ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the initial dislocation of the Indian economy in the early days of British power and aims to study the effect of British currency and revenue administration. The many Muslim annalists of the Mughal Empire took little interest in economic matters, and even that monumental work, the Ain-i-Akbari, tells us but little of the standard of living of the ordinary man. British Government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually’. British officials and statesmen have been led by imperial pride to accept it as an article of faith that Britain has brought to India wealth and prosperity. The establishment of British rule in India coincided with an aggressive phase of Western capitalist and industrialist development. Britain acted as the catalytic agent, by which new Western forms of economic organisation transformed Indian life and society.
