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NCERT Class 10 Social Science The Age of Industrialisation: Discuss Solutions
AI-written, checked on 28 Oct 2026
Solutions written by Shishya, checked — not the board's official answers
Point-by-point answers for every question of Exercises: Discuss in NCERT's Class 10 Social Science book, chapter “The Age of Industrialisation”, written by Shishya. Each question is in our own short words; open the NCERT chapter for the exact wording and figures.
How these were checked: the answers were drafted with AI from the NCERT chapter's own text and then read and corrected on 28 Oct 2026. Before an answer was kept, a check confirmed that every name, place, year and number in it appears in the NCERT chapter and that no sentence was copied from the book; multiple-choice, match and fill-in answers are pinned to a reviewed key. Long answers are a model answer, not the only right one. The NCERT textbook is the authority — if something here disagrees with it, follow the book.
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Discuss Q1
Why did some industrialists in nineteenth-century Europe prefer hand labour to machines?
- Victorian Britain had an abundant supply of human labor, which kept wages low and eliminated the need for expensive machinery.
- Machines were expensive and needed large capital investment, and merchants and industrialists were cautious about using them.
- In many industries the demand for labour was seasonal, so industrialists preferred hand labour, hiring workers only for the season.
- Upper-class consumers preferred handmade goods as symbols of refinement and status, while machine-made items were reserved for export to colonies.
Answer: Industrialists preferred hand labor due to low wages, high capital costs of machines, seasonal work needs, and elite consumer preference for handmade goods.
Discuss Q2
How did the East India Company get regular supplies of cotton and silk textiles from Indian weavers?
- Once the East India Company had political power, it claimed a monopoly right to trade and set up a system to remove competition, control costs and get regular supplies.
- It tried to remove the existing traders and brokers and took direct control over the weavers, appointing a paid servant, the gomastha, to supervise weavers, collect supplies and check the quality of cloth.
- It stopped Company weavers from dealing with other buyers through a system of advances: weavers took loans to buy raw material and had to hand over the cloth they made to the gomastha.
- As weavers came to depend on these advances, many had to lease out their land and spend all their time weaving, which tied them to the Company.
Answer: Through gomasthas who supervised the weavers and a system of advances that bound weavers to sell only to the Company, after removing other traders and brokers.
Discuss Q3
Write an encyclopaedia article on Britain and the history of cotton, using information from the whole chapter.
- Britain was the first industrial nation, and cotton was its leading sector during the initial phase of industrialisation up to the 1840s.
- Industrial groups in Britain pressured the government to impose import duties on foreign cotton textiles to protect Manchester goods from competition.
- British industrialists also persuaded the East India Company to sell British manufactures in Indian markets, leading to a dramatic rise in exports.
- By the 1850s, cotton piece-goods made up over 31 percent of India's imports, and by the 1870s, this figure exceeded 50 percent.
- The influx of cheap machine-made British cotton caused the collapse of India's textile export market and the decline of local weavers.
- After the 1840s, the iron and steel industry took over from cotton as the leading sector in Britain due to railway expansion.
Answer: Britain's cotton industry drove early industrialisation, leading to high tariffs and massive exports to India, which destroyed local weaving and shifted Britain's focus to iron and steel.
Discuss Q4
Why did industrial production in India increase during the First World War?
- British factories were occupied with war production, causing a sharp drop in Manchester imports to India.
- Indian mills gained a large domestic market to supply as foreign competition decreased.
- Indian factories were required to produce war materials like jute bags, uniforms, and leather boots.
- New factories were established and existing ones ran multiple shifts to meet the increased demand.
Answer: Industrial production in India increased during the First World War because British imports declined and Indian factories met the high demand for war supplies.
Other exercises in this chapter
- Exercises: Write in brief — 6 questions
← The Age of Industrialisation: notes, practice and all exercises
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