History · Railways and Economic Drain

Given below are two statements: one is labelled as Assertion A and the other is labelled as Reason R. Assertion A: The rapid development of the Indian railway network, which reached a total length of 63,140 km by 1946, is analyzed by nationalist historians as a primary mechanism for the systematic economic exploitation of the subcontinent. Reason R: The primary objective of the network was to facilitate the drain of wealth by transporting extracted raw materials to coastal ports and distributing British machine-made goods to inland markets, while the fiscal burden of 5% guaranteed interest to private companies was borne by Indian revenues. In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below: