<P> P.J. Marshall argues the British regime did not make any sharp break with the traditional economy and control was largely left in the hands of regional rulers . The economy was sustained by general conditions of prosperity through the latter part of the 18th century, except the frequent famines with high fatality rates . Marshall notes the British raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation . Marshall also contends the British managed this primarily indigenous - controlled economy through cooperation with Indian elites . </P> <P> Historians have questioned why India did not undergo industrialisation in the nineteenth century in the way that Britain did . In the seventeenth century, India was a relatively urbanised and commercialised nation with a buoyant export trade, devoted largely to cotton textiles, but also including silk, spices, and rice . India was the world's main producer of cotton textiles and had a substantial export trade to Britain, as well as many other European countries, via the East India Company . Yet as the British cotton industry underwent a technological revolution during the late 18th to early 19th centuries, the Indian industry stagnated and deindustrialized . India also underwent a period of deindustrialization in the latter half of the 18th century as an indirect outcome of the collapse of the Mughal Empire . </P> <P> Even as late as 1772, Henry Patullo, in the course of his comments on the economic resources of Bengal, could claim confidently that the demand for Indian textiles could never reduce, since no other nation could equal or rival it in quality . However, by the early nineteenth century, the beginning of a long history of decline of textile exports is observed . </P> <P> A commonly cited legend is that in the early 19th century, the East India Company (EIC), had cut off the hands of hundreds of weavers in Bengal in order to destroy the indigenous weaving industry in favour of British textile imports (some anecdotal accounts say the thumbs of the weavers of Dacca were removed). However this is generally considered to be a myth, originating from William Bolts' 1772 account where he alleges that several weavers had cut off their own thumbs in protest at poor working conditions . </P>

When did british economic interests begin in india