To reduce or destroy a country's or region's industrial capacity, often through deliberate policy or unequal competition

From de- (reversal) + industrialise, ultimately from Latin industria (diligence, activity)

Hollow out Undermine Erode
Industrialise Modernise
"British tariff policy through the nineteenth century is widely blamed for deindustrialising India's once-dominant handloom textile sector, the very grievance the Swadeshi Movement mobilised against."

Use in GS1 essays on colonial economic history or GS3 answers on India's industrial trajectory, e.g., 'colonial policy deliberately deindustrialised India's textile base, a process later strategic-sector reframing seeks to reverse.'

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