Who of the following was/were economic critic/critics of colonialism in India? 1) Dadabhai Naoroji 2) G. Subramaniya Iyer 3) R.C. Dutt Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

The correct answer is D. All three were economic critics of colonial rule, and each attacked it on the grounds of drain of wealth, deindustrialisation and the burden of British economic policy.

• Dadabhai Naoroji formulated the Drain of Wealth theory in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), arguing that revenue extracted from India was sent to Britain without equivalent return.
• G. Subramania Iyer, a journalist and early Congress leader, criticised the government's financial policies and the unequal treatment of Indian interests, and supported the drain critique in his writings.
• R.C. Dutt wrote The Economic History of India (volumes in 1901 and 1903), documenting how land revenue settlements and free trade policies impoverished peasants and destroyed indigenous handicrafts.

Core concept: the drain theory and the nationalist economic critique of colonialism, which later fed into the demand for swadeshi and fiscal autonomy. For Mains, this is central to GS Paper I (modern Indian history) and to the economic thought of the freedom movement.

Trap: Aspirants tend to associate economic critique only with Naoroji and Dutt and drop Subramania Iyer, whose contribution is less discussed in standard texts.