ABSTRACT
India under the British has been typified as a dependent country which failed to make long-run economic growth. Adjectives such as stagnant, aborted, arrested and static are applied to it. The aim of this chapter is threefold. First, to demonstrate that the inadequacy of the treated, if not the raw data, the temporal and spatial variations in economic performance, the peculiarities of individual entrepreneurs, landlords, peasants and labourers, and the inconsistency of government policy; that all of these make generalisations about British India of limited value. Secondly, to attempt some sort of estimate, based on quantitative and qualitative evidence, of long-run economic development. And finally to assess the demand-market and factor-supply situation in the major sectors of the economy.
