“Till independenc

The exchange of goods among people, states and countries is referred to as trade, and the trade between the two countries is called international trade. Advancement of international trade of a country is an index to its economic prosperity, and is therefore, considered the economic barometer for a country.

India was under the British colonial rule till 1947. The economy of the country was suppressed to facilitate British growth in the International stage. The textile industry of India was destroyed with cunning colonial strategies to kill the major export commodity of India. Similarly, the colonial objective was to reduce India to the status of the supplier of raw material so that the Industrial Revolution in the U.K. could flourish and Britain could become the most powerful nation in the world.

“At the beginning of the 18^th century India’s share of the world economy was 23%, as large as all of Europe put together. By the time the British departed India, it had dropped to just over 3%. The reason was simple: India as governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India.” (Angus Maddison, The World Economy, Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006). (from the book Era of Darkness, Shashi Tharoor p.4, 2016).