There should be more ways to tell the story of Bharat other than historians can narrate. Although the extraordinary tales of the rich culture and heritage of our country—is not possible to narrate appropriately
but what can be that one tool that can help express and explain our nation’s uniqueness?
For me, that tool is Textile.
The story of textiles in India is one of the oldest in the world. The archaeological surveys and studies have indicated that the people of Harrapan civilization were familiar with weaving and the spinning of cotton for as long as four thousand years ago. Reference to weaving and spinning materials is found in the Vedic Literature. There was textile trade in India during the early centuries. Cotton fragments from Gujarat have been found in tombs at Fustat in Egypt, indicating the existence of export of Indian textiles to Egypt during the medieval era.
Large quantities of north Indian silks were traded through the Silk Road in China to the western countries. The Indian silks were often bartered for spices. During the late 17th and 18th century there were large exports of Indian cotton to the western countries to meet the need of the European industries during industrial revolution, apart from the domestic requirement at the Indian Ordnance Factories.
Up until the 18th century, Mughal Empire was the most important center of manufacturing in international trade. Up until 1750, India produced about 25% of the world’s industrial output. The largest manufacturing industry in Mughal Empire (16th to 18th centuries) was textile manufacturing, particularly cotton textile manufacturing, which included the production of piece goods, calicos, and muslins, available unbleached and in a variety of colours. The cotton textile industry was responsible for a large part of the empire’s international trade. Bengal had a 25% share of the global textile trade in the early 18th century. Bengal cotton textiles were the most important manufactured goods in world trade in the 18th century, consumed across the world from the Americas to Japan. The most important center of cotton production was the Bengal Subah province, particularly around its capital city of Dhaka. As Karl Marx noted in 1853, the textile industry was a major component of economic income in the pre-colonial Indian economy, writing that “The hand-loom and the spinning-wheel, producing their regular myriads of spinners and weavers, were the pivots of the structure of that society”.
Bengal accounted for more than 50% of textiles and around 80% of silks imported by the Dutch from Asia and marketed it to the world, Bengali silk and cotton textiles were exported in large quantities to Europe, Asia, and Japan, and Bengali muslin textiles from Dhaka were sold in Central Asia, where they were known as “daka” textiles. Indian textiles dominated the Indian Ocean trade for centuries, were sold in the Atlantic Ocean trade, and had a 38% share of the West African trade in the early 18th century, while Bengal calicos were major force in Europe, and Bengal textiles accounted for 30% of total British trade with Southern Europe in the early 18th century.
In early modern Europe, there was significant demand for textiles from the Mughal Empire, including cotton textiles and silk products. European fashion, for example, became increasingly dependent on textiles and silks imported from The Mughal Empire. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, The Mughal Empire accounted for 95% of British imports from Asia, conducted through the auspices of the East India Company (EIC). After the abolition of slavery in British Empire, manufactures in Britain started to look for alternative sources of cheap cotton, eventually settling on the East India Company’s possession in India. The EIC convinced many farmers to switch from subsistence farming to producing and exporting huge amounts of cotton, after a long period of government protectionism imposed over the British textile industry. Eventually, through the technical and marketing advances made possible by colonisation, the traditional method of artisan textile production declined significantly, and replaced with large scale factory production.