The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

by Jason Hickel

From the perspective of the British, the problem with India was that it had relatively strong industries of its own. India’s textile industries, for instance, produced some of the finest cloth in the world, making it difficult for Britain to gain dominance in the global textile market. To deal with this obstacle, the British Colonial Office did everything in its power to hinder and even dismantle India’s autonomous industrial development, and sought to ensure that Indian manufacturers would not be able to compete with their British counterparts. They prevented Indians from becoming skilled artisans and they gave British firms preferential treatment in government procurement. In one famous episode, the British set out to destroy India’s textile industry by crushing the fingers of the weavers and destroying their looms. But their most potent tool was the use of one-way tariffs, which protected Britain’s markets from India’s exports while ensuring easy access for Britain’s goods into India. It worked: India, once self-sufficient and famous for its exports, was remade into ‘the greatest captive market in world history’.41