MP Board · Class 10 · Social Science · History: The Age of IndustrialisationExplain the problems faced by Indian cotton weavers by the turn of the 19th century.

By the turn of the 19th century, Indian cotton weavers faced a series of interconnected problems. Firstly, as cotton industries developed in England, industrial groups pressurized the government to impose import duties on cotton textiles so that Manchester goods could sell in Britain without competition. This led to the collapse of the Indian export market. Secondly, the local market in India shrank as it was glutted with Manchester imports. Produced by machines at lower costs, these imported cotton goods were so cheap that Indian weavers could not compete with them. Thirdly, by the 1860s, weavers faced a new problem of shortage of raw cotton. When the American Civil War broke out and cotton supplies from the US were cut off, Britain turned to India. As raw cotton exports from India increased, the price of raw cotton shot up. Weavers in India were starved of supplies and forced to buy raw cotton at exorbitant prices. Finally, by the end of the 19th century, factories in India began production, flooding the market with machine-made goods, which dealt a final blow to the weaving industry.