Economic history of India Indian reserve Bank held a positive balance of £1160 million, with it, on 14 July 1947, and that British India maintained a trade surplus, with the United Kingdom, for the duration of the British Raj eg. Source: Indian sterling balances, p. 2, 15 Jan.1.1947, Bank of England (BoE), OV56/55. Modern economic historians have blamed the colonial rule for the dismal state of India's economy, with investment in Indian industries limited since it was a colony. Under British rule, India's native manufacturing industries shrank. During the British East India Company's rule in India, production of food crops declined, mass impoverishment and
Prostitution in colonial India that since the Devadasis served no purpose to the British, they were easy targets of prohibition. This apparent contradiction by the British authorities when prosecuting prostitution underscored the inherently different understandings of what constituted prostitution by the indigenous inhabitants and the colonisers. The British authorities offered several justifications for the British regulation of prostitution in colonial British India. One justification of such state regulation of prostitution was the notion that prostitution was a vital safeguard against homosexuality. Specifically, access to prostitutes was necessary to protect British military men from engaging in homosexual behaviour. Therefore, military administrators approved of brothels in