Social Science (087) — AI-generated practice question

Indian cotton weavers faced a crisis from two directions:

1. Collapse of export market: As British cotton industries grew, Manchester goods flooded foreign markets. Indian textile exports fell sharply — from 33% of India's exports in 1811–12 to just 3% by 1850–51. Weavers lost their overseas buyers entirely.

2. Shrinking local market: British machine-made cloth flooded India's domestic market. Produced at lower costs by machines, Manchester goods were cheaper than handwoven cloth, so Indian weavers could not compete. By the 1850s, most weaving regions reported decline and desolation.

Source: Chapter 4, Section 3.3 — Manchester Comes to India

• The question asks for two specific problems — award yourself 1 mark each for correctly identifying (a) collapse of export market and (b) shrinking/flooded local market, plus 1 mark for explaining the harm caused by each.
• Key phrase from the textbook: "their export market collapsed, and the local market shrank, being glutted with Manchester imports" — use this framing.
• Don't confuse this with the earlier problems caused by the East India Company's gomastha system; those are pre-19th century issues. This question is about the Manchester-era crisis.