Your session has expired

Your progress and purchases are safe. Log in again to continue.

Log in again
Aspirant Academy
ENHI

RAS question

Arrange the following textile-producing countries/regions in the correct sequence of their historical importance in the global textile industry (from earliest dominance to most recent emergence): 1. Lancashire, England 2. Ahmedabad, India (pre-independence) 3. Bangladesh 4. Japan (Meiji era) Select the correct answer:

Correct answer: (A) 1 - 2 - 4 - 3 (Lancashire, Ahmedabad, Japan, Bangladesh).

The correct historical sequence of global textile importance is Lancashire first, Ahmedabad second, Meiji-era Japan third, and Bangladesh last.

  1. (A)

    1 - 2 - 4 - 3 (Lancashire, Ahmedabad, Japan, Bangladesh)

  2. (B)

    1 - 4 - 2 - 3 (Lancashire, Japan, Ahmedabad, Bangladesh)

  3. (C)

    2 - 4 - 1 - 3 (Ahmedabad, Japan, Lancashire, Bangladesh)

  4. (D)

    2 - 1 - 4 - 3 (Ahmedabad, Lancashire, Japan, Bangladesh)

Explanation

The order is based on chronology, not current production. Lancashire comes first because its modern cotton-textile industry rose during the 1760s-1780s phase of the First Industrial Revolution. Historic England describes it as a product of the Industrial Revolution, marked by steam power and the factory system; inventions such as the spinning jenny, water frame, and power loom were associated with this industrial phase. Ahmedabad follows. According to the Ahmedabad Textile Mills Association, the city's textile industry has pre-independence roots: Ranchhodlal Chhotalal laid the foundation of its first textile plant in 1859, and its first cotton mill was established in 1861. Ahmedabad therefore predates Meiji-era textile industrialisation in Japan. The Meiji Restoration began in 1868, and Japanese textile industrialisation gathered pace in the 1880s-1890s. Bangladesh comes last because it emerged from the 1980s as a major garment exporter under the Multi-Fibre Arrangement.

Why the other options are wrong

  • (B) It places Meiji-era Japan before Ahmedabad, although Ahmedabad's first cotton mill was established in 1861, before Japan's post-1868 Meiji textile surge.
  • (C) It starts with Ahmedabad, but Lancashire's modern cotton-textile industry had already risen during the 1760s-1780s phase of the First Industrial Revolution.
  • (D) It also places Ahmedabad before Lancashire, reversing the chronology between Lancashire's late-eighteenth-century rise and Ahmedabad's mid-nineteenth-century mill phase.

Concept

This tests the World Geography theme of industrial location and the shifting of textile centres over time. RAS often asks such chronology because textiles connect technology, colonial trade, labour, and export-led industrialisation in one sequence.

Source

Related questions