Romesh Chunder Dutt
Also called: R.C. Dutt · Topic: Colonial Economy: Land Revenue, Drain, Deindustrialisation · NCERT: Class 8, Ch 4 "The Colonial Era in India"
Meaning
Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848–1909) was an Indian civil servant who became an economic historian. He was one of the early nationalists who showed, with facts and figures, how British rule made India poor. He blamed heavy land revenue, the destruction of Indian crafts and the drain of wealth, meaning the steady flow of India's money to Britain. He presided over the Indian National Congress in 1899.
Example
His two-volume Economic History of India (1902–1904) linked British land revenue and trade policy to India's poverty and repeated famines. It was written in the same years as Dadabhai Naoroji's Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901).
Don't confuse with
- Dadabhai Naoroji: Naoroji is best known for working out the size of the drain from British reports, and for becoming the first Indian member of the British House of Commons (1892). Dutt is best known for his economic history of British rule.
Related concepts
- Drain of wealth
- William Digby
- Dadabhai Naoroji
- Poverty and Un-British Rule in India
- Economic History of India
- Home charges
- Colonial railways
- First railway line 1853
- Great Indian Peninsula Railway
- Guaranteed interest system