Impact on the economy
In the last half of the nineteenth century, India and Great Britain's economies became closely intertwined due to the technological changes brought about by the British Raj directly to the Indian administration and the Industrial Revolution. Is considered related. Lord Dalhousie embraced technological change, which was then accomplished very rapidly in Great Britain. As a result, developing various technologies in India also started very soon. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges began to be built very fast, and telegraph communication also developed very quickly. These make it possible for raw materials, such as cotton, to be transported more efficiently from different parts of India to various ports such as Bombay for export to England for export. [2] [3] Although the market risk for infrastructure development in England was borne by private investors, in India, it was borne by the taxpayers, who were mainly farmers and agricultural laborers. Which ultimately stands at 50 million. [4] Despite all these costs, very few skilled workers are made in India. By the year 1920, in the 60-year history of Indian Railways, only ten percent of the railways were held by Indians.
Technological acceleration also changed the agricultural economy in India. By the last decade of the nineteenth century, large quantities of some raw materials, including some food grains other than cotton, began to be exported to distant markets. [6] The second half of the nineteenth century saw an increase in famine in India. Although famines were nothing new in the Indian subcontinent, the effects of these famines were so severe that millions of people died. [6] Many British and Indian critics blamed the famine on the colonial rulers. [6]
The beginning of autonomy
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the first steps towards autonomy began to be taken through the appointment of Indian advisers to advise the British Viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members. The British legalized the participation of Indian members in the Legislative Assembly through the Indian Councils Act, 1892. Municipalities and district boards are formed for local administration. These included elected Indian members.
The Indian Councils Act, 1909, also known as the Morley-Minto Reform (John Morley was Secretary of State for India, and Gilbert Elliott, 4th Earl of Minto, was Viceroy) - gave Indians a limited role in the central and provincial legislatures. Earlier, Indians were appointed to the Legislative Council, but after the amendment of the law, some of them continued to be elected to the Legislative Council. The majority of council members at the center continued to be appointed by the government, and the Viceroy was in no way accountable to the legislature. Elected members at the provincial level outnumbered government-appointed members with unapproved appointments. But the governor was not accountable to the legislature. John Morley presented the law to the British Parliament, making it clear that parliamentary autonomy in India was not the goal of the British government.
The Morley-Minto Reform was a milestone. A step-by-step electoral policy was introduced for membership of the Indian Legislative Council. The electorate was limited to a small group of upper-class Indians. These elected members gradually became hostile to the government. Communal constituencies later spread to other communities and formed a political factor in the Indian tendency towards group identification through religion.