B3-OLD HISTORY--THE CONSUMER GOODS AND THE "MADE IN ENGLAND" BRAND

 In the early British colonial times the post office, the telegraph lines, the private  money lender and the weekly village markets and a strict  police system and legal courts –they were sufficient to run a simple economic system. In the background ---spread everywhere in its hundreds of thousands of villages throughout India--- was vast agriculture, vast food grain production and rural handloom cloth weaving .   India of those days was quite self-sufficient. The people were simple , religious and philosophical. The “middle schools”(i.e. smaller than the “high schools”) taught  a little English and provided some minimum of education  in that highly conservative society. 

 

Girls left school after a little primary education of up to 5^th class entered the routine of house chores and were then married off. However with that education women could read the mythologies of Ramayana and Mahabharata and other prayer books and could become ideal women and commanded great love and respect in house. But they had to suffer for hours in smoke filled kitchens and often damaged their health. In houses mother was respect and almost deified but in the society it was all male domination.

 

  In course of time the English colonial rulers provided in some areas long-distance road and railway services and high schools teaching sciences etc. They introduced modern college and university education system. The trains came and the big industries, where 100 or 200 people worked to mass produce many things, came. Great little modern things like the match box, the soap cake, the small kerosene lamp with glass chimney, the razor blade, the fountain pen, graphite pencil etc came. All those were already in use in England and rest of Europe since many decades. In the beginning all  were “made in England”. There also came   the bicycle, the aluminum cooking vessels ---all such things entered the markets and slowly “modernized” the lower middle class life. The bicycle  appears to have brought quite a transportation revolution in India .

There also came other things (first the “made in England” things and much later some Indian brand articles)---  the box camera, the “Eveready” torch light, the  gramophone ,the binoculars, the “Remington typewriter”  etc. They mainly entered  rich and higher middle class homes .The old film reels of old popular  films and mythological films  were shown in bigger villages in the “touring talkies” theaters (canvas shed theaters)  after they were shown in big cities.

The films were very moral and most beautiful showing the fast disappearing traditional middle class life.  But the greater wonders like electric lights, the big valve radio (with a high “Aerial antenna wire” fixed at a high place to lead the songs and news into the house) were yet to make their appearance. For school children the “modern games” like volley ball, foot ball, basket ball, the ball badminton became popular . Tennis and cricket were unknown words.