Industrialisation in the colony: Indian textiles, weavers and Manchester

Detail

The age of Indian textiles (before machine industry)

• Before machine industries began in Europe, Indian silk and cotton goods ruled the international textile market.
• Coarse cotton cloth was woven in many countries. But the finer varieties came only from India.
• Dhaka and other parts of Bengal made the best quality muslin — Bengal was a major centre of textile making [2].
• Indian cloth was so popular in Europe that many English words came from this trade: calico, pyjama, gingham, dungaree, chintz and khaki [2].

The routes — overland and by sea

• Overland route: Armenian and Persian merchants carried Indian goods from Punjab to Afghanistan, eastern Persia and Central Asia, crossing the north-west frontier by mountain passes.
• Sea route — western coast: Surat in Gujarat linked India to the Gulf and Red Sea ports.
• Sea route — eastern coast: Masulipatam on the Coromandel coast and Hoogly in Bengal traded with Southeast Asia.
• The English East India Company set up its first English factory (trading post) on the Coromandel coast at Masulipatam in 1611, buying palampores, calicoes and chintzes [4].

Who financed the cloth

• Indian merchant-bankers put up the money for production. A chain worked like this:
• Supply merchants advanced money to weavers for raw material.
• Weavers wove the cloth and gave it back.

• Merchants carried the cloth to port brokers, who sold it to exporters.

• This network was old, village-based and run by Indians.

Breakdown by the 1750s

• European companies first got concessions (special trade favours) from local courts, then monopoly rights to trade — the right to buy and sell with no competition.
• The old ports declined. Trade through Surat crashed from Rs 16 million in the late 17th century to Rs 3 million by the 1740s.
• Bombay and Calcutta — both Company-controlled — grew instead. Trade now moved in European ships.
• Key idea: the shift of ports was an indicator of growing colonial power. Indian merchants were pushed out; European ones took over.

Weavers under the Company (1760s–70s)

• After the Company won political power in Bengal and the Carnatic, exports of cloth did not fall at first.
• The British cotton industry had not yet expanded.

• The Company still wanted Indian fine cloth for Europe.

• The problem for the Company was the weaver's bargaining power. French, Dutch, Portuguese and local buyers all competed for the same cloth, so weavers could push up the price.

• The Company killed that competition in two steps:
• ① Eliminated existing traders and brokers. In their place it appointed a paid servant called the gomastha (a salaried Company agent) to supervise weavers, collect supplies and check quality.

• ② Tied weavers through the system of advances — loans given for buying raw material. Once a weaver took the loan, he had to hand over all his cloth to the gomastha.

• Effect on weaver households: many leased out their small plots of land and wove full-time using family labour.

Clashes and flight

• The old supply merchants lived in the villages and had ties with weavers. The gomasthas were outsiders.
• They arrived with sepoys and peons, and punished delays with beating and flogging.
• Prices paid were miserably low. The loan was supposed to help; it became a chain — the weaver could not sell to anyone else and could not refuse.
• Weaver response:
• Deserted their villages in the Carnatic and Bengal and moved elsewhere.
• Revolted along with village traders.
• Refused loans, closed down their workshops.
• Many took to agricultural labour — from skilled craftsmen to farm workers.

Manchester comes to India

• In 1772, Company official Henry Patullo wrote that demand for Indian textiles could never reduce, since no other country made cloth of the same quality. He was completely wrong.
• Reality of the numbers: cotton piece-goods fell from 33% of India's exports in 1811-12 to just 3% by 1850-51.
• Why: British industrialists pressed their government for import duties at home, so Indian cloth was taxed out of Britain, while British cloth was pushed into India.
• Britain had already used the same weapon earlier: the Calico Act of 1721 banned the use of calico in England for clothing or household use, to protect English makers [3].
• That Act was repealed in 1774, just as spinning and weaving machines arrived — now English mills could beat Eastern cloth on price [3].

• Lancashire had woven fustian (linen warp, cotton weft) from about 1620; with machinery it became the centre of the world cotton industry [5].

• British cloth floods India: cotton piece-goods were almost nil in Indian imports at the end of the 18th century, rose to over 31% by 1850, and over 50% by the 1870s.

The double squeeze on the weaver

• Two markets died at once:
• Export market collapsed — Indian cloth was taxed and shut out of Britain.

• Local market was glutted — cheap Manchester machine-made cloth was so low priced that Indian weavers could not compete.

• By the 1850s, reports from weaving regions spoke of "decline and desolation" — the phrase used by the Commissioner of Patna.

• The Koshti weavers of the Central Provinces left their looms and emigrated to Berar to work as day labourers.
• Longer view: exploitative trade rules and concessions slowly destroyed India's own crafts and turned India into a supplier of raw material and a buyer of the finished product [2].

Two later blows

• American Civil War (1860s):
• The war cut off raw cotton supplies from the United States to Britain.
• Britain turned to India for raw cotton.

• Raw cotton prices shot up. Indian weavers were now starved of affordable raw material — they were competing with Britain to buy Indian cotton.

• By the end of the 19th century: Indian factories themselves came up and flooded the market with machine-made goods. The handloom weaver was now squeezed by Indian mills too, not only Manchester.

Prelims Hooks

• Surat's trade fell from Rs 16 million (late 17th century) to Rs 3 million by the 1740s.
• Masulipatam (Coromandel) and Hoogly (Bengal) traded with Southeast Asia; Surat served the Gulf and Red Sea ports.
• The English East India Company's first factory on the Coromandel coast was at Masulipatam, 1611 [4].
• The gomastha was a paid servant of the Company appointed to supervise weavers, collect supplies and check cloth quality.
• Henry Patullo, 1772 — predicted demand for Indian textiles could never fall.
• Cotton piece-goods: 33% of Indian exports in 1811-12 → 3% in 1850-51.
• British cotton piece-goods in Indian imports: over 31% by 1850, over 50% by the 1870s.
• "Decline and desolation" — phrase of the Commissioner of Patna, 1850s.
• The Koshti weavers of the Central Provinces migrated to Berar as day labourers.
• The Calico Act of 1721 banned the use of calico for apparel and domestic use in England; repealed 1774 [3].
• The American Civil War of the 1860s raised raw cotton prices in India and hurt Indian weavers.

Mains Points

• Trade monopoly as a political instrument: the fall of Surat and rise of Bombay and Calcutta was not a market accident. Concessions → monopoly rights → control of shipping. The shift of ports maps the spread of colonial power, and shows that economic dominance and political conquest advanced together.
• The advance system turned credit into control: loans to weavers looked like help but removed the weaver's right to choose a buyer. Combined with the gomastha replacing village-rooted merchants, this destroyed the weaver's bargaining power. Useful as a case study of how colonial capital restructured — not merely taxed — Indian production.
• Asymmetric free trade: Britain used protective duties at home (the Calico Acts, later tariffs) while forcing an open market in India [3]. Compare with Britain's own growth, where Lancashire was shielded until machinery made it competitive [5]. This is the core argument in the deindustrialisation debate.
• Not one collapse but a sequence of blows: loss of export market (tariffs) → loss of home market (Manchester cloth) → loss of cheap raw material (American Civil War, 1860s) → competition from Indian mills (late 19th century). Handloom weaving survived, but as a low-paid, shrinking trade — which explains why swadeshi and khadi later carried such emotional force.