Abstract
The history of Indian textiles goes back millenniums. However, with the discovery of new sea routes at the end of the fifteenth century, the textile industry thrived, owing to the demand having increased immensely at the global level. Thus, there is a long history of Indian textile manufacturing and its maritime trade particularly with European and African countries, though not limited to it. In the eighteenth century, mercantile policies of European countries resulted in new forms (colonial) of empire. In due course of time, European trading companies turned into company-states and then coloniser-states, which meant that their aims and functions had transformed.
With the establishment of the British power in India, its increasing control over Indian industries and manufacturers, reverse (in)flow of textile products from Britain to India particularly after industrialisation and other colonial policies reindustrialised India is a widely accepted view by the historians and scholars until relatively recently. In the last few decades, scholars started to challenge, at many fronts, such labelling of ‘deindustrialisation’ as an inappropriate and generalised perception that it greatly affected India’s crafts, craftsmen, economy and the quality of life of its people. Historians such as Morris D. Morris, B.R. Tomilson, Michael J. Twomey, D. R. Gadgil, Tirthanker Roy, among many others, refuse to accept the theory of deindustrialisation; contrary to this, they argued in favour of the growth in the sector and other intricacies of it. From the point of view of economic history, Santosh Kumar Rai situates his work to show that the handloom industry did not decline as generally assumed. Central to Rai’s work is handloom weaving and how it transformed the region of eastern Uttar Pradesh, particularly two crucial weaving towns—Maunath Bhanjan and Mubarakpur—during the first half of the twentieth century (1900–1950).
Rai has used a plethora of archival material in his work that has been collected from several archives and record centres of India. He has also pointed out that he has utilised local police records that have been collected from the collectorate, police office and station. The employment of such sources makes the works more interesting to know the warp and weft of the social and cultural world of the weavers. Along with the archival historical approach, the author also had an anthropological approach in his writing. Rai has provided a sort of personal touch that he has with the region and its public to show the sociocultural challenges that he faced in the region in terms of access to archives and to access the lives of the people. The book can be considered in terms of comprising the perspectives of anthropology and social history in the sense that it explores structures of artisan trades and the lives of artisan communities.
The first chapter, ‘The History and Context of Weaving in Eastern Uttar Pradesh’, weaves the context of the book. It starts with the idea of the sense of community that refers to the feeling of belonging, connection and shared identity that the groups of weavers were experiencing. It shows Uttar Pradesh as the centre of textile production and how cotton production was affected due to global factors such as the industrial revolution, import of English yarn and the American Civil War. The early nineteenth century was a period of economic growth. However, as the century progressed, there were also economic downturns and social upheavals. The author shows that the introduction of factory-made textiles from Europe and other regions had a devastating impact on local textile industries, including those using traditional weaving methods. The lower cost and higher quality of factory-produced cloth made it difficult for local weavers to compete. In response, some weavers had looked for ways to adapt and survive in this changing landscape. Using imported yarn, including English yarn, was one such strategy. By using higher-quality yarn, weavers could potentially create higher-quality textiles that could compete with factory-made cloth. In this chapter, author also discussed the relationship between the weavers and middleman. Overall, the political context in which weavers’ operated had a significant impact on their lives and livelihoods, discussed by the author.
The second chapter deals with challenges faced by weavers faced during the twentieth century as they navigated changes in technology, trade and global economics. The author shows the competition between handloom and factory production. This competition simply was not between the two mentioned spheres but the nationalist agenda also made an impact. In this context, the author discusses the Khaddar Act 1934, politics of the term ‘Khaddar’ and ‘Khadi’, the Indian Tariff Amendment Act, politics of tariffs and international factors such as the Great Depression, Japanese and Chinese competition and so on. In doing so, the author shows the debate over handloom versus factory production which was complex and multifaceted and how the weavers were sandwiched between mill owners and nationalist political movement of using pure khadi and how the very ideas of Swadeshi and Khadi proved to be against the interest of weavers to an extent. The author demonstrates even in such difficult situations, weavers maintained their calibre according to the specific demands of textile which was somewhat gender and caste specific too. The author also discusses the context of silk and how a number of weavers particularly Sunni Muslim Julaha(s) migrated from Maunath Bhanjan to Banaras and received local support from Maharaja of Banaras in the nineteenth century. While in the twentieth century, the threat came from Japan and China in terms of silk production. It would have been better if the author had discussed a little more about what was the Chinese and Japanese world of textiles as China has been the major centre of silk since the medieval and early modern period, while India was a chief cotton provider to the world. A brief discussion over community to cooperatives and hostility with Mahajans is also an interesting aspect of the chapter.
Chapter 3 emphasises the concept of a ‘community economy’ that combines traditional and modern economic systems. This has been discussed by various scholars and thinkers in the context of economic development in certain regions of the world, particularly in the Global South. In this context, the author shows that economic activity organised around the social and cultural practices of a Julaha community, was based on their inherited skills and expertise in the specific field. And these activities were integrated into the broader market economy, with the community’s products and services sold to customers outside of the community. In this chapter, the author also discusses the types of labour in the weaving industry and hierarchy amongst them within the industry with some workers enjoying higher status and greater rewards than others. Here, the author has made some interesting points regard to child labour and children as weavers and as a commodity. In the Marxist framework, the chapter delineates social relations of production and issues of social categories with economic functions.
Chapters 4 and 5 present a social history of the weavers of the region in which it has been shown how attempts were made by weavers to uplift themselves in the economic and social sphere. It with the longue durée approach talks about the etymology of the terms such as Julaha and Kori, caste origin of weaving communities of distinct religions, the social and cultural labels around Julaha somewhat offensive, colonial construction around them, identity formation and colonial law around them. Besides, issues of reconstitution of Julaha identities through religious means (Islamisation) and issues of migration—social and spatial—have been examined in detail. It shows Julaha is traditionally an occupation group associated with weaving and cloth making. However, the term has also been used as a caste identity for those who belong to the weaving community. In some cases, members of the group had sought a distinct identity based on their religious affiliation, while still maintaining their traditional occupational identity.
Chapter 6 discusses the tensions between the modern knowledge system and the traditional one about weaving practices in terms of vocational education. It showed that the colonial policies towards opening up of new weaving training schools in many areas of Uttar Pradesh and also in the context of traditional weaving workshops. It also reflects upon the social and caste hierarchies in the schooling system. The new schools developed as a sort of platform to launch and diffuse new technology and knowledge. The chapter briefly also traces the state of the handloom industry in the post-independence period and intervention of the state.
The last chapter examines the increasingly emerging political aspirations and negotiations of the weaving community to carve out a sociopolitical space for them in the larger framework of the Indian political scenario of the first half of the twentieth century. The organised political formation of the weavers and political mobilisation was perceived as a strategy for the upgradation of the community. In this context, the author claims that Momins ‘were developed as a counter hegemonic force in Muslim polities in India’. It discusses in length the politics of weavers at local and national levels and how such participation shaped their identity. In this context, the establishment of the All India Momin Conference was a crucial juncture through which political actions were launched that were motivated by their class and caste sensibilities and also demonstrates the high aspirations of the weaving groups and a sense of unity as well as consciousness. The chapter also deals with the issue that how the politics of partition made a serious impact on the identities of Julaha.
Hence, it is a lucidly written book. Though the author continuously used and incorporated Urdu and Hindi words that give a local touch to the narrative, and at times author did not mention the English translation of the same, which reflects the idea that the source is something untranslatable and also to maintain the sanctity of the source.