bombay, another took up farming on rented land. Around the same years, a cousin who had gone to England as a ship's cook wrote home that the English countryside seemed empty, while its towns teemed with factory workers, clerks and dock hands.
Like Murshidabad, which two towns lost their courts, and with them some artisans and court gentry, when the British took over Indian states?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Thanjavur and Dhaka
Option (1) Surat and Masulipatnam — Incorrect. Surat and Masulipatnam were old trading and port cities. They declined because Bombay and Madras grew in their place as the new trading centres.
Option (2) Thanjavur and Dhaka — Correct. Thanjavur and Dhaka were court towns like Murshidabad. When the British took over these states the courts ended, and the artisans and court gentry who lived on court demand went with them.
Option (3) Thanjavur and Surat — Incorrect. Thanjavur fits, since it lost its court. Surat does not, because its decline came from the rise of Bombay as a trading centre.
Option (4) Dhaka and Masulipatnam — Incorrect. Dhaka fits as a court town that lost its court. Masulipatnam was an old port city that declined as Madras grew, so the pair fails.
NCERT (2026-27): “The Colonial Experience … |