Day 11

In 1500 cotton textiles were the centre of the manufacturing life of the Indian subcontinent and the foundation of a wide-ranging trade that spread from India via land and sea to as far as Indonesia and Japan in the east and Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Egypt and West Africa in the west. Various types of textiles, and in particular cotton textiles, were traded by Indian merchants in exchange for a variety of commodities ranging from spices and foodstuff s to specie and luxuries. The regions of Gujarat in western India, Coromandel in its southern part and later Bengal in the east were among the most thriving centres of manufacturing within a well articulated system of exchange.

Europeans could just marvel at the scale, sophistication and articulation of such trade. John Huyghen van Linschoten noted in his Voyage to the East Indies (1598) a “great traffique into Bengala, Pegu, Sian, and Malacca, and also to India”, adding that “there is excellent faire linnen of Cotton made in Negapatan, Saint Thomas, and Masulepatan, of all colours, and woven with divers sorts of loome workes and figures, verie fine and cunningly wrought, which is much worne in India, and better esteemed then silke, for that is higher prised than silke, because of the finenes and cunning workmanship”.
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There is no doubt that in the 1760s the Indian subcontinent was the major producer and trader of cotton textiles in the world. Fifty years later, in the 1810s, this was no longer the case. Europe or, to be more precise, the north-western corner of the continent called England, was fast overtaking India in the production of cotton textiles thanks to the use of machinery and the consequent reduction of the cost of production. This is a classic narrative that we succinctly call ‘The Industrial Revolution’. It is complemented by explanations of how Europe rose to world dominance in the production of cotton textiles and how, as a consequence, the strong trading position of Britain became increasingly evident. Europe, as India had done for centuries, was now not just the core of manufacturing but also the main carrier of cotton textiles across the globe. This narrative of European achievement is the result of generations of economic historians painstakingly collecting data, analysing documents and creating hypotheses on the modalities, causes and effects of a process that has been mostly seen as European in nature and characterised by a certain northern English accent. The very concept of a revolutionary event implies a break or discontinuity with the past, and more precisely with the long tradition of cotton textile manufacturing and trade that for centuries had characterised India.

The Indian subcontinent plays no part in the story of a process of European industrialisation, although it can be argued that the subcontinent later became a victim of competition or prey to political imperialism. The lack of Indian agency can be contrasted with some rather exaggerated European confidence and boisterousness. What seems to be often forgotten is that Europe did not suddenly acquire the skills, knowledge and ‘outlook’ to produce and sell cotton textiles and that even when it did, they were not the simple result of technological innovation. It was a long process of learning that started back in the 1500s that eventually led, a couple of centuries later, to Europe becoming one of the world’s leading cotton manufacturing areas.
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[The] intercontinental trade in cotton textiles was key to creating the conditions for the later development of a European cotton industry. It is the relationship between India and Europe, mediated as it were through the so-called East India companies (in particular the Dutch (VOC) and the English (EIC) companies), not European exceptionalism that explains the mechanisation, industrialization and re-location of the cotton industry from India to Europe at the end of the eighteenth century.

~~[ESSAY 1] INTRODUCTION: THE WORLD OF SOUTH ASIAN TEXTILES, 1500-1850 -by- Giorgio Riello and Tirthankar Roy

~~[ESSAY 2] THE INDIAN APPRENTICESHIP: THE TRADE OF INDIAN TEXTILES AND THE MAKING OF EUROPEAN COTTONS -by- Giorgio Riello
from the book "How India Clothed the World"