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Abstract
This essay explores the rapid expansion of small handloom centres in Western India between 1930 and 1970. It attributes the transformation of these places into larger cities to the role of local weaver-capitalists, who developed new markets for local textiles and introduced significant technological innovations into the industry, and who forged strategies for combatting the growth of labour resistance. The essay also highlights the role of the late colonial and early post-Independence states, which promoted the growth of weavers’ co-operatives and which imposed extensive regulations on larger enterprises. The paper argues that the powerloom centres of Western India sustained a ‘hyper-industrial’ quality, with limited economic or cultural diversification, restricted urban amenities and public services, and the extensive concentration of poor urban migrants in slums.
Notes
1 One major exception is James Heitzman, ‘Middle Towns to Middle Cities in South Asia, 1800–2007’, in Journal of Urban History, Vol.XXXV, no.1 (Nov. 2008), pp.15–38.
2 The pattern of historical development among the textile centres in South India, however, has been different from that in the cities examined here. Particularly important there has been the role of capitalists from rural origins. See the conclusion of this essay for some discussion of this alternative pattern.
3 See Heitzman, ‘Middle Towns to Middle Cities in South Asia’, p.28. Heitzman sees this trend as characteristic of the whole colonial period, whereas this essay sees a new trend developing after the 1920s.
4 See Tirthankar Roy, Artisans and Industrialization; Indian Weaving in the Twentieth Century (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Douglas E. Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India: Artisans, Merchants and the Making of the Informal Economy, 1870-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
*Ahmednagar only (not including Bhingar); NA: not available.
Source: Douglas E. Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India: Artisans, Merchants and the Making of the Informal Economy, 1870-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p.67. The District Gazetteers for different districts were published between 1875 and 1882, so the dates vary.
5 Government of India, Report of the Fact-Finding Committee (Handloom and Mills) (Calcutta: Government Central Press, 1942), p.67.
6 is taken from Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India, p.67. Figures from Surat or Ichalkaranji do not allow similar comparisons, but the numbers of artisans undoubtedly increased there between 1880 and 1930.
7 Most weaving towns possessed a significant number of yarn shops. In the 1930s, Sholapur possessed fifty, Malegaon about one hundred, Ahmednagar-Bhingar between twenty and twenty-five, and Sangamner about ten. N. Joshi, Urban Handicrafts of the Bombay Deccan (Poona: D.R. Gadgil, 1936), pp.100–1.
Source: Maharashtra State Archives, General Department 1911, vol. 98A, comp. 820, pt. II, Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai; and Census of India, 1911, Bombay Presidency, Vol. 7, pt. 2.
8 Government of India, Report of the Fact-Finding Committee, p.66.
9 Census of India 1921, Cities of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. 9, pt. 1.
10 Government of India, Report of the Fact-Finding Committee, p.66.
11 Maharashtra State Archives, General Department 1911, vol. 98a, comp. 820, pt. II, Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai; and Census of India 1911, Bombay Presidency, Vol. 7, pt. 2. The figures given for the number of looms in Malegaon were unreasonably high. Evidence from other years suggests a figure of around 4,000. This would of course still reflect a local economy highly dependent on weaving.
Source: Census of India 1872, 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911.
12 Census of India 1911, Bombay Presidency, Vol. 7, pt. 2; and Census of India 1921, Cities of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. 9, pt. 2. The 1911 figure for Sholapur's population seems low, given later trends of growth, but perhaps the recurring plague in this decade was responsible.
13 Growth in Hubli seems to be attributable to its central location in transportation networks.
14 Bombay Presidency, Economic and Industrial Survey Committee (Bombay, 1938–40), Vol. II, ‘Ahmedabad District’, p.9 and ‘Bombay City’, pp.8–9.
15 C.A. Bayly has made a distinction between town growth and urbanisation in ‘Town Building in North India, 1790–1830’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.IX, no.4 (1975), pp.483–504.
16 There is some discussion of the politics of these issues in Douglas E. Haynes, Rhetoric and Ritual in Colonial India: The Shaping of a Public Culture in Surat City, 1852–1928 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
17 S.R.B. Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles: The Indian Cotton-Mill Industry and the Legacy of Swadeshi, 1900–1985 (London/New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993), pp.164, 167; see also M.K. Pandhe, ‘Labour Organization in Sholapur City’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Poona, 1960, p.40.
18 Interview with Shankarrao Lathore, Bhiwandi, March 1994. Where no such societies existed, authorities often dispersed yarn through syndicates of master weavers. A detailed picture of Sangli's scheme for distribution of yarn comes from a report by N.M. Joshi, then assistant textile commissioner of Sangli State, Cotton Cloth and Yarn Control in Sangli State, Sangli State Publicity Series, Bulletin no. 1 (cyclostyled), 1946.
19 A report critical of this development is ‘Report on the Handloom Industry in Bombay State with Special Reference to Marketing Difficulties’, unpublished report by the Sub-Committee of the Marketing of Handloom Products Committee, The Provincial Industrial Co-operative Association, Bombay, Oct. 1950.
20 ‘Report on the Handloom Industry in Bombay State’, p.34.
21 Interview with R.B. Modi, Surat, March 1994.
22 Interview with Khalil Ansari, Malegaon, July 1997.
23 Interview with Shankarrao Lathore, Bhiwandi, March 1994.
24 Samad Sheth, for instance, was the president of the organisation. See Mohanlal Karva, ‘Speech to the Bhiwandi Textile Manufactures’ Association, Ltd’, 25 May 1980 (author's copy).
25 For a sample set of by-laws, see The Surat Weavers’ Co-Operative Producers Society Limited, Surat Peta Kayda [By-Laws] (Surat, 1944).
Source: Census of India 1921, 1931, 1941, 1951.
26 The table is based upon figures from the Census of India for the years 1921, 1931, 1941, and 1951. Surat's 1931 figures were low due to a boycott of the census during the Civil Disobedience movement.
Source: Census of India 1951–1991.
27 These figures come from various reports in the Census of India between 1951 and 1991. In 2001 Surat, with nearly 3 million people, had become India's ninth-largest city; by 2011 the Surat metropolitan area had a population of 4.5 million people and ranked eighth in India.
28 K. Srinivasalu, ‘1985 Textile Policy and Handloom Industry: Policy, Promises and Performance’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.XXXI, no.49 (7 Dec. 1996), p.3200. The mills at the time constituted 8 percent of India's textile production. Today the figure is only about 5 percent.
29 Tirthankar Roy, ‘“Development or Distortion?” Powerlooms in India’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.XXXIII, no.16 (18 April 1995), p.898.
30 In 2012 each city possessed more than 500,000 looms, more than sixty times their loomage in the 1950s. The official number of looms in the region around Surat in 2012 is approximately 590,000 [http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-07/news/33083698_1_powerloom-sector-survey-textile, accessed 28 Aug. 2012]. In 2008, there were a reported 550,000 looms in Bhiwandi employing 150,000 workers [http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/bhiwandis-powerloom-owners-see-glimmer-of-hope/278812/, accessed 28 Aug. 2012]. Both of these figures may reflect underreporting to escape taxation.
31 ‘Report on the Handloom Industry in Bombay State’, p.6.
32 Report of the Powerloom Enquiry Committee; Government of India. Powerloom Enquiry Committee (New Delhi: Government of India, Ministry of Industry, 1964). The reorganisation of Bombay State into Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka makes it impossible to provide exact figures for the whole of what had been the Bombay Presidency, but figures from individual towns indicate a doubling from 1956 to 1964, thus making 90,000 a reasonable estimate for the latter year.
33 The extensive innovations adopted by local weaver-capitalists are discussed in Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India, pp.272–7. The relationship between craft skills and the process of later phases of industrialisation in Europe has been elucidated in Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, ‘Historical Alternatives to Mass Production: Politics, Markets and Technology in Nineteenth Century Industrialization’, in Past and Present, No.108 (1985), pp.133–76. The original model proposed by Sabel and Zeitlin has been subject to significant revision, notably in Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin (eds), World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). In the South Asian context, the concept has been come under criticism from analysts of contemporary economic development for its failure to stress how reliance on small, flexible organisations can serve more as mechanisms for exploiting labour than as means to promote continuous technological innovation. See, for instance, Mark Holmstrom, ‘Flexible Specialisation in India?’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.XXVIII, no.35 (28 August 1993), pp.M82–6; and Subesh K. Das and P. Panayiotopoulous, ‘Flexible Specialisation: New Paradigm for Industrialisation for Developing Countries?’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.XXXI, no.52 (28 Dec. 1996), pp.L57–L61.
34 Interview with Aziz Bluebird, Malegaon, August 1994.
35 Sizing is a chemical process which strengthens yarn before it is woven.
36 Interviews in Bhiwandi and Malegaon, 1993 and 1994, especially interview with Khalil Ansari, Malegaon, May 1994.
37 Interviews in Surat, 1994.
38 Nirmala Banerjee, ‘The Unorganized Sector and the Planner’, in A.K. Bagchi (ed.), Economy, Society and Polity: Essays in the Political Economy of Indian Planning (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp.71–103; Sanjiv Misra, India's Textile Sector: A Policy Analysis (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993); S.R.B. Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles; The Indian Cotton Mill Industry and the Legacy of Swadeshi, 1900–1985 (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993); and Ghanshyam Shah, Public Health and Urban Development: The Plague in Surat (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997).
39 Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles, p.168.
40 Annual Report of Industrial Co-Operative Societies and Village Industries in the State of Bombay for the Year 1951–52 (Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1952).
41 M.P. Gandhi, Handloom Weaving Industry in India—1947: Its Past, Present and Future (Bombay: Gandhi and Co., 1947); and Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles, p.165.
42 Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles, p.171.
43 Ibid., pp.178–9.
44 In a sample of 1038 units in Surat in 1959–60, Survey of Silk and Art Silk Industry: Final Report (New Delhi: National Council of Applied Economic Research, 1961) found 172 units with only partly registered looms and 271 whose looms were completely unregistered. In Bhiwandi, of 251 units, 90 were unregistered or had only partly unregistered looms.
45 Secretary, Industries and Labour Dept. to District Collector of Nasik, 29 Dec 1971, Maharashtra Agriculture and Co-operative Department, PLM 1071/8-C of 1971, Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai.
46 Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles, p.171.
47 Ibid., pp.172–5.
48 This issue came up in numerous interviews with trade union leaders in Surat and Bhiwandi. See also Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles, pp.173–5.
49 Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles, p.179.
50 This argument provides considerable support at the micro level for the findings of Leadbeater, The Politics of Textiles. But in emphasising the role of the state in weakening the mills and overlooking the agency of the powerloom karkhandars, Leadbeater's analysis is too single-stranded.
51 Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India, pp.286–7.
52 The labour struggles of some of the weaving towns have been discussed in Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India, Chapter 8.
53 The role of Marwari capital in Surat has been explored in Garrett John Menning, ‘City of Silk: Ethnicity and Business Trust in Surat City, India,’ PhD Dissertation, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1996.
54 H. van Wersch, The Bombay Textile Strike, 1982–3 (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp.43–5.
Source: Census of India, 1991.
55 D.M Jain, Functional Classification of Urban Agglomerations/Towns of India 1991 (Census of India Occasional Paper #3 of 1994), pp.15, 39. Jain defines any city with more than 40 percent of its population in industry as an industrial centre.
56 At the time of Jain's assessment, the average percentage of people working in agriculture and the primary sector in Indian towns and cities as a whole was 16 percent.
57 See the reports on various towns in the Census of India, 1991.
58 The character of the labour market in Surat city has been well explored by Jan Breman in his work, especially Footloose Labour: Working in India's Informal Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
59 Biswaroop Das, ‘Availablity of Basic Amenities in City Slums—the Case of Surat’, in Urban India, Vol.XVI, no.2 (July/Dec. 1996), pp.87–110; Biswaroop Das, Socio-Economic Study of Slums in Surat City (Surat: Centre for Social Studies, 1994); and Shah, Public Health and Urban Development.
60 Bhiwandi-Nizampur City Municipal Corporation City Sanitation Plan, Draft, submitted to the Ministry of Urban Development, March 2012, p.2 [http://www.urbanindia.nic.in/programme/uwss/CSP/Draft_CSP%5CBhiwandi_CSP.pdf, accessed 2 Sept. 2012].
61 Shah, Public Health and Urban Development, pp.64–77. See also Banerjee, ‘The Unorganized Sector and the Planner’, pp.71–103. Shah provides a very extensive critique of municipal services available in Surat before 1994.
62 For a rich discussion of Surat after the plague, see Shah, Public Health and Urban Development, pp.238–62.
63 See Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), Chapters 9–11. Varshney stresses the intercommunal character of existing business organisations in Surat—organisations that increasingly found a place for upwardly-mobile karkhandars alongside men from the traditional Hindu and Muslim business communities of the city—but at the same time he argues that new working-class migrants and neighbourhoods were not incorporated into this institutional life.
64 Until the 1980s, the city of Surat was known for its particularly unsanitary character. After 1994, there was a major shift in the provision of public amenities. In very recent years, one might add, Surat's economy has become considerably more diverse, and is losing some of its hyper-industrial character.
65 For some works that discuss this development, see Christopher Baker, An Indian Rural Economy, 1880–1955: The Tamilnad Countryside (Oxford/New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1984), Chapter 5; and Sharad Chari, Fraternal Capital: Peasant-Workers, Self-Made Men, and Globalization in Provincial India (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).
66 See Avanish R. Patil, ‘Urbanization in Kolhapur District during 1950–2000: A Historical Perspective’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, 2007; Meenu Tewari, ‘Intersectoral Linkages and the Role of the State in Shaping the Conditions of Industrial Accumulation: A Study of Ludhiana's Manufacturing Industry’, in World Development, Vol.XXVI, no.8 (Aug. 1998), pp.1387–41; and Hein Streefkerk, Industrial Transition in India: Artisans, Traders and Tribals in South Gujarat (London: Sangam Books, 1985). See Barbara Harriss, India Working: Essays on Society and Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) for the importance of the informal economy in India's small towns today.
67 See for instance the work of Keith Hart, such as ‘Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,’ in Journal of African Studies, Vol.XI, no.1 (March 1973), pp.61–89; and ‘Africa's Urban Revolution and the Informal Economy’, in Visnu Padayachee (ed.), The Political Economy of Africa (London: Routledge, 2010), pp.371–88.