"The silk routes are a good example of vibrant pre-modern trade and cultural links between distant parts of the world." This can be justified through the following points :
(i) The routes on which cargoes carried Chinese silk to the west were known as, Silk routes. Historians have discovered several silk routes over land and by sea, covering vast regions of Asia and connecting Asia with Europe and Northern Africa.
(ii) Even pottery from China, textile and spices from India and South Asia also travelled the same route. In return, precious metals like gold and silver flowed from Europe to Asia.
(iii) Culturally, Buddhism emerged from Eastern India and spread in several directions through the silk route.
Thus, silk route not only played a major role in linking distant parts of the world but also helped in the promotion of trade.
OR
Three main reasons for the decline of textile exports from India in the 19‌th ‌ century, are :
(i) As cotton industries developed in England, industrial groups began to pressurise the Government to impose import duties on cotton textiles so that Manchester goods could sell in Britain without facing any competition from outside.
(ii) At the same time industrialists persuaded the East India Company to sell British manufactures in Indian market as well. Exports of British cotton goods increased dramatically in the early 19‌th ‌ century.
(iii) The export market for the Indian cotton weavers collapsed and the local market shrank, being glutted with Manchester imports. The imported cotton goods were cheap and Indian weavers could not compete with them.