India's share of world GDP in the 17th century was around 25%. Why didn't the Industrial Revolution start in India?

17世纪时，印度GDP曾占到全球四分之一。但为何工业革命没有率先发生在印度？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Tom Billings

B.S. in Science, Portland State University (Graduated 2003)Author has 4K answers and 623.3K answer viewsSep 20

Because India did *not* get the knowledge needed until far later than Britain, Europe, and America did, in “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith, to *start* the continuing industrial revolution. The BEIC did not force it on the local rulers of India, and in fact, opposed it in Britain. That was only approved *after* the BEIC was dissolved.

Eventually, the most competent definition of the continuing industrial revolution is:

因为在亚当·斯密的《国富论》中，跟英国、欧洲和美国相比，印度很迟才掌握工业革命所需的知识。

Gwydion Madawc Williams 

Read a lot about history, and note some general patterns.Author has 45K answers and 38.1M answer viewsSep 16

Because it was still a traditional economy.

The same applied to China.

因为印度仍然是传统经济。

中国也一样。

India was deprived of self-government. The British Empire chose to treat all Hindus and Muslims as inferior. There was limited industrialisation based on the railways Britain built.

Both India and China needed independence to really prosper.

印度被剥夺了自治权。大英帝国视所有印度教徒低人一等。英国修建的铁路有限，工业化发展也受限。

印度和中国都需要独立才能真正繁荣。

Jeff Rosenbury

Author has 4.8K answers and 728.7K answer viewsSep 19

The Industrial Revolution’s roots were the Treaties of Westphalia. These stabilized investments because owners of capital projects got to keep them even if their country lost the war. This was a new concept in international diplomacy.

This encouraged people to build canals. Canals were essential to moving grain to cities. Until canals, grain was usually transported by mule. And the mules ate the grain. So farms had to be near water transport if they wanted to feed cities. Canals allowed more farms which allowed cities to grow which allowed more employment diversification. This led to the invention and the need for inventions to fulfill the desires of the city dwellers. (Coal for heat was a biggie.)

工业革命的根源是《威斯特伐利亚条约》。这些投资之所以稳定，是因为就算国家输了战争，资本所有者依然拥有这些资产。这是国际外交中的一个新概念。

这促使人们修建运河。运河是将粮食运往城市的必经之路。在运河开通之前，人们通常用骡子运输粮食。而骡子也要吃粮食。因此，如果农场要向城市供应食物，就必须靠近水路运输。运河的开通滋养了更多的农场，城市得以发展，就业机会更加多样化。这促进了发明创造的出现，以及为了满足城镇居民需求的各种发明。

Anthony Woinich

Studied History at Case Western Reserve UniversityAuthor has 3.2K answers and 672.9K answer viewsSep 19

Three things come to mind of which two go hand in hand. The strict caste system in India highly segregated and restricted talent in India. A Jeff Bezos or a Elon Musk born into the “untouchables” caste would never be more than a nothing. Along with this there was no sense of the concept of a corporation which encourages the flow of money to needed areas, like industrialization. Thirdly there was no confluence of natural resources to power that revolution. Putting a iron mine a mere canal boats ride from a coal seam makes for easy productivity.

对这个问题，我想到了3点，其中2点紧密关联。印度严格的种姓制度严重隔离、压制了印度的人才。一个出生于“贱民”阶层的杰夫·贝佐斯或埃隆·马斯克，注定一事无成。另外，印度当时也没有公司的概念，没办法引导资金流向有需求的领域，如工业化。第三，印度没有汇集自然资源来推动这场革命。如果把铁矿建在靠近煤矿的运河上，生产力就可以轻松提高。

Arden Tom McClure

Coordinator of Career and Skills Education (2017–present)Author has 4.4K answers and 745.2K answer viewsSep 29

because it didn’t. India as a cultural area is not very mechanically inclined, unlike China or Europe. And India was divided, meaning people of talent were put to doing wars. England as an island was relatively immune to invasion, and thus from fighting. And a sea captain needs to know technical things like navigation, unlike a land based military man. So that means math and science are far more common among seafaring folk.

因为它就是没有啊。印度作为一个文明古国，跟中国和欧洲不一样，对机器设备不感兴趣。印度四分五裂，有才干的人都忙着打仗。相对而言，英国是个岛国，不容易被外敌入侵，远离战火。与陆军不同，航海的船长需要掌握航海术等技术知识。这意味数学和科学知识在航海人中要普及得多。

Gregory Norton

Studied Political Philosophy & EconomicsAuthor has 18.1K answers and 7.3M answer viewsSep 20

The industrial revolution came about because of ideas and the freedom to try them.

Until recently, perhaps the last 50 years, India lacked one or both of these essentials.

工业革命的发生源于各种思想的出现和追求这些思想的自由。

直到近代，也许50年前，印度也没能满足这两个必要条件，甚至之一。

Louis Cohen

Minor in Economics; took classes from a Nobel laureateAuthor has 35.1K answers and 14.9M answer viewsSep 24

I'm going to guess at two possible cultural factors:

India had a huge population of low paid workers; they had no incentive to reduce costs by mechanizing

Indian culture and the caste system in particular was very much bound to tradition. Caste in pa was linked closely to occupations. Weaving was done by the weaver caste and no one would think of changing that

And of course they didn’t have steam engines to power the factories, until the British Raj brought them.

我猜是因为两个文化因素:

印度有大量的低收入工人，所以不需要通过机械化生产来降低成本。

印度文化，特别是种姓制度，与传统紧密相连。种姓与职业密切相关。纺织工种姓的人生来就要织布，没有人想要改变这一点。

当然了，他们那会儿也没有蒸汽机来为工厂提供动力，直到英国统治时期印度才有了蒸汽机。

Jonathan Abarbanel

Citizen Who Has Voted In14 Presidential Elections. (1968–present)Author has 2.6K answers and 193.3K answer viewsSep 15

Because India had a super-abundance of cheap labor, much of it often working in conditions of exploitation and near-slavery (if not actual enslavement), not only at the hands of the British Raj but also under native rulers of immense wealth and power. Also, India was overwhelmingly an agrarian economy rather than a manufacturing economy.

因为印度拥有极其丰富的廉价劳动力，其中很多人长期在备受盘剥和近乎奴役的条件下工作，这不仅发生在英国统治下，拥有巨大财富和权力的本土统治者也是如此。另外，印度基本上就是农业经济，而非制造业经济。

Ian Tully

MA in History & Political Science, University of Dundee (Graduated 1975)Author has 728 answers and 84.7K answer viewsSep 15

It did not start in much of Europe either, despite a fairly widespread culture of scientific enquiry that embraced a surprisingly large number of “gentleman scholars" and even some ladies. It needed not only that spirit of enquiry but also the economic, commercial and material conditions to come together. Although the Netherlands was a leading commercial society it lacked many of the natural resources that fortuitously lie close to one another in Britain, plentiful rivers and streams, coal seams that originally were fairly accessible, some as in Fife emerging on the shore, iron deposits nearby. Ironically it was labour shortages that spurred some early inventions. Hand spng and weaving had reached it's limits, the skilled weavers were the Aristocracy of Labour, the Spng Jenny and Power Loom let the same work be done on a vastly greater scale by Workhouse “apprentice" children and women. The Weavers became redundant and many migrated. The way in which one development inspires the next is remarkable, big factories needed lots of craftsmen and engineers, workshops were on site, including foundries; the steam engine in the factory by the river inspires the steamship.

尽管欧洲大部分国家有广泛的科学基础，有数量惊人的绅士学者甚至名媛，工业革命也并没有从这些国家开始。工业革命不仅需要探索精神，还需要经济、商业和物质条件的共同作用。虽然荷兰的商业很发达，但自然资源匮乏，而这些自然资源恰好分布在英国周边，比如数量众多的河流和小溪，容易开采的煤层和铁矿。具有讽刺意味的是，正是劳动力的短缺刺激了早期发明的出现。手工纺纱和织布的速度和产量已达上限，熟练的纺织工成为了劳动力市场的贵族。詹妮纺纱机和动力织布机让济贫院的“学徒”儿童和妇女得以实现更大的产量。许多无工可做的织工们搬离原住地。一个发明促发了另一个发明，大工厂需要大量的工匠和工程师，工厂内就有车间工房，包括铸造厂;依河而建的工厂内的蒸汽机又给蒸汽船提供了灵感。

France was somewhat slower because labour was cheap and plentiful. The same might be said about India.

法国的工业化进程稍慢一些，因为法国拥有便宜又充足的劳动力。印度可能也是如此。

While India has many great rivers water power works best on quite small ones. India's coal is mostly poor quality brown coal or lignite which isn't in proxmity to iron ore deposits. Although there were scholars and scientists there was no culture of science in the gentry class, which itself was seriously weakened by the wars that eventually lead to British domination. Science tended to be a series of discrete discoveries when in Europe there was an increasing pace of one development leading to another.

虽然印度有许多大河，但小河的水力资源反倒更好。印度煤炭主要是品质较差的褐煤，与铁矿距离较远。虽然印度也有学者和科学家，但士绅阶级不重视科学文化，他们在战争中元气大伤，才导致了英国的殖民统治。印度当时的科学发现往往是相对独立，但在欧洲，相互促进的科学发展的速度越来越快。

Once Britain had a grip on much of India it pursued it's usual approach with it's colonies, including Ireland pre-1800, of suppressing competition and extracting raw materials for home production. It is largely post-Independence that many former Colonies industrialize, not only India but notably Malaysia and several African countries, often repatriating the production of finished materials from local resources such as jute in Bengal. Certainly Britain extracted a lot of wealth from India, but often that was the same wealth that had gone into the conspicuous consumption of the Ruling Class and rarely benefitted the mass of peasants, in many areas the living standards rose once the Game of Kings ceased. The history of those famous jewels is worth checking, they were always trophies the property of Kings. Emperors and Shahs often won in war, extracted as tribute, or exchanged as diplomatic gifts.

英国控制了印度的大部分地区后，就开始采取其对殖民地(包括1800年前的爱尔兰)的惯常做法，压制竞争，夺取原材料用于本国生产。许多前殖民地在很大程度上都是在独立后才得以实现工业化的，不光是印度，马来西亚和一些非洲国家都是如此。英国从印度榨取了大量财富，这些财富往往被统治阶级用作炫耀性消费，很少惠及广大农民。在许多地区，君主制倒台后，百姓的生活水平就提高了。那些著名珠宝的历史很有研究价值，它们一直都是国王们的战利品。国王们往往通过战争赢取这些珠宝，把它们作为贡品或外交礼物进行交换。

Clara B.

34-year old woman likes to read and watch what's possibleAuthor has 2.4K answers and 206.7K answer viewsSep 29

Lack of educated people in sufficient numbers is a possible answer. There was no middle class. India has a caste system. This makes development difficult. Some jobs are seen as unclean. There’s a specific category of outcasts. These aren’t conditions for industrial production. The number of intellectuals was small.

也许是因为受过教育的人太少了。没有中产阶级。而且印度还有种姓制度。这使得发展困难重重。人们认为有些工作不干净。这些都可能促进工业生产。知识分子的数量太少了。

Dhanush Dhari Misra

Former Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT (ISM) DhanbadAuthor has 2.7K answers and 875.6K answer viewsSep 29

India could not start the industrial revolution because the Indians were busy to protect themselves from the numerous invaders and plunderers.

Every temple, palace, treasury, Gurukul etc. was the target of the invaders for plunder.

印度无法发动工业革命，是因为那时候印度人忙着保命，抵御一波又一波的入侵者和掠夺者。

每座寺庙、宫殿、宝库等都是侵略者掠夺的目标。

What industry can you start when every day hordes of plunderers are attacking your village, nearby villages and towns?

如果外敌源源不断，工业怎么可能得到发展？

Kennii Pinker

Lives in Europe (1971–present)Author has 1.1K answers and 46.7K answer viewsSep 23

The wealth was in the hands of rulers of small independent states, there was no cohesion, forward vision, or innovation, and the people were divided by having many religions and differing social status. It took colonialists to introduce change,sadly, and that change was very slow and difficult.

当时印度的财富掌握在各个独立小国的统治者手中，没有凝聚力，没有远见，没有创新，人们因不同的宗教和社会地位而四分五裂。殖民者带来了变革，但变革非常的缓慢，非常的困难。

Kevin Coleman 

Former Unemployable, According to Four Naughty Daughters!Author has 1K answers and 33K answer viewsSep 20

Before the East-India Company was a major player in Hindustan, Hindustan was a major exporter of textiles, raw and finished. It’s a tragic and deeply disgraceful fact that everything that could be done to destroy the Indian textile industry, was done by the Company. I didn’t know about your figure of “around 25%”, but in at least one way, the Industrial Revolution did start in India.

在东印度公司成为印度的重要组成部分之前，印度曾是纺织品（包括原料和成品）的主要出口国。这是一个悲剧，也是个非常可耻的事实，所有摧毁印度纺织业的事情，都是东印度公司干的。对你说的“25%”这个数字我是不太清楚，但至少在某种程度上，工业革命确实始于印度。

Balachandran Krishnamoorty

Former Cost and Management Accountant at Self-EmploymentAuthor has 21.3K answers and 1.8M answer viewsSep 15

India has always been a land of artisans rather than mechanics. Even today, industry is being dominated by the MSME rather than the large scale organized sector. India believes in small is beautiful.

印度一直是工匠的国度，而非工程师的国度。即便在今天，工业规模也不大。印度信奉的是“小而美”。

Freddie Chen

Agnostic. I am not wiriting the fact but what I know.Author has 6.9K answers and 2.1M answer viewsSep 25

Do not put strange expectation on such thing on an ancient physiocratic state.

That is why it did not start from ancient China either while ancient China was one of the richest country in most ancient time.

Industrial Revolution could only occur in mercantilist states.

不要对古老的重农国家抱有奇怪的期望。

所以工业革命也没有起源于古代中国，要知道在历史长河的多数时间内，中国一直是全世界最富裕的国家之一。

工业革命只可能发生在重商主义的国家。

Keith Stevenson

Former Retired Christian Missionary, Ex-PapuaAuthor has 5K answers and 827.2K answer viewsSep 20

The climate was too warm.

Those sorts of social revolutions generally start in cooler climates. Germany and England are cold enough to stimulate such ~ but not too cold, like Greenland.

因为印度的气候太炎热了。

工业革命这样的社会变革通常会始于气候较冷的地区。德国和英国的气候很冷，但又没有格陵兰岛那么冷，刺激了工业革命的爆发。

John Tan

Former now actively Retired at IT and Systems EngineeringAutho

Look at the Europeans, they spent centuries stealing, killing and enslaving each other as a way of getting rich. & then they left Europe and did the same, including committing mass atrocities around the world. Example ….

看看欧洲人，他们之间互相偷窃、杀戮和奴役了几个世纪，借此发家致富。然后他们又把目光投向了欧洲之外的地区，在世界各地犯下大规模暴行。

The British also “faked” a series of famine in India in the 2nd half of the 19th century to maxmise India’s grain export, which killed an estimated 30M.

英国人还在19世纪下半叶“人为制造”了印度的大饥荒，疯狂地从印度运走粮食，据估计，这场饥荒造成印度3000万人死亡。

Roy Chambers

Author has 14.6K answers and 7.1M answer viewsFri

Being rich doesn’t mean you will be able to grow and innovate. The range of different factors that led to the industrial revolution in Europe didn’t exst in India or China. These were rich and highly efficient economies, with a great deal of internal trade, and for India, a great deal of external trade as well.

But in Europe, a growing interest in science and engineering, industries, such as the wool and textile industries were making certain areas of the economy rich, and a growing colonial power, plus a growing merchant class, which brought in vast resources, all helped this revolution. While India was a much more structured society, and without social mobility, there was less desire to pursue changes in a comfortable society.

富裕并不等同于有能力成长和创新。欧洲工业革命的一系列触发因素在印度和中国并不存在。印度和中国都是富裕、繁荣的经济体，国内贸易高度发达，印度的对外贸易也很发达。

但在欧洲，人们越来越重视科学、工程、工业，比如羊毛和纺织业就使得某些地区的经济变得十分富裕，不断壮大的殖民势力，加上不断壮大的商人阶层，带来了大量的资源，都促使了工业革命的爆发。而印度的社会阶层壁垒森严，没有社会流动性，人们安于现状，没有追求变革的迫切欲望。

Interestingly enough, by the end of the 19th century, India was the most industrialised country in the world. Indian people’s interest in basically doing business and making money, along with British contributions of technology, spurred an industrial revolution in India, until the British dismantled this.

有趣的是，一直到19世纪末，印度还是世界上工业化程度最高的国家。印度人对做生意和赚钱的兴趣以及英国人对技术的贡献，刺激了印度的工业革命，但后来英国人摧毁了这一切。