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Class-XII
Chapter-8
Book-2
Structural Change
Short Notes :
Colonial experience for comprehending modern India
• The colonial rule has had a tremendous impact on Indian society in all
aspects-railways, industries, postal system (social, cultural, economic,
political).
• Understanding of colonial experience while comprehending modern
India is of significant importance as many modern ideas and institutions
reached India through colonialism.
• It is also because such an exposure to modern ideas was contradictory or
paradoxical. For example, Indians in the colonial period read about
western liberalism and freedom.
• Yet they lived under a western, colonial rule that denied Indians liberty
and freedom. It is contradiction of this kind that shaped many of the
structural and cultural change in modern India.
• In this chapter we focus on structural changes that colonialism brought
in.
• We, therefore, need to shift from this broad impressionistic view to a
clearer understanding of colonialism as a structure and system.
• Colonialism brought into being new political, economic and social
structural changes.
• In this chapter we look at only two of these structural changes namely
industrialisation and urbanisation.
• While the focus is on specific colonial context we also briefly touch on
developments after independence.
• All these structural changes were accompanied by cultural changes.
