“India was the single largest source of wealth extracted by the British Empire during the colonial period.”

Oxfam International's report highlights how the UK extracted USD 64.82 trillion from India during colonial rule, with significant wealth transferred to the richest 10 per cent. The exploitation by multinational corporations, rooted in colonialism, continues modern-day inequalities, especially impacting workers in the Global South through poor conditions and minimal wages.

‘The British Empire in India is built up entirely with the money of India, and, in great measure, by the blood of India. Besides this, hundreds of millions, or, more probably, several thousands of millions... of money, which Britain has unceasingly, and ever increasingly drawn from British Indians... has materially helped to make Britain the greatest, the richest, and most glorious nation in the world’. The combination of Naoroji and Hobson... suggests... India suffered a drain of wealth that went to Britain.

In her groundbreaking 2017 research, Patnaik demonstrated that between 1765 and 1938, Britain extracted an estimated $45 trillion from India. This staggering figure is many times larger than Britain's present-day annual economic output. The wealth siphoned from India not only powered Britain's rise as a global empire but also financed industrial and infrastructure development across the UK, Europe and North America.

Areas under direct rule lost the components of human capital. A key observation in this paper is how British takeover in direct-rule states effectively robbed many low-caste districts of their economic engine. No longer able to reap the benefits of their agricultural labor — cotton was a particularly valuable commodity.

India was certainly the most important territory in the Empire in the late c19th. It underpinned the British economy and the Indian army played a crucial part in defending the empire throughout the world. Along with the USA, India was Britain's main market for her manufactured goods with 60% of British exports going to India by 1913 and India being a focal point for British investments which totalled £390 million just before WW1, (which was 10% of all British overseas investments).

We examine the long‐ term effects of British colonial institutions on overall economic development within India using satellite night lights data. The analysis shows varied impacts, with some regions experiencing negative long-term economic effects from direct British rule.

Under the institutional foundation of the colonial economy, there was a conscious draining of Indian wealth to Britain, which has been summed up in the “Drain of Wealth” theory. Stating it in the words of Dadabhai Naoroji this process was vertical to the tune of millions of pounds each year, effectively starving the domestic economy and worsening poverty in the country.

India had been one of the largest producers of manufactured goods in the world, but under British colonial rule would remain a farm-based economy. The technological revolution and trade reversed the fortunes of the British and Indian textile industries. British colonization of India began in 1600, and over the next 200 years Britain became the dominant European colonial power there.

The enquiry draws students into a sustained investigation of how British rule shaped India's economy between 1857 and 1947. It introduces debates on both exploitation and infrastructure development under colonial rule.

A number of links to colonialism and slavery were arguably most easily identified via historical sources of income and wealth associated with the exploitation of lands and the oppression of peoples across the globe. In many cases, colonial money has specifically enabled the construction and preservation of grand country houses in Britain... The Legacies of British Slavery Database... offers information on the owners and traders of enslaved people.

English institutions—the common law, property rights, and banking—led to economic growth in the colonies. A recent series of papers... found that there were advantages from colonization as well, especially for those colonies within the British Empire.

The British economic policies were driven by the goal of maximizing profits and sustaining their industrial growth at the expense of India's development. India was systematically transformed into a colonial economy, exporting raw materials and importing British goods. This exploitation led to widespread poverty, de-industrialization, and agrarian distress, which fueled the rise of India's freedom struggle.

The UK extracted USD 64.82 trillion from India over a century of colonialism between 1765 and 1900 and USD 33.8 trillion of this went to the richest 10 per cent. This forms part of rights group Oxfam International's latest flagship global inequity report released every year on the first day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

The British Empire derived wealth from multiple colonies including India, but also significant revenues from slave trade profits reinvested from Africa and the Caribbean, gold and diamonds from South Africa, rubber and tin from Malaya, and settler colonies like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand which provided food, wool, and gold. India's 'Home Charges' and taxes were substantial, but no primary historical ledger designates India as the absolute single largest source across the entire colonial period (1600-1947); debates persist on net extraction versus investments.

In 1700, India was the richest economy on Earth — producing a quarter of the world’s GDP. By 1947, it was one of the poorest. India wasn't just a colony. It was the empire's central bank. Indian revenues paid for British wars in Afghanistan, pensions for British civil servants, even the salaries of colonial officers in Africa.