Flooding the market with Manchester cotton and blocking silk exports might have shifted village weavers back to agriculture, but there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that India was remotely close to industrialisation when the British arrived (which in the case of the deservedly much-maligned East India company is some decades before Britain was close to industrialisation, when the UK already enjoyed much higher per capita income levels).
It's not as if Britain imported or invented India's extremes of social stratification. Ultimately it takes more than skilled silk weavers and a flair for building palaces to allow large scale industrial organization.
it is interesting to see the contrast of India and China vs. Japan which very convincingly announced itself as a major industrial power in 1904 Russian-Japan war.
"What followed, from 1867 to 1912, remains unparalleled in history.
...
... the scientific and industrial revolutions had raged around the blissfully unaware Japanese. This had to change for Japan to compete in the modern world. Accordingly, the oligarchs set the nation upon a course of modernization which would produce dramatic results. The first step was to foster a sense of nationalism and unity."
Interesting that "nationalism and unity" have been observed during many "leaps forward" in other countries too.
Where do you think the venture capital for investing and kick starting the industrial revolution came for? All the prizes and aristocracy having leisure to study science needed money. And India was the jewel in the crown for Britain.
It's not as if Britain imported or invented India's extremes of social stratification. Ultimately it takes more than skilled silk weavers and a flair for building palaces to allow large scale industrial organization.