Cotton - a history 4.

Empire
THE LANCASHIRE TEXTILE boom could
never have taken hold without the
protection of high taritf walls against the
The stuff of Roman robes and royal apparel, of slaves and satanic
world's great textile workshop in India.
mills, and of a new empire of capital that still holds sway today. For Indian hand weavers, whose quality was
Gandhi, simple and homespun, the cotton khad; shirt was a symbol high and wages low, had been the centre
of a resurgent, democratic India. Today cotton clothes the world, still of world production for centuries. But
handing out wealth and misery in equal measure. British protectionism, in combination
with the extension of imperial power
through the East India Company (an early
example of a 'public-private' partnership),
changed the rules of the game. British
policy transformed India from an exporter
of textiles to a supplier of raw cotton for
Lancashire factories. The tactics were
brutal.They included smashing the
hands and cutting off the thumbs of
Indian weavers, while implementing a
system of usurious taxes favouring cotton
production - sometimes provoking
famine in the process. When Gandhi led
the movement against imported British
textiles and in favour of Indian handlooms,
Winston Churchill caught the temper of
British attitudes, famously denouncing
Gandhi as 'half naked ... a seditious Middle

2. The cotton trade

COTTON CLOTH GRADUALLY became one of the most sought-after goods
for the emerging urban markets of Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe.
Vasco da Gama opened up Asian sea trade, replacing the old caravan route
and allowing for much heavier loads. A Calico and Chintz craze swept the
continent. By 1664 the East India Company was importing a quarter of a
million pieces into England alone. Indian master craftspeople and dyers had
for centuries kept the secret of how to create colourful patterns. But some
~ converted to Christianity and were betrayed by a French Catholic priest,
~ Father Coeurdoux, in an early act of industrial espionage. Although sworn to
~ secrecy, he published a step-by-step guide in France. The European textile
• ; industry got a leg up.
 7.Unequalexchange

AFTER INDEPENDENCE, MUCH of West Africa was left with

an unhealthy dependence on cotton as a foreign-exchange
earner. Low labour costs allowed it to compete with the hi-tech
production of the world's biggest producer of cotton lint: the US.
But then the US Government
started spending billions of dollars
on subsidies. This depressed the
world price to the point where
even African and Indian farmers
could not keep body and soul
together.
An additional burden on
small farmers has come with the
expensive regime of chemical
inputs demanded by industrial
agriculture. The effects have
been widespread hunger and
devastation - and, in India,
farmer suicide. Meanwhile,
US cotton subsidies provide a
dramatic example of rich world
hypocrisy: demanding free trade

of everyone else, while practising protectionism at home.

But time may be running out for the 'good ole boys' at the
National Cotton Council, Brazil's successful action before the World
Trade Organization is putting pressure on subsidies. Stay tuned.

6. Africa
THE COTTON CULTURE of the US South and the agricultural economy
that spawned it never really recovered its position of dominance. The
'cotton famine'that hit European textile industries during the US Civil War,
and increasing global demand for the 'white gold: soon had the European
Loom Lords looking elsewhere for raw cotton lint. Diversification was
the name of the game. Their own colonies provided coerced labour and
cheap product. West Africa (and Mozambique) became a new source of
supply. Taxes and other extra-market means once again induced cotton
cultivation and discouraged local textile production. The treatment of the
producers was particularly brutal in the Belgian Congo and the Portuguese
colonies of Angola and Mozambique, where it bordered on outright
slavery. Cotton cultivation restructured
rural life in Africa. It required between
100 and 185 days of labour per hectare,
leading to the neglect of food crops.
But Africans were not passive victims.
They adopted a number of survival
and resistance strategies: overt revolts,
particularly in the Portuguese colonies;
neglecting their tasks in the cotton cycle
(seen as 'laziness' by the authorities);
clandestine inter-cropping; a black
market in cotton and an indigenous
textile industry seen today in the
beautiful Kente cloth of Ghana's Ashanti
 Gentle and
breathable
to wear;
harsh and
suffocating
•
to work
with.
Richard
Swift If you want to make money from cotton, best to stay and were intimately involved with creating the dreary
unpicks well away from it. Historically, that's how it has rhythms of factory life.
always been. But their sumptuous dwellings were far away from
the world's Take the big planters of the US South, who cooled the grim slums of Manchester and the like, where
their heels in old New Orleans or perched up in their their textile workers were warehoused. Certainly the
favourite genteel Natchez mansions on the bluffs overlooking the colonial officialdom of the British, Portuguese and
Mississippi River. Not for them the snake- and bug­ French empires, whose coercive taxation policies forced
fabric. infested bottomlands where their slaves and overseers Africans to grow the 'white gold', had very little direct
worked the fields. contact.
~ Similarly, the shareholders of the British East India If anything, the distance between 'working cotton'
:: Company stayed well away from the Indian villages and those who profit from it has grown even greater in
~ which first produced the handloom fabrics that took our own time. For traders in 'futures' who speculate on
;; Europe by storm, followed by the raw cotton that the international market, cotton is little more than an
~ fuelled the fledgling Lancashire textile industry. abstract part of a profit-and-loss equation.
Granted, there was a brief period when entrepreneurs Although the corporate farmers who dominate Big
~ like the Lancashire-based Sir Richard Arkwright Cotton in the US are still theoretically 'on the land'.
~ (Britain) or the Boston Brahmin, Francis Cabot Lowell their relationship with the crop is mediated by massive
~ (US), pioneered a factory system based on textiles machinery and hi-tech production methods. On the

2 NEW fN TER NATfON ALIST APRfL 2007 www.newint.org

 Cotton INTROD UC TIO N

Spinning cotton, more advanced farms, fixed-wing aircraft produce digital irrigated agriculture. And irrigation has its limits, when
spinning money scans that can customize the needs of each plant for agriculture is based on 'mining' otherwise renewable
- worker checking fertilizer, insecticide and growth hormones. These are resources like water and soiL
machinery in an then delivered to each individual plant by agricultural Over the next few decades both the US and India
Indian textile machinery carrying on-board computing capacity. (the world's second- and third-largest cotton producers)
factory. Sounds good, but makes for expensive cotton that face seriously depleting water aquifers. The irony is that
without US Department of Agriculture subsidies would hardier, more environmentally friendly types of cotton
have a hard time competing with African and Indian have been displaced by long-staple, high-yield varieties
smallholders. The 'brands' which now sell us our cotton considered more suitable for industrial textile production.
clothing have little or nothing to do with its manufacture. Still, for all the pain and misery, there is something
That is done on contract far away - mostly in places like about cotton that appeals - and not just to consumers,
China, Bangladesh and India - where wages are low and who love the feel of the 'breathable' fabric against their
working conditions largely unregulated. The people who skin. Despite all the heartbreak, cotton farmers persist
own and run these new satanic mills are euphemistically in the cycle of planting, tending and harvesting that
called 'suppliers'. But what happens in the fire-plagued keeps millions on the margins of the cash economy.
'three-flo or-factories' of Chinese free trade zones (one Some 99 per cent of cotton farmers now live in the
floor: storage; one floor: production; one floor: workers' Global South - two-thirds in India and China ­
accommodation) is well below the radar of the average making cotton very definitely a poor person's crop.
Wal-Mart customer. As they say: 'Always Low Prices'.
You can see the appeal of not getting too close. Champion of cotton
Working in the textile industry has never been a lot Demand for cotton has doubled since the 1980s.
of fun. And, for a scrawny old shrub, cotton is pretty Homespun, it used also to be the mainstay of poor
demanding. It requires a long growing season, plenty of people's wardrobes. But that has changed. The bulk of
rain to get it going (three months or so), then a lot of heat. cotton is now consumed in Europe and North America
After that there needs to be a period of very dry weather and other parts of the industrial world. Now, in most
for the harvesting to take place. It's a lot of hard, often years, there is a glut on the world cotton market, with
backbreaking work under a blistering sun, particularly reserve stockpiles and slumping prices.
when you come to the cotton-picking stage. Then there When I was researching this issue I had the chance to
is the disappointment once you get your cotton to the meet the colourful farmers' leader Vijay Jawandhia in his
marketplace and, often as not, find your hard work poorly home in Ramnagar, in the eastern part of the Indian state
rewarded. It's always 'the middleman' - the broker, the ofMaharashtra. I was in line just ahead of a whole village
government agent, the moneylender, the buyer from the of cotton farmers who had come to consult.
factory - who seems to make out best. The Blues and Jawandhia was generous with both his time and his
cotton just seem to go naturally together as in Charlie views. I quickly realized I was dealing with a formidable
Patton's Mississippi Bol Weevil Blues: intellect, quite comfortable jumping from Marx's theory
of value based on labour, to that of Rosa Luxemburg
'Well, the Merchant got half the cotton, based on resources, to the plight ofIndian smallholders.
The Bol Weevils got the rest. He estimates that just one per cent of the price of a cotton
Didn't leave the poor farmer's wife shirt bought in the West ends up in the hands of the
But one old cotton dress, farmer. The textile worker who made the shirt doesn't
And it's full of holes, all full ofholes:* fare much better. Jawandhia points to the cotton shirt I
am wearing and gesticulates dramatically as he asks the
All the attempts to make cotton friendlier seem to have obvious question: where does the rest of that money go?
ended up just antagonizing it. In recent years two waves Jawandhia is all too familiar with the hardships faced
of industrial agriculture have sought to 'revolutionize' by cotton farmers in the Global South. Still, he is a
production. The Green Revolution wave brought in champion of cotton. He compares it favourably to oil­
hybrid varieties that needed lots of water and agro­ based artificial fabrics. The petroleum source is going to
chemicals. In some places yields were better for a while, the toilet. Whereas the source of cotton is sun-energy:
but the chemicals were too expensive and poisoned He also champions the employment associated with
everything - the soiL the water, the cotton, the farmers cotton as opposed to artificial fibres. 'For every bale of
themselves. artificial fibres there is work for 9 people; every bale of
Now the next wave has arrived: genetically modified cotton provides work for 30: He even sees a place for
cotton. Just change one gene and all your problems cotton waste, which can be recycled into paper 'to help
vanish in a puff of smoke. But, for lots of farmers in with the tree shortage or to make charcoal for fuel'.
India at least, it isn't turning out that way. People around the world will be wearing cotton
While the new BT cotton, as it is called, depends less for some time to come. But if it is to fulfil any of the
on agrochemicals, it needs more water. The money that promise Jawandhia sees in it, it must start to reward
poor farmers used to spend on the pesticides now must the farmers and textile workers who have intimate
be spent on buying new 'miracle' seeds. And while yields contact with it, rather than just those who have always
have been okay in some places, they tend to be a lot drained arms-length profit from it. And we also need
less dependable in conditions of rain-fed as opposed to to make sure we don't turn it from a sustainable crop
to an unsustainable monoculture, dependent on
* Wit h th anks to Stephen Yafa's excellent, CottOIl : The Biography afa Revolutionary agrochemicals and gene-manipulation. If we are kinder
Fibe r, Penguin, 2005. to it, maybe it will be kinder to us. +

www,newint.org N E W INTERNA T IO NA LI S T APRIL 2 0 07 3

Cotton FUTURE FABRICS

atever
a ene Jim Thomas looks
back from abrave new
nanotech world at the
fabric of history.

to cotton?

It was at her wedding in 2035 that Asha first began already buoyant price of gold to record levels. Other
wondering about cloth. Her grandmother had given commodities, however, lost out: nanosized fibres of
her an old-fashioned cotton sari and so they fell into carbon known as 'carbon nanotubes' could be produced
conversation while fingering its brittle texture. Asha that were 100 times stronger than steel, six times lighter
declared that she found the sari 'beautiful in a rerro sort and carried electricity more efficiently than copper
of way' but was struck by its impracticality: how easily wire. As Mitsubishi and IBM began to churn out cheap
it stained and how fragile it was. If it snagged on a nail nanotubes by the ton, steelworkers and copper miners
it could tear as quickly as that other outdated material found themselves forced into early retirement.
- paper. Her grandmother countered that cotton was Something similar had happened to around a billion
the material of choice when she was a child and that the workers in the global cotton industry. Digging into the
wealth ofIndia was built on fabric like this - 'and much archives from Internet 1.0, Asha learned that cotton was
of its poverty too', she added ruefully. Somehow in the so common at the turn of the century that even the early
intervening generation cotton had just disappeared. The nanofabrics were based on it. In 2002 a Texas company
conversation passed to other topics, but when Asha later called Nano-tex began selling simple nano-coatings that
took out the wedding gift again she found herself asking would make cotton fibres 'spill resistant' - you could
the question: 'Whatever happened to cotton( pour coffee on a pair of nano-treated jeans and it would
As an historian bi- training Asha knew that the bead up like mercury and roll off as ifby magic. Nano­
disappearance of co;ton had ~omething to do with tex was quickly joined by DuPont, who created a similar
technology. She guessed, righrl}', that it fell out of no-spill effect using 'nanoteflon'. These new nanofibres
favour in the global commodity chaos that followed w,ere licensed to several of the largest textile mills in
the introduction of nanotechnology in the first decade Asia to make trousers and jeans for Lee, Dockers, Gap
of the century. Nanotechnology, a set of techniques and Eddie Bauer, to name just a few. Nanotech quickly
that rearrange matter on the tiniest scale of atoms became the hottest topic in textiles - just as nylon,
and molecules, became one of the main drivers of the rayon and polyester had been half a century earlier. This
economy somewhere around 2010. Br 2015 the trillion­ spelled trouble ahead for cotton.
dollar nano-industry was busy producing everything from When seen at the nano-scale, cotton lint is simply
computers to armaments and foodstuff - and also cloth: a hollow tube of cellulose. It wasn't long before
textiles were among the early stars of the nano-revolution. nanotechnologists starting mimicking that structure with
artificial alternatives. In 2002 Nano-tex launched a new
Novel properties way of wrapping cellulose around polyester fibres. This
By harnessing quantum physics and shuffling the made them feel like cotton even though the fibres were
atoms of the periodic table into new arrangements, synthetic. Meanwhile a German nanofibre company,
nanotechnologists had made existing elements exhibit Lenzing, introduced Tencel - a soft fabric whose
entirely novel properties. It seemed almost like alchemy. nanofibres were made out of engineered cellulose. Tencel
For example, they could design a gold nanoparticle (a claimed to be 'as soft as silk, strong as polyester, cool as
particle only a few billionths of a metre in size) in such linen, warm as wool and absorbent as cotton'. Made from
a way that it would turn purple, green or bright red, cheap wood-pulp and sawdust, Tencel was marketed as an
depending on the number of atoms used. This was more all-natural fibre. Suddenly cotton had real competition.
than a neat party trick. Once such nanogold entered At that time nanotechnology was redefining what
mass production it quickly found uses in the paint, dyes was possible with textiles. Silver nanoparticles were
and pigment industry and as a catalyst, pushing the added to socks and later shirts to resist odours. They

www,newint.org
.. NE W l N T ERN AT 10N A L 1S T A l'R1 L 2007 5
 b .-.;~ Cotton FUTURE FABRICS

reduced the frequent washing of clothes that used Following that, only niche organic consumers were
to be necessary. Later nanofibres were designed to interested in the expensive option of irrigating and
resist dirt directly by preventing it attaching to the cultivating hectares of plants - not to mention paying
fibres. Meanwhile, carbon nanofibres woven into kids' for farm work. Bacteria ask for no wages at alL
clothes helped them wear the rough and tumble of the
playground as though they were Kevlar - a trick first Fabric of history
developed by the military for lighter armour. Meditating on the meshed threads ofher grandmother's
Then came the so-called 'smart fabrics' - also sari, Asha saw how cotton's history had been tightly woven
largely developed in military labs. By 2003 Yoel Fink, into the ebb and flow of new technologies even before
a nanotechnologist at MIT's Institute for Soldier nanotech. India had first given the world cotton cloth but
Nanotechnology, invented the colour-changing the colonial powers used technological innovations to steal
nanofibres that became so ubiquitous a decade later. it away. The invention of Hargreaves' spinningjenny and
Fink's nanofibres changed colour with the addition of Cartwright's power loom at the end ofthe 18th century
an electrical charge that either lengthened or shortened allowed more efficient processing of cotton into cloth and
the fibres, altering the way they interacted with light. So so moved the heart of the cotton trade to Manchester,
a dull grey sweater could turn bright pink at the flick of England. Meanwhile, in the New World, Eli Whitney
a switch - no need to change outfits between the office revived the declining American cotton plantations when he
and the dinner party. Others found that incorporating invented the cotton gin in 1793 - a mechanical means of
carbon nanofibres into fabric production allowed removing seeds from cotton bolls. Whitney transformed
clothes to conduct an electrical charge, and so cell North American cotton production so that it could
phones, computers and radio frequency 10 chips were outcompete Indian production.
woven into nanotextiles as part of the burgeoning field It seemed to Asha that each time cotton production
of 'wearable computing'. and so-called 'technological progress' joined hands, the
poor lost out. The shift in textile production to England
E-cloth and cultivation by slaves in the American South led to
Soon it was discovered that carbon nanofibres could mass starvation in India, where cotton was still hand­
be made to generate electricity as the wearer moved picked and hand-woven. Not only were the Indian
about. The scientists called these electricity-generating weavers contending with the factory system but the
fabrics 'piezzolelectric materials' - everyone else called British also imposed harsh restrictions on the export of
it E-cloth. Shortly after E-cloth hit the market, Apple India's finished cloth to protect their new industrialists.
bought Nike, Google bought Levis and the fashion and Rebellious weavers who attempted to evade these
computing industries merged. Clothes finally became restrictions had their fingers smashed by the muskets
the interactive entertainment devices that we are of British soldiers. In a cruel twist of history, the rifles
familiar with today. While rich kids in the North pulled used to exact this punishment were of a type invented
on the latest G-suit to play Nintendo, the 100 million and patented by cotton gin inventor Eli \\lhitney.
poor cotton-growing families in the south were forced Years later, when the father ofIndian independence,
Mahatma Gandhi, talked about giving power back to
When Asha finally put on the sari she discovered the poor, he drew a link between technology, politics and
cotton. 'I think ofthe poor ofIndia every time that I draw
that is was unexpectedly soft to wear a thread on the wheel,' he said, urging India to turn away
from mechanized production and return to hand-spinning
into a desperate search for new livelihoods. of cotton to revitalize its village economies. Mechanization
One company that cheerily waved goodbye to cotton of spinning, he claimed, 'brought on slavery, pauperism and
was DuPont, the chemical company whose post-war disappearance of the inimitable artistic talent which was
synthetic fibres had shaken the cotton industry once once all expressed in the wonderful fabric ofIndia which
before. Besides being a nanotech leader, DuPont also was the envy ofthe world:
pioneered the field of Synthetic Biology (Syn Bio). When Asha finally put on the sari she discovered
This extreme form of genetic engineering allowed that it was unexpectedly soft to wear. She liked how the
scientists to assemble artificial viruses and bacteria out breeze went through it, but mostly she liked the way its
of synthetic DNA, as if building electronic circuits. colours faded and how the dust settled and stayed on it.
They programmed these artificial microbes to churn out The new fabrics stayed clean and shiny perpetually. Like
rubber, gasoline, ethanol and industrial precursors for so many new technologies, they existed in an unsullied
fibres. In 2007 DuPont opened a $100 million Syn Bio present with no stain of history. That felt wrong to Asha
factory in Lubbock, Texas, producing a new elastic fibre - it dishonoured the cotton weavers who'd had their
called Sonora. This showcased fibre production in which fingers crushed by rifles, the American slaves who'd
vats of synthetically designed bacteria fed on cheap and worked the plantations and the cotton families who'd
plentiful sugars could produce synthetic thread. lost their livelihood to nanofibres. When she was next
The synthetic biologists didn't stop at Sonora. scheduled to see her grandmother, Asha made a point of
Through a process known as 'metabolic pathway wearing the cotton sari. She wrapped it around her body
engineering' geneticists had figured out the specific like a remembrance ribbon and headed off.•
genetic instructions that the cotton plant uses to
produce cotton lint. These were successfully transferred Jim Thomas works wirh rhe ETC Group (www.ercgroup.org). See rheir
to bacteria around 2015, after which synthetic microbes The Potential fmpacts ofNano-Scale Technologies on Commodity Markets: The
could extrude cotton-like substances by the vat-load. Implications for Commodity Dependent Developing Countries.

6 NEW INTERNATIONALIST APRIL 2007

. www.newint.org
 Cotton FAR M ER SUICID E

Ravinder Kisan Piwar's brother came back at five o'clock

co n
well had collapsed; exceptionally hard rain had washed
in the evening as usual to turn on the electric pump. away almost half of the cotton; he was worried about his
This is the one time the erratic electricity supply can marriage prospects.
Suicide village: usually be counted on in the eastern Maharashtra But the background was also crucial. Day after
Danada Thahme's village of Chalbardi. He found the 23-year-old Ravinder day he drove past the cotton market in nearby
widow tries to keep bent over, holding his stomach and retching. He Pandharkawada and saw the gates closed. Even
her husband's had swallowed a lethal dose of the pesticide he had when they were open, cotton was either not selling
memory alive. purchased to safeguard the cotton crop on his family's or selling below the cost of production, even below
four-hectare plot. It was a crop he relied on to support the government-set floor price. What could be made
himself and five others - his grandparents, younger from selling his depleted yield could in no way cover
brother and two sisters. the debts he'd incurred to buy agrochemicals and BT
Ravinder was by all accounts a jovial sort of guy, or at seeds.* In the end, the harvested crop lay piled in the
least that is how his grandfather thought of him when I house and no attempt had even been made to take it
talked to him outside their tumbledown house on a back to market. Ravinder's grandfather, his face etched in
street of Chalbardi. Although Ravindar was worried lines of sorrow, said simply: 'I have lost my hands.' The
about the economic odds that are stacked against the unspoken question that troubled this talL dignified old
survival of a small-farm family in the 11 counties that man: 'How will the five of us left now survive2'
make up the Vidarbha cotton belt, he had never given Ravinder's decision, while his alone to take, was
any sign that he was contemplating such drastic action. not an isolated one. Two other farmers in that village
As they talked to me, his family searched for clues as to had also taken their lives and, over the past few years,
what might have led him to this very final decision: the thousands of Vidarbhan cotton farmers had done the

www.newint.org N EW I N TERN A TIO NA LIS T APRI L 20 0 ~ 7

 Cotton FARMER SUICIDE

same. This made the individual act of suicide into a On 25 November 2006 he got up early and rode his
social phenomenon. 'Social' suicide is wreaking much new (but unpaid-for) motorbike out into the fields and
havoc throughout rural India. Farmers, drawn more hanged himself from an electrical pole. Bravin was deep
and more into competing with global commodity prices in debt to both moneylenders and the co-operative bank.
and forced to borrow to finance hi-tech inputs (seeds, A loan for a well had come up dry. Cotton prices were
agrochemicals and the like) are starting to despair. what they were. He was responsible not only for his
new wife but also for his parents and siblings. He was
White gold caught between the obligations of old rural India and
Paradoxically, the suicides have taken place in some of the desires of shiny new consumer India, as represented
the best agricultural areas - paddy farmers in eastern by his new motorbike. He must have felt that he could
Vidarbha, wheat farmers in the Punjab, coffee growers satisfy neither. His father referred to Bravin as a
in Kerala. In more marginal areas, farmers continue sensitive son who felt that 'all the responsibilities fell
to lead a life of poverty - but a self-reliant, debt-free or on him'. We sadly agreed that a parent should never
at least debt-manageable poverty. The suicides started outlive their child. I thought of my own son. In the end
among cotton farmers and remain most prevalent the father, left in sadness and despair, felt that his only
among the producers of what was once called 'white recourse was to follow the example of his son. He shook
gold'. And it is in the dry cotton country ofVidarbha my hand warmly as I left, and I hoped he would find
where the problem is most acute. In these dusty villages, different way out.
where poor farming families try to scratch out a living, a
group of committed activists maintains a kind of suicide Suicide village
watch, complete with a macabre map covered with labels Sometimes when you go to a 'suicide village' you meet
in the form of skulls. just the family and close relatives. Other times many
N agpur is the capital of the region and it is here farmers - and not a few young children - gather round.
I meetJaideep Hardikar. Hardikar has interviewed Everyone (or at least all the men) talks, eager to give you
a sense of their situation.
Jaideep, who is writing abook on the suicides, is not This was the case in Waifad village, where 65-year­
old Danada Nirayan Thahme had swallowed pesticides.
puzzled by the cause. As they say, he has '~one the math' All agreed that Danada had been a popular man in
the village and had many friends. He had always been
hundreds of farmers in his attempt to publicize their generous and willing to help others, even though he had
plight. He is from Vidarbha and is deeply committed little himself. No-one had seen it coming before his 81­
to its 25 million people. 'There is a mass depression year-old neighbour found him lying in the road.
that has crept in. Poverty has always been pervasive in But he had been tense for three months - the
this country, but no-one committed suicide. It is not crop had not been good and the debts had mounted.
the issue of poverty but the issue of indebtedness that The genetically modified BT seeds had added to the
affects all spheres of a farmer's life.' cost. There was crop-loss from flooding and from
Jaideep's anger and frustration show through as the 'reddening disease' that the farmers have come to
he talks: 'Last year [2005J I reported that there was a associate with the new cotton strain.
suicide every 36 hours. Then it came down to 24. Then Soon the conversation began to stray further afield,
down to 12. And now it stands at 8. That is 3 suicides and people began an animated running commentary on
a day: their more general fate. It went something like this: 'BT
Jaideep, who is writing a book on the suicides, is not cotton has devastated us. Our production costs have
much puzzled by the cause. As they say, he has' done the spiralled and yields have actually declined. Next year we
math'. 'In Vidarbhan there are 1.8 million households are not going for BT... Things were much better under
engaged in cotton. In the US there are 25,000 cotton the British. If there were a ballot box here where we
farmers. If the subsidy that they receive - that depresses could vote for the British, they would win... Everything
the world price for cotton - were removed, prices would we used, we used to make at home. We never borrowed
rise to 4,500 to 5,000 rupees a bushel. Efficient Indian anything. Foreign technology has put us into debt. Now
cotton farmers could easily compete with a price of we can't even get back to zero... How about the leaders?
3,500 a bushel. Today the farmers usually get less than No-one sees them committing suicide. It is only us ... It
2,000 [below the cost of productionJ and it is impossible
to make even 10,000 rupees a year from a 8-hectare
plot. That is just $200 for your entire family to live on.'
As I wandered through the dusty villages of
Vidarbha the reasons for the suicides started to come
into focus. I was nervous to approach people at such a
tragic time. But I found that people who would have
every reason to tell you to leave them alone and mind
Death in the your own business always received you with tea and
fields: activists courtesy. It seemed to give them some relief to be able to
in Vidarbha use a tell their story.
map to maintain Certainly this was true ofBravin Vijay Bakamwar's

their alarming father. The Bakamwars live in Sunna village. The 26­
suicide watch. year-old Bravin had been married for just six months.

8 GEW IGTER"A TI ONALIST APRIL 2007 www.l1ewint.org

~
 'You can't depend and expediency in India. The shame is kept alive by the
on cotton: media (particularly the local media), activists and NGO
Rangpur farmer groups. The farmer is, at some fundamental level, still
Ranta Bhie Ratha considered the backbone of the country. Cotton takes
has avoided 'pride of place' because of a long, illustrious history
putting all his and Gandhi's use of it as a symbol in the independence
eggs in the struggle. The situation is considered a 'national scandal'
cotton basket. - at least by some.
The denial comes through official down-playing of
the extent of the deaths, or unofficial fantasies about
~idespread farmer alcoholism and their attempts to get
is better that the Gm'ernment just comes and bombs hold of (largely non-existent) government largesse; or in
us, that would be a more effective way to get rid of us ... claims that the suicides are not really 'farm-related'.
The agricultural extension officers used to come from The expediency is a matter of using the suicides against
the Governmenr, and had some knowledge. Today they your political opponents when you are out ofpower and
come from the corForates and are just dealers who only then ignoring them when you make it to office.
know how to count money: Kavitha Kuruganti, of the Centre for Sustainable
What the farmers always came back to was a question: Agriculture in Hyderabad, uses the election of the
why could the politicians and the 'corporates' not Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh in 2004 to illustrate
understand that eventually everyone, including them, the point. 'Congress kept a running count of the suicides,
had to li\'e from the soil. Sometimes they talked over one which they threw in the face of the BJP Government.
another, but they listened too, and nodded in agreement. It was a big factor in their election victory. When they
While hard lives were etched on their faces, there remained formed the government they drew up a list of suicide
a sense of pride in the land and those who work it. households for compensation. But when the applications
started flowing in they did a very stupid thing and
Gujarati difference immediately started whittling away at which were
I travelled north to Gujarat to see how cotton growers "legitimate" farm-related suicides and which were not,
there were farin g. It is ironic that farmers considered cutting those families eligible for compensation to only
less 'mod ern' are~ in a sense, better off. Take Ranta 30 per cent of what they themselves had been claiming
Bhie Rathwa, who is a 'tribal' farmer (from one of when they were in opposition: Her dismay is apparent:
India's margi n al ized indigenous groups) in Rangpur, 'You'd think, just for the sake of political credibility, that
some t hree h ours' drive from Baroda, near the border they would at least compensate the whole list:
with Madhya Pradesh. He is a wily old character with For Kavitha, the suicides cut to the very core
a devilish twi nkle dancing in his eye. His young son of India's development strategy, which she sees as
climbed all over him as he tried to tell me about his sacrificing agriculture for the prosperity of the hi-
situation. I fel t a long way from the suicide villages of tech sector and industrial exports. A similar approach
has been taken by China. She points to a plethora of
'It is better that the Government just comes and bombs us government reports and planning documents that all
indicate the inevitable destruction of traditional Indian
- that would be amore effective way to get rid of us' agricultural life. She takes a caustic view of this kind of
technocratic realism. 'These people probably see suicide
Vidarbha. Ranta, like most farmers in this relatively as a legitimate "exit strategy" from agriculture. There
remote area, grows cotton, but only as a sideline to is no sense of the pace at which it is happening, where
get cash. The other crops in the area include mangos, people can go, or the long-term fate of farming:
chillies, castor beans, eggplant, tomatoes, maize, paddy As I left Vidarbha there was a confrontation at a
rice, pigeon peas and chickpeas. Some of these help cotton-buying site, where police fired on desperate
carry the farmers through the year, while others are an farmers. One was killed, Then an independent
alternative to cotton as a cash crop. Maharastran legislator, Bacchu Kadu, staged his own
Ranta Bhie Rathwa is very disdainful about cotton, protest, climbing a 30-metre watertank and threatening
saying it is barely \\"orth growing. Here, agriculture­ to jump if police tried to get him off. Hundreds of
related suicides are \'irtually unknown. When asked farmers across the Vidarbha cotton belt followed
why, Sunhil Machhi, the agronomist who works with suit, climbing on to tanks and raising the spectre of a
the farmers here, cuts to the chase. 'Those farmers [in potential mass suicide.
VidarbhaJ are depending only on the cotton crop. If There was the usual official response: expressions of
that fails there are huge amounts of stress and debt. concern and promises of action. At least they forestalled
Here farmers grow their o\\"n food crops and use only more suicides. For now. +
extra land for cotton, so the problem does not arise:
Farmer suicides throughout India as a whole, according * BT cotton is genetically modified cotton containing the gene of the
soil bacteria B. thuringiensis. which serves as a natural pesticide,
to the Government's own figures, have amounted to
Initially it was developed by the US-based Monsanto Corporation
150,000 in the last 10 years. The phenomenon, although as their flagship GM productfor sale to farmers in order to reduce
by no means restricted to cotton farmers, started with and chemical pesticides. It is now widely used in the US, India and
continues to be driven by those who have hitched their China. Much to the dismay ofMonsanto many hybrid copies
fortunes to the erstwhile 'white gold'. are currently on the cottonseed market despite distinctly mixed
The suicides are at once a source of shame, denial BT results,

www,newint.org NEW INTERNATIONA L IST A P RIL 2007 9

 Cotton SUS T AINABLE YIELD

evon
Can 'going organic' save India's besieged cotton
farmers? Not on its own, argues Richard Swift,
as he sorts through the evidence.

SRISTI and NIP maintain an impressive volume of

hundreds of farmer-based inventions in various stages
of development. The grounds ofNIF are scattered
with them - from the straightforward to the complex:
Anil Gupta is aprofessor at India's most prestigious simple devices that allow water to be carried greater
management institute. He's a key player in an impressive distances (usually by women) with more easej exercise
array of Ahmedabad-based appropriate technology chairsj coolers and milking machines that use no
S '11 h d k organizations, like the Society for Research for external energy sourcej a machine that would allow the
. tkl. ar wor Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) harvesting of the traditional short-staple Desai cottons
pIC mg:. a young an d t h e N '
attona I I nnovatton
. F ound ' (NIF) . Th ey
atton that made Indian textiles the marvel of the world in the
orgamc c o t t o n . .
C h run somethmg called. The Honeybee Network, with era of handloom weaving.
rarmer arvests .
her crop (a b ove) •
Its own
. .
newsletter bringing together eco-theorists and With the World Health Orgnaization estimating
~ practltloners. . three million pesticide poisonings and 20,000 deaths
~ We meet in his office on the modern Ahmedabad annually - it is definitely time for a change. And Gupta
; campus. Gupta bubbles over with enthusiasm about the doesn't restrict himself to the ecological impact of
~ genius of rural India. For him, the failures of the formal agriculture but looks' downstream' to the environmental
;: sector have left gaps in which indigenous science has had impact of textile mills. He surprises me with the simple
a chance to develop. He points to the work of SRISTI fact that cotton can be grown in a number of different
in first documenting and then patenting and helping colours, which have been eliminated from cotton growing
develop a plethora of farmer-based inventions. He is over years of selective breeding. Industrial dyeing is a
obviously a man who carries a lot of intellectual weight highly polluting process, and Gupta holds that a return to
with his co-workers, who hang on his words. He points coloured cotton bolls would have a beneficial effect.
to the simple cotton khadi that he wears, as a way of
indicating both its comfort in the blistering heat and his Disconnect
faith in the future of the fabric. It is hard not to be swept up by the enthusiasm of Gupta
There is a beautiful simplicity in the non-chemical and those around him. But somehow, after seeing
bio-controls of organic production that has an immediate the devastation of the Vidarbha cotton belt, I felt a
appeal. Gupta spins off example after example of how it disconnect. When I gave Gupta the figures I had heard
might be done. Common-sense things, like spraying sugar cited on the number of farmer suicides, he was shocked .
on plants to attract ants that will eat the eggs of at least It turned out that a team from Ahmedabad has actuallr
some cotton pests. It certainly sounds a little simpler, travelled to Vidarbha and tried to get the farmers the re
less expensive and dangerous than dousing the crops interested in organic products and methods. But for
'NGOs are not several times with pesticide each growing season. Gupta some reason things had not worked out. They vowed
enough': Kavitha believes that a whole arsenal of these kinds of controls, to try again. It may be that the situation in Gujarat
Kuruganti believes in combination with the scientific innovation carried out - where most cotton production is irrigated and the
any generalized by SRISTI, can provide an alternative model for cotton various BT hybrid seeds have been developed locallr
move to organic agriculture. Dr Vipin Kumar, the ChiefCo-ordinator and are not too expensive - is just too different from the
requires change in ofSRISTI, proudly holds up a natural pesticide that situation in the rest of India.
government policy. the group is making available to Gujarati farmers for a The Kutch (also a part of Gujarat) is a dry hilly area
(right). fraction of the price of conventional agro-chemicals. of northwestern India flat up against the Pakistani

10 :-': E W IN T ER N AT ION A LI ST A P R I L 2 00 7 www.ne

border. This is a region greatly affected by a tragic by agrochemical methods. This is three years that
earthquake in 2001 that killed over 20,000 people farmers in Vidarbha who 'can't get back to zero' - out
in the ancient capital Bhuj and surrounding villages. of debt - simply don't have. They would need massive
The area has for some years now been the home of public support to make the transition to organic. This is
Agrocel, a company that works with farmers to make less of a problem for farmers who are not monocropping
the transition to organic cotton. The land is irrigated, cotton and can shift gradually to organic. The main
either through drip or channel irrigation, and farmers payoff is less in a 'premium' price for organic cotton than
have experienced good crop yields once the transition to in the reduced costs of expensive agrochemical inputs
non-chemical and non-genetically modified agriculture that make it more profitable. Advocates of organic
has been made. A number of Agrocel farmers also get a maintain that yields are equivalent or just slightly below
fair-trade premium that they use 'collectively' to provide those obtained through agrochemical production. Then
water-harvesting infrastructure, school improvements there is a steep learning curve required for knowledge­
and other forms of social development. intensive organic, compared with simply throwing on
Agrocel is a for-profit company part-owned by the chemicals.
the Gujarati State Government, but with the main Rural India has no shortage of keen teachers.
shareholder the philanthropic Schroff family. The Hundreds ofNGOs and advocacy organizations are
Schroffs, through Agrocel and a series of rural-based pushing the transition to organic in general, and cotton
charitable trusts, are helping the farmers shift to in particular. Still, with cotton farmer suicides on the
organic production. They have also been the moving
spirit behind Shrujan, a movement of 3,000 rural
craftswomen from the Kutch who produce some of the
'The farmer gets punished for producing more and the
most beautiful handwoven textiles India has to offer. Mr farmer gets punished for producing less. So what does it
Schroff, well into his eighties, bemoans the destruction
of traditional Indian cotton and textiles by cheap matter if you can produce sustainable yields?'
imports that he blames on 'multinationals'. Agrocel is
also part-owner of a British-based clothing company rise and only three per cent of the cotton crop organic,
called Glossypium that sells attractive organic cotton­ their impact has been severely limited. It is clear that,
wear, mostly by mail order. without massive public support from both state and
It is here in Gujarat that the BT/hybrid seeds have national governments, 'going organic' will be very much
helped most with yields and some degree of pesticide swimming against the current.
reduction. But it is highly questionable whether this
success in irrigated Gujarat (at least partly due to the Challenging times ahead
controversial Narmada Dam) can be translated to the Kavitha Kuruganti, at the Centre for Sustainable
rain-fed regions of the country, where farmers are at Agriculture in Hyderabad, has few illusions about the
breaking point. BT cotton, even in its so-called 'pirated' collective impact oflocal organic experiments: 'What
hybrid varieties, is very water-intensive and more civil society is doing is trying to swim against the
vulnerable to Indian climatic conditions and local pests tide. Government, that is thrusting it down our faces,
than indigenous Indian 'short staple' cottons. Despite supports the tide. Civil society is not looking at policies,
this, BT cotton has spread across the two-thirds of at how whatever you are doing is getting negated in a
India's cotton crop that is unirrigated, with often policy environment dedicated to 'liberalized' imports.
disastrous results. The farmer gets punished for producing more and the
farmer gets punished for producing less. So what does it
Debt to come matter if you can produce sustainable yields~ Input costs
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone, outside are increasing. The extension services are crumbling.
supporters of the agro-industriallobby, who does not The World Bank is recommending private agro-clinics
believe that a transition to organic is a good idea, at least to tell farmers how to produce their crops. Then there
in principle. One farmer in the Kutch told me that he is the worst scenario, with the markets. So, given all of
and his sons had decided on the organic path because it this, how can civil society prevent farmer suicides(
was 'our debt to nature'. The Centre has done some very good work promoting
But there are problems. One of these is the transition organic in Andhra Pradesh - they point proudly to the
period. Depending on soil conditions and the level of small village of Enabavi that is now the first in the state
chemical pollution, it may take as long as three years for to declare itself completely free of pesticides, chemical
cotton yields to recover to the levels previously achieved fertilizers and GM crops. While Kuruganti feels that the
future needs to be organic, she says that this only solves
part of the problem. Even if the US subsidies - that have
for years suppressed world cotton prices - are removed,
she sees challenging times ahead. 'This raises the whole
question of consumption, and what is best for both the
growers and the planet. There is never a discussion of
sustainable cotton consumption that works out the
equation at the planet leveL There are so many issues.
How much of fibre should be cotton, so that producers
are supported2 Trade justice - what is the amount to
(continued on page 16)

NEW INTERNATIONALIST APRIL 2007 II

 Cotton clothes the world. It represents 38% of the world fibre
market. But backbreaking work, temperamental yields, high
production costs, an uncertain market, poor wages and working
mditions, environmental fallout and the manipulations of the
rich and powerful- these can turn the white gold into fool's gold.
~ New Internationalist does the sums.

Who grows
cotton?
ioistribution of world cotton fibre
i production 1
I
i / us
I 19%

I '-----~
d"l- ~---.. I.
-1
In a

I
Who exports cotton?
Leading cotton exporters'
I
[ L
"
\ Australia US ~- -r-..::r::..
11 - .LI
Fll us - subsidy impact

T
Uzbekistan Brazil 3% I
5% Uzbekistan
Franc Zone Turkey 4%
Africa 4%
Franc Zone Africa . US cotton production, 1990-2005
5% I I
AustraliaI ----; --; I - immune to world price changes 2
Greece I I I I Index (1990-91 =: 1, harmonic scale)

Argentina I I I i 1.50 -----------~

Who manufactures 2 3 4 5 6 7
cotton? ° 1.00 ~A.. \r ­
• The demand for cotton on the
international market has doubled since
the 1980s.
Cotton glut
Despite low prices, US cotton production has 0.75 , , , A
• Nearly $1.1 billion in organic cotton
continued to increase thanks to massive subsidies.
products were bought in 2006, nearly
• By 2002 US cotton was being dumped on the world market at
double the previous year's figure of
61 % below the cost of production.
$0.6 billion. Sales worth $2.6 billion are
predicted by 2008. • The average worth of the households of cotton farmers
in the US is $800,000. Some 75% of the billions of dollars in
Main textile manufacturers, government subsidies they receive goes to just 12% of the US 0.50 ---------=---­
I I I
cotton producers. s I I I I I I I I I I I I
2005/2006 14 1990-91 1995-96 2000-01 2004-05
- (millions of tons) • US taxpayers have paid cotton farmers $14 billion between
China 7.15 1995 and 2003. 6
India 3.1 • There is predicted to be approximately 45 million bales of unsold cotton stocks by the end of 2007. 15
Pakistan 2.5 • The costs of production of 440 grammes of cotton are three times higher in the US than in Burkina Faso
- ---------
EU and Turkey 2.15
in West Africa. The amount the US Government spends on cotton subsidies is greater than the entire Gross
US 1.35
Domestic Product of Burkina Faso 2
• There are 25,000 farmers who are dependent on high-tech cotton production in the US, while in India there are 4
million farmers dependent on cotton. Close to 60 million Indians are directly or indirectly dependent on cotton. 2

12 NEW INTERNATIONA l.l ST APRI L 2 00 7 www,oewint.org

 Water footprint of
Thirsty cotton selected products8 Cotton prices
New engineered varieties of high-yield litres Global downturn -long-term trend.
cotton demand more water than older, Hamburger 2,400
• Cotton has witnessed a 50% drop in value in the last decade."
hardier varieties. - ----
• There has been a six-decade decline in the world price of cotton
Cotton T-shirt 2,000
• Nearly 50% ofthe global water problems associated lint from $1.54 per kilo in the post-War period to $1.14 per kilo in
Bag of potato chips 185
with cotton cultivation and textile processing can be 2004/05 in real terms.lO
attributed to foreign demand for cotton products 9
Cup of coHee 140
• The withdrawal of subsidies to large US cotton agribusiness
Slice of bread 90
could raise world cotton prices by between 11 % and 26%7
• The Aral Sea, formerly in the Soviet Union and now
in Uzbekistan, has lost 60% of its size and 80% of its Glass of beer 75
volume since 1960 as its two main river sources have A mic~C)chip 32 12.00
World cotton prices,
been diverted in order to irrigate a number
10.00
1966-2005 11
of crops, the most prominent
of which is cotton. The Aral has gone from being the 4th largest
8.00
lake in the world to the 8th largest. Uzbekistan is a major
cotton exporter. 6.00

4.00

2.00

0.00
'"
" '"~ " "'" .;."'" ""
~
'"'" '" 6" N" " ..0"~
ClO
:;; '"ClO ClO'" "ClO ClO 6'"~ '"N0;-
6 N .;. ..0 00
ClO ClO ClO ClO
'"
'"
'"
ClO '"
~
" '0;-"
0;-
ClO
'"'" '"
0
6 N
0 0
..
'"0 '"0
0

'" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" '" ~ ~
'" '"
~ ~
0
N
0
N
0
N

Sources: 1 Pesticide News 74, December 2006. 2 The Fabric of Cotton, Background paper,
Working Draft, The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), July 2006.
3 www.marketsha rematrix.org/pdf/World_Agrochemicals_ETC.pdf. 4 Maquila Solidarity
Network,S Stephen Yafa, Cotton: The Biographyofa Revolutionary Fiber,
Penguin, 2005. 6 John Liebhardt, 'White Gold or Fool's Gold',
Multinational Monitor, 0612005. 7 Cultivating Poverty; The
impact of US cotton subsidies on Africa, Oxfam Briefing
Paper, 2002. 8 Water footprint of cotton consumption,
UNESCO, Sept, 2005. 9 Water Resource Management,
2006.10 Cotton and poverty in Africa, McMaster
University, PhD thesis. 11 World Trade Reports,
July 2006, World Trade Organization.
12 www.bha rattextile.com. 13 Feb 2007.
13 The Deadly Chemicals in Cotton,
Environmental Justice Foundation,
February 2007. 14 The Forces Shaping
World Cotton Consumption, Econom ic
Research Service, USDA. 15 Cotlook A

Chemical cotton
• Cultivated on just 2.5% ofthe world's agricultural land,
cotton uses 22.5% of the world's insecticides and 8 to 10% of
the chemical fertilizers. 1

Top 10 agrochemical firms, and sales, 2003 3

Agchem Sales
Company
$ millions
1. Syngenta (Switzerland) 5,507
2. Bayer (Germany) 5,394
3. BASF (Germany) 3,569
4. Monsanto (US) 3,031
5. Dow (US)
6. DuPont (US)
3,008
2,024
Downstream cotton
The global textile and apparel industry
7. Sumitomo Chemical (Japan) 1,141 employs 23.6 million workers, 75% of
8. MAl (Israel) 1,035 whom are women.
9. Nufarm (Australia) 801 • Between 2003 and 2005 alone 25% of US textile
}_o. Arysta (Japan) 711 workers lost their jobs. s
• China dominates the world textile and apparel markets­
55% of the US market and 90% of sections of the Japanese market. s
• The end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) in 2004
Pesticides used on cotton 13
'--::--:j (Top 5 by value)
Metric tons $ Million
't;...,.; resulted in a dramatic shift in textile production and trade . In
2005 Chinese exports to the US increased by 43% and to the EU
by 44%.4
Hourly textile worker's
wage (2002}4 S
Bangladesh .25
Malathion 12,600 164
• The MFA also meant that textile exports from sub-Saharan China .41
Aldicarb 3,650 112 Africa to the US dropped by 17% and to the EU by 11 %.12
India .57
Parathion 3,625 60 • The price of clothing for US consumers in real dollars dropped
Kenya .62
Acephat!... 1,920 51 by 28% between 1995 and 2003.13
Mexico 2.30
Methamidophos 2,100 51
i Korea 5.73
_J Photographs (from left to right): Jorg Bothling / Agenda (first four photos); Sven ----_. _ ­
Torfinn / Panos Pictures; Jorgen Schytte / Still Pictures; Qilai Shen / Panos Pictures.

All monetary values are expressed in US dollars unless otherwise nored.

www.newintorg NEW INTER NATIONALl S T APRIL 2007 13

 owerloom rison
Decent textile jobs were once the backbone of Mumbai's economy. Dionne Bunsha
looks at how downsizing technology and outsourcing jobs have changed all that.
Tall stone chimneys towering above glass skyscrapers powerloom sweatshops in Bhiwandi and other smaller
are the only reminders of the textile mills that spurred centres, so did some workers. The composite mills were
'All the livelong Mumbai's growth as India's commercial capitaL Today, large, regulated and mostly unionized workplaces where
day!': Bhiwandi malls and corporate offices have replaced the mills. there were machines to spin the yarn, weave it into cloth
workers put in Workers have made way for yuppies. And condos have on looms and then process it. All processes took place
long hours at been built adjoining the chawls (tenement houses) where in one location. In Bhiwandi, the yarn is bought and
unregulated workers once lived. Parel, in central Mumbai, was spun into cloth, and then sent for processing elsewhere.
workplaces. once a crowded working-class neighbourhood on the There is no regulation, taxes and duties are avoided,
outskirts of the city. It is now one of the city's hottest labour is much cheaper and conditions are medieval.
real-estate locations. The chimneys that rise high above Cotton farmers aren't the only ones living in poverty.
the skyscrapers are the tombstones, the last remnants of Powerloom workers and handloom weavers are barely
Parel's industrial past. managing to survive. Dire deprivation extends right
Mumbai was once India's largest textile centre, but down the cotton chain.
now not a single mill operates here. What happened to Sharad Panda moved to Bhiwandi when the composite
the city's 250,000 workers? 'Most can't find work and mill he worked at in Mumbai shut up shop. He earned
have moved back to their village. Some are working in a lot more five years ago in Mumbai than he earns now.
temporary jobs as taxi drivers or security guards,' says 'In Mumbai, I got 4,500 rupees ($95.74) per month to
Datta Ishwalkar from the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh work two looms for eight hours, plus a bonus of8,000
Samiti (Mill Workers' Struggle Association). As rupees ($170.21) and leave. Here, I work four looms and
work shifted from the composite mills in Mumbai to earn 3,000 rupees ($63.83), with no security or leave,'

14 N EW I NT ER'lA T IO N ALI ST APRIL 20 07 www.newint.org

Cotton WORKING TEXTILES

says Sharad. 'It's not enough to support my family. The clothes is Diwali, the festival oflights.
owners don't pay wages on time. Sometimes I have to Through Sharad's life one can trace the course of
borrow to make ends meet. I can't save anything to send India's textile industry from an organized industry to
my parents in the village. I could support them when I one that has outsourced. In his book, Ripping the Fabric:
worked in the mill.' The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills, Darryl D'Monte
In the late 19th century, Bhiwandi developed as a quotes India's most respected industrialist, the late JRD
textile producing centre. 'After the 1857 revolt, several Tata, as saying that the reason for the deterioration of
weavers in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, who the composite mills in Mumbai was government policy
had fought the British unarmed, were repressed. They promoting the decentralized sector. But many ofIndia's
fled south, and some settled in Bhiwandi: says Baliram top industrial houses, which built their empires with
Chaudhry, secretary of the General Workers Union textile plants, actually supported the growth of the
(Red Flag). 'Later, as it developed into a handloom unorganized sector. An 18-month strike of mill workers
centre, traditional weavers from Andhra Pradesh in the was beaten back in 1982-83. After that, around 51,000
south were attracted to the town. With mechanization, workers were dismissed. It also gave the owners the
powerlooms were introduced: opportunity to outsource work and to claim bankruptcy.
Bhiwandi and other textile producing towns 'Mills did not go into the red because of the
expanded when Mumbai's mills shut down in the 1980s. strike. It just gave mill owners the perfect excuse to
'In a decade, the number oflooms rose from 100,000 to wind up several departments and stop running the
500,000. The production cost for powerlooms is four factory effectively. The mill owners lobbied with
times less than the mills. Labour costs (for weaving the Government to frame policies that favoured the
per unit) were much higher in a composite mill: says powerlooms and those which would enable them to sell
Ramesh Gosrani, a powerloom owner. Moreover, the land, which was leased to them by the Government
overhead costs are cheaper since only 25 per cent of solely for industrial purposes,' says Datta Ishwalkar.
the looms are licensed, says Chaudhry. Power is either 'These brands, like Mafatlal and Bombay Dyeing, are
stolen or paid for at domestic, not industrial rates. still selling cloth, even though their mills are shut. They
outsource the work to powerlooms in Bhiwandi and
Avoiding regulation other towns and then stamp their label on it. It saves on
Most powerlooms are housed in tiny, crammed labour costs. And they made a fortune on the sprawling
workshops and evade the Factory Act and other labour real estate that the mills occupied:
laws. 'It's very difficult to pinpoint who is the owner. That land is now the face of ,Shining India', considered
The room is rented out by one person, the loom is an emerging global economy. There's a story behind every
owned by another, the raw material is bought by a third new highrise. Land development reeks of illegalities,
party and the person contracting the workers could corruption and mafia intervention. The Government
manage several small units: says Chaudhry. Bhiwandi's allowed the sale of mill land on the condition that
powerloom sector profits from this chaos in the the proceeds should be used to modernize the textile
unorganized sector. 'It's very difficult for us to unionize. plants. 'None of the mills were ever upgraded. They
Workers only come to us when they are sacked. In the
35 years that the minimum wage for powerlooms has Workers live in shockingly unhygienic, crammed
been declared, it has never been adhered to, though it
isn't even a survival wage: says Chaudhry. conditions. Some even live where they work
Since Bhiwandi is a migrant town with a floating
population, its local government is far less accountable were deliberately made bankrupt and closed. And no
and gets away with negligence. Workers live in government has questioned the numerous scams: says
shockingly unhygienic, crammed conditions. Some even Ishwalkar. For instance, one of the first new structures to
live where they work. Many aren't voters and work too replace a mill was Mumbai's first bowling alley and bar,
hard to have the time to demand basic facilities like in Phoenix Mill. It was sanctioned as a 'cultural centre for
water or sanitation. Diseases are rampant. 'Breathing workers' in government records. Now it's a huge mall with
in the lint makes around 80 per cent suffer from nightclubs, designer stores and even a Marks and Spencer.
tuberculosis. The dirty living conditions, with no The textile industry is by no means dying. It is still
proper toilets and open drains, make workers even more India's single largest industry, comprising a fifth of
vulnerable to several other diseases, like malaria or the country's industrial production. After agriculture,
cholera: says Jalil Ansari, a political activist. this sector employs the highest number of people - 21
'Besides paying for rent and food, we even have to million. But the working conditions have deteriorated
pay 50 rupees per month to buy water and 1 rupee every with the outsourcing of production to the powerlooms.
time we visit the toilet. At the end of the month, I have Sharad Panda left his village in search of a better life
nothing to send home to my ageing mother. She still in Mumbai. Today he is holed up in a filthy industrial
has to work in the fields: says Chandeshwar MandaI, a town, worked to the bone and yet penniless at the end
migrant from the eastern state of Bihar. of the month. His dreams were buried with the death of
Cloth sells for 50 to 100 rupees ($1.06 to $2.12) per the mills. All that remains are the tombstone chimneys
metre, depending on the quality. But powerloom workers that loom over Mumbai's skyline.•
get only 1.30 rupees ($0.03) for every metre they produce.
Workers like Sharad Panda labour to produce more than Dionne Bunsha is a regular New internationalist contributor, based in
100 metres of cloth every day, but he can barely afford to Mumbai.
buy clothes for his family. The only occasion they get new

www.newint.org NEW INTE RNA T IONALIST APRIL 2007 15

 WORLD PRODUCTION of other plant-fibre crops for textile use
declined sharply as a result of advances in cotton production
·ves to cotton...

and the development of synthetic fibres. But promising things

are emerging. Fibre crops have traditionally been produced
in countries where labour is abundant and cheap, with
herbicides or insecticides, since its natural
production systems that are simple and labour-intensive. oils don't appeal to pests. Hemp helps clean
However, mechanized systems have been developed which the soil by bonding heavy metals to the
make these crops more efficient. fibre, and its deep roots aerate the soil; left
in the field, the leaves add organic matter.
Little or no irrigation is needed. Hemp is
increasingly used for textiles, including carpets
and apparel, and in building materials - although
A THORNLESS VARIETY has been
industrial processing is still in its early days. Hemp
produced in India, making its cultivation
is stronger than cotton. Fabrics made from hemp are naturally resistant to
economically viable, especially for
UV light, mould and mildew. Hemp can also be used to produce alternative
small-scale farmers. Bamboo is arguably
fuels, including biodiesel and ethanol.
one of the world's best sustainable
resources. It is fast-growing and drought­
resistant, sending up new shoots after
harvest without a need for replanting.
It can be processed in four to five years, JUTE MAKES A wonderful tree-free paper. The separated bark can be
unlike traditional hardwoods. Bamboo used to produce pulps with properties similar to wood pulp; processing
takes in nearly five times the amount of uses fewer chemicals. The main centres of production for jute and allied
greenhouse gases, and produces 35 per fibres of kenaf, roselle, ramie and sunn hemp are India, Bangladesh, China
cent more oxygen, than an equivalent and Thailand. Decreasing pulp supplies, and the
stand of trees. It sequesters excess demand for alternative crops to replace tobacco
nitrogen and helps to mitigate water and cotton in the US, could bring increasing interest
pollution. It does not require chemical in kenaf production. Seagrass, sisal, coir and allied
pesticides or fertilizers, and is less prone fibres are natural plant fibres that are lOO-per-cent
to allergic reaction. Processors claim its biodegradable and recyclable. But they are coarser,
fibre is softer than the softest cotton, is more inflexible, prone to fibre shed, and have
~
antibacterial and draws moisture away decreased strength when wet. They can be air-blown
from skin. It is now possible to convert raw for added softness. More suitable for use in flooring,
bamboo into more conventional lumber industrial-strength rope, packaging, netting, industrial
and plywood - a potentially sustainable yarn, and canvas; these are cheap fibres to produce
.
o
replacement for wood. There is however
eco-scepticsm about bamboo as a
and have strength and brittleness. Sisal pulp has high
tear-resistance and physical properties superior to
'saviour' crop. softwood pulp, and can cost-effectively replace it in
commodity papers.

ANOTHER OLD FIBRE crop producing a stiffer, AN OLD FIBRE crop from the flax plant, one of the earth's
more brittle textile and requiring chemical earliest natural fibres to be made into cloth, grown
processing to remove gums and pectins. Grown mainly in the Mediterranean region. Production has
predominantly in China, Egypt, Philippines, lagged because textile-processing inventions have
India, South Korea and Thailand. Production in been inefficient for linen. Expense of production limits
recent years has declined steadily, but export ,46" use but, grown by smallholders, linen is an expandable
demand increases during cotton shortages. --.-~~.
'1:~.,/
export during drought and damage to other crops.

(continued from page 11) Europe. So the premium is being paid by Europeans to
other Europeans, and not necessarily to Indian farmers.'
be paid to the primary producers as opposed to other ;Zuruganti is equally sceptical about the effects of
people in the chain2 What is labour getting and what are pest management based on the Monsanto-originated
the farmers getting, as opposed to the retail chains2 The genetically modified BT cotton and its various spinoffs.
energy equation needs to be worked out completely. The For her 'pest management cannot be reduced to a single
question of transport costs ("fibre miles") needs to be gene. It goes after just one pest, the dreaded bollworm.
calculated.' This was more of a US pest, and in India we have a great
For Kuruganti, while it is not sufficient to address variety of other infestations.'
the whole problem, going organic remains essential for In the industrial North, campaigning organizations
improved farmer livelihoods as well as the ecological like the Pesticide Action Network see the shift to organic
and human-health impacts. But for her 'this cannot be as essential. While they make a good case, this is not a
a question of premium prices for organic. Economically cure-all for Asian and African cotton farmers. So, even
it just will not work out if you want organic farming if the enthusiasm for organic cotton moves beyond the
to spread. It needs to move beyond a niche market high street boutiques of Britain to the malls of Middle
and enter the mainstream. A fair-trade premium is America, it needs to be treated with a degree of caution.
welcome. But an organic niche market is not something Perhaps the watchwords should be 'necessary but not
that should be encouraged. The organic premium is sufficient'. Organic alone cannot bringjustice to the
often claimed because there is an expensive certifier as South's smallholder cotton farmers .•
the middle person. These inspectors often come from

16 "EW I1\TER N ATIONALIST A PRIL 200 7 www.newint.or@