The development of the British economy holds a close linkage with the international economies. India was considered as the largest and economically most important economy. Being in such a position India had the most to lose or gain due to any activity undertaken by Britain whether good or bad. In this paper, we look the impact of foreign investments in India for the period ranging fairly between 1800s and 1920s. However, there was a very little contribution of any foreign investment for first half of this period and the transaction were more of the kind of “drain” of wealth or tribute extracted by British official from India. In fact this prevailed throughout the period of imperial dominance in India. India was ruled by British for more than 200 years and has been the victim of continuous exploitation throughout the period.This article divide the entire time period into two parts, the first being the period before 1857 and the subsequent period from 1857 to 1947, to analyze the role of foreign inflows in shaping economy of India at that time.