Chapter MCQ Test 2 — Indian Economy on the Eve of Independence
10 Questions • 12 min • Chapter MCQ
12:00
Question 1 of 10
Indian-made textiles, once exported worldwide, lost their markets under the British mainly because:
Cheap machine-made British cloth flooded India
Indians stopped weaving
Cotton ran out
Demand rose
Explanation: Machine-made British imports undercut and destroyed the handicraft textile industry — de-industrialisation.
Question 2 of 10
Although India often ran an export surplus under the British, ordinary Indians did not benefit because the surplus was used to:
Meet Britain's expenses (a drain of wealth)
Build Indian schools
Pay Indian farmers
Fund Indian industry
Explanation: The surplus financed colonial expenses, draining resources out of India rather than developing it.
Question 3 of 10
The near-unchanged occupational structure (most people in agriculture for decades) indicates that the economy was:
Stagnant and undeveloped
Rapidly industrialising
Service-led
Fully modern
Explanation: A workforce stuck in agriculture, with no shift to industry/services, signals an undeveloped, stagnant economy.
Question 4 of 10
Both high birth and high death rates with very low life expectancy place colonial India in the demographic stage typical of a:
Poor, underdeveloped country
Rich, developed country
Post-industrial economy
Welfare state
Explanation: High birth and death rates and ~32-year life expectancy are hallmarks of an underdeveloped economy.
Question 5 of 10
The railways are described as a 'mixed blessing' because they:
Helped movement and broke isolation, but were built mainly to serve British trade
Were useless
Only carried passengers
Developed Indian industry fully
Explanation: They modernised transport yet were designed to move raw materials to ports for export, serving Britain first.
Question 6 of 10
The commercialisation of agriculture sometimes worsened famines because farmers grew:
Cash crops for export instead of food for themselves
Too much food
Only wheat
Nothing at all
Explanation: Shifting land from food to export cash crops reduced food availability, deepening hunger in bad years.
Question 7 of 10
A key reason Indian agriculture stayed low in productivity was the zamindari system, which gave cultivators:
No incentive to improve the land they did not own
Free machinery
High profits
Modern irrigation
Explanation: Tenants who handed most produce to intermediaries had little reason or means to invest in the land.
Question 8 of 10
The few modern industries that did develop (jute, cotton, steel) were limited because they were:
Few, regionally concentrated and largely foreign-controlled, with no capital-goods base
Spread evenly across India
Fully Indian-owned
The largest in the world
Explanation: Sparse, concentrated and foreign-dominated industry, lacking machine-making capacity, could not modernise the economy.
Question 9 of 10
Independent India in 1947 inherited an economy best described as:
Backward and stagnant, needing planned development
Rich and industrialised
A leading exporter of machinery
Fully literate
Explanation: Weak agriculture, ruined crafts, little industry and mass poverty made planned development the urgent task.
Question 10 of 10
Studying the eve of independence matters because it explains why independent India chose to focus on:
Self-reliance, industry and agricultural reform through planning
Continuing colonial trade only
Abolishing all industry
Exporting only raw materials
Explanation: The colonial damage shaped India's post-1947 priorities: planning, industrialisation, food security and self-reliance.