Correct answer: (a) Indian handicrafts were ruined.
Explanation
- A
Indian handicrafts were ruined.
Indian handicrafts were ruined. Machine-made Lancashire cloth undercut weavers in the first half of the nineteenth century.
- B
Machines were introduced in the Indian textile industry in large numbers.
Machines in Indian mills in large numbers. That is later (1850s onward, Bombay).
- C
Railway lines were laid in many parts of the country
Railways in many parts. Main trunk boom is post-1853, not the first-half story as keyed.
- D
Heavy duties were imposed on the imports of British manufactures
Heavy duties on British manufactures. Policy was the opposite: free entry of British goods.
Summary. Official key is (a). The first-half-nineteenth-century industrial-revolution impact keyed here is de-industrialisation of handicrafts. Mills, railways at scale, and duties on British goods are the wrong decade or the wrong policy.
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