Karl Marx perceived India to be a fallen European master race.

But that sympathy would not stop Marx from envisioning the destruction of Indian industry by British colonialism as a much needed progressive march of history. "England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia".

He saw Indian villages as ‘idyllic republics’ offering ‘solid foundation for stagnant Asian despotism’ and hence the native industries should be destroyed to pave way for ‘Europeanization’ of Indian society