Q. Which of the following factors contributed to the decline of the Portuguese power in India?
1.The loss of Hooghly in 1632 to the Mughals, resulting from the Portuguese refusal to abandon slave trading and piracy, severely crippled their trade base in the Eastern Indian market.
2.The union of the crowns of Spain and Portugal in 1580 made Portuguese possessions a legitimate military target for Spain’s rivals, notably the Dutch and the English.
3.The Portuguese commercial structure failed to adopt the highly efficient Joint Stock Company model, thereby limiting their ability to raise large-scale public capital and disperse financial risk.
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
Answer: D
Notes:
Explanation:
- Statement 1 is correct. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan ordered the Governor of Bengal to expel the Portuguese from Hooghly in 1632, largely due to their engaging in piracy and kidnapping (slave trade). This loss was a major blow to their trade in Bengal.
- Statement 2 is correct. For sixty years (1580–1640), Portugal was ruled by the Spanish Hapsburg monarchs. This political union dragged Portuguese interests into the wars between Spain and the rising naval powers, Britain and the Netherlands, making Portuguese colonies prime targets for attack.
- Statement 3 is correct. The Portuguese ventures were state-controlled as the Casa da Índia (Royal Exchange) managed trade, which lacked the massive, flexible capital generation and distributed risk management inherent in the Joint Stock Companies (like the English EIC and Dutch VOC). This institutional weakness was a major cause for their economic failure against the newer European powers.
