5.3.

The Cotton lndustry-lts Decline

ancient
industry was developed)
very It was a very
Indian cotton
high quality.
industry.(The cotton, produced in India was of very centres
a

of
Bengal, in particular was known as one of the major had wide
cotton production. The cotton cloth produced in Bengal a
texture
Variety ranging from very fine to ordinary quality. In design,
and fabric it was unique. In fact the Europeans at first were attracted
by the cotton and silk fabrics of Bengal which were in great demand
in the European market. Dacca, Rangpur, Radhanagar, Khirpai,
Malda, Santipore, Haripal, Sonamukhy, Murshidabad Chittagong
etc. were well-known for their cotton and silk products. Dacca was
the Manchester of India in the eighteenth century. The city was
famous for its janmdani, nayan-sukh and muslin. Even in the late
eighteenth century superfine Indian assqrtments used to find their
market in Paris and other European cities.)With the rise of Napoleon
as Paris became more difficult of access, there
developed a booming
smuggling business. It helped the sale of British Indian cotton
piecegoods of finer assortments. (The demand for Indian calicoes
and muslins, in European markets, as Prof. N.K. Sinha
says,
remained fairly steady until the beginning of the nineteenth
century.)
Lower grade cloths found their purchasers in the United States.
The traditional Indian cotton industry had a pre-modern
technology. Indian cotton piecegoods were manufactured by the
handicraftsmen. It was, indeed a rural craft. In pre-cólonial times

I10
 shere was a perfect union Deween agriculture and domestic industry
i the countryside. The cotton industry had been an integral part of
India's village economy. Millions of cotton weavers and spinners

had been engaged in this rural craft since time immemorial. The
the merchants of the English East India
Oppression practised by
second half of the eighteenth century broke
Company during the
Later on, the fatal blow
the backbone of this great industry initially.
came from the Lancashire manufacturers after the advent of free
trade capitalism.)
followed the Battle of Plassey
trade which
The booming privatecotton weavers of
adversely affected the Bengal,)It inflicted a new
had never
kind of misery on the weavers and spinners which they
would force the poor
experienced before. (The English merchants
weavers to accept dadan or advance. Once the weaver had accepted
to the
the dadan he had no other alternative but to sell his products
merchants at a price dictated by the latter. The weavers were actually
forced to sell their goods at a rate much below the market price.)
As a result of this brutal oppression (many weavers were forced tob
of the cotton
give up their ancestral profession. The impoverishment
behind the Famine of 1770.)
weavers was one of the factors
of free trade
Things took a turn for the worse with the advent
the British
capitalism after 1813. By then rapid advance was made by
textile manufacturers. It was possible for British factories to produce
such a low price
good quality muslin in imitation of the Indian at
now became
as to exclude Indian piecegoods. The Indian market
Lancashire cotton textiles. Indian piecegoods could
not
flooded by
Compete with the foreign cotton produced superior machinery
by
on a large scale. The foreign machine-made products were superior
In quality and cheaper in price.The fate of the Indian cotton industry
MALO ,
arrival óf railroad. (The railways enabled the
was sealed with the
British capitalists to enlarge the market for their finished products.
be transported to the
Cheap machine made goods could now

countryside at ease.
In the interest of Britain's fast developing industrial economy,
was transformed into a supplier of raw materials.
The British
da he fate
Pcy of exporting materials älso adversely affected
raw
rose to an alarming
an cotton Industry. The price of raw cotton
could not buy theil.
Pporuon, much so, that, the cotton weavers
so
their capacity to
s
increased the cost of production and reduced

111
 compete wilh chcap machine-made foreign goods. Again, the Indian
piccegoods had to face the high import duties imposed on them by
the British govemment. With the development of Lancashire textiles,
the European market was virtually closcd to Indian cotton
piecegoods.)Again, with the gradual decline of the Indian states
and their c6urts, who were the chief patrons of Indian weavers and
spinners, there was no chance for the Indian cotton industry to
survive.
Thus. Indian cotton industry went down in the face of foreign
competition. The primitive technology of Indian handicrafts could
centlnot compete with the modern technology of an industrial economy.
I n d i a had been an exporter of cotton textiles to the international
market in the past. But, now, India was transformed into a market
forthe cotton goods produced in England. In the interest
of British
cconomy, she was now converted into a supplier of raw materials.
Apart from cotton, other handicrafts of India too, experienced a
similar fate under the forceful thrust of colonialism. Silk, woollen
extiles, iron, glass, paper, pottery and other industries also
were
dislocated by the influx of cheap machine-made
foreign goods.
5.3.1. The Effects of the Decline of Cotton Industry
The East India Company's
policy as reflected in its regulations
in the last quarter of the
eighteenth century had made the weavers
sink into the position of indentured workers. The
weavers were
forced to accept dadan or advance from the
English merchants.
They were subject to a penalty of 35% on the advance if they
defaulted together with repayment of the advance
received. In the
normal course Indian handicrafts would have benefited from the
investment of the Company to their
of political export, but, with the balance
I n p a t

power in favour of the foreigners, it had an

effect opposile
The destruction of the Indian colton
the'decline of the towns and cities which industry was mirrored n
were famous for helt
manufacture. Cities like Dacca,
Murshidabad and Surat becane
depopulaled. The continued prosperity of Dacca, 'The
of India,
throughout the eighteenth Manchestet
decline in the century and its catastropi
measure and
opening years of the nineteenth century serve as
in cotton
symbol of Bengali's
long dominance in world ua
piecegoods and her speedy downfall.) In 1801, the eluy

112
 asSeven miles long and 2 miles broad. The population numbercd
O00and there were 43,949 dwelling houses. The numbcr of
s e s in 1813 declined to 21,361. The downfall of Dacca was
cumbolic. Other important centres of collon trade too, met with a
imilar fate. Bengal's cotton piecegoods practically disappeared from
d the Company's investment list. Private trade too, followed the same
0
rend. This causcd a revolution which was so complete that it has
hapdly a parallel in the history of commerce.
The class hardest hit was that of cotton weavers. Millions of rural
dartsans were thrown out of their traditional occupation. The weavers
and their brethren were simultaneously cut off from the source of
employment provided by the demand for Indian cotton piccegoods
abroad. The affected persons were weavers, cotton growers,
spinners, dressers, embroiderers and others. The disaster was
heightened by the fact that the decline of the traditional industries
was not accompanied by the rise of modern industries in India as
was the case in the West)It has been estimated that about 1,000,000
people were thrown out of employment by1828. The industry was
totally shattered. The weavers thus overthrown, had no other option
but to turn to agriculture for survival. Thousands of them became
sharecroppers or agricultural labourers. They added to the general
pressure on land and further contributed to the general impoverishment
of agriculture1. According to one contemporary observer: The
misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones
of the cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of India"
The inmneot of Rritich rule thuc led to the evolution of a new