hello junta!
please to be noting...have recovered from the previous phase...and have been devouring literature on the green revolution, contract farming in punjab, Bt cotton in maharashtra...so on and so forth...
in between breaks...have been discussing jinnah and gandhi with dudes from bihar and orissa...the latter from orissa has an interesting combination of names for a name...he is called Hippusalk Crisalnathan ( i hope i got the spelling right!) apparently his parents found him to be last opportunity to be named weirdly...
on a more serious note..he is named after four great guys..Hippocrates, Edward Salk (polio vaccine dude i think...) and i have already forgotten the people who have contributed to his last name...but will put it here when i find out again...obviously hippu is going to have one helluva problem with the passport officials...
so anyways...very interesting conversation on jinnah...and of course his secular credentials...for a really interesting peek into the history of jinnah and some gyan on the context of advani's statements...please check out prathamesh's blog
have read this really interesting paper on the history of cotton farming in India and the science behind the Khadi movement...
so long staples of cotton were not really India's forte...except for Gujarat..but Britain primarily imported cotton from America when it industrialized..and American cotton was of the long staple variety..hence the machines in Britain were designed accordingly..but when India became a source of raw material, the machines were unfit for the short stapled coarse variety of cotton..hence indian cotton was deemed inferior by cotton traders from britain..
although indigeneous spinning techniques knew how to turn this short stapled variety to fine yarn by spinning higher counts...(case in point being the muslin from dhaka which was the finest in the world but spun from the shortest and coarsest staples) they were scrapped coz Britain's industrial revolution needed mechanized mass production...hence the trend of importing exotic varieties of cotton to india and killing the indigenous labour intensive spinning industry in india...
sadly even after independence...policy makers continue to remain obsessed with imported technology from pre independence and zealously promote long staples...
the Khadi movement sought to decentralise the manufacture of cloth...generate employment in households as well as revive the faith in the home grown varieties of cotton which are more durable, take colour easily and are generally more fit for our climate...
now this can prove to be an interesting context to see the promotion of Bt cotton in India..and the crisis amongst cotton farmers...
It's amazing how much history can contribute to understanding the origin of certain accepted axioms of progress and development...
no more regrets over my rejection now...coz all you need are the tools...the perspective is for you to add...
posted by Vibha @ 8:14 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I beg to differ.
Handspun cotton cloth was the only cloth being used before by every one, ages before Khadi movement. Silk was a luxury and Muslin was exotic.
If you research a bit, you will come across a belt of cotton cultivating region, rich in Black soil, spreading across Karnataka, Andhra and Maharashtra.
You might have heard about a place called Davanagere, it was where Monsanto experimented their Bt Cotton unsuccessfully and now after eight years, the lands are still barren because of that.
Long before, Gandhi promoted spinning cotton in Charaka, it was a normal practice in Old Mysore region...
Even today in Coastal Karnataka, in a part popularly called as Malnad, you will find people spinning threads and weaving it themselves.
There is a cooperative enterprise called DESI - Developing Ecologically Sustainable Industries, which promote handspun cloth made by people in Malnad region, you search The Hindu's website for more details.
mr. anonymous..of course i know that spinning was ahousehold activity long before the Khadi movement..
i only said that the khadi movement sought to revive it and give it a scientific legitimacy...my blog was more a question of appropriate technology...about how a particular axiom of 'superiority' and 'inferiority' was established only because of a particular kind of technology...
of course there are people's movements across the country that seek to keep indigenous techniques alive...all i am saying is that ourpolicy makers do not really revisit it...but continue to get obsessed with technology that has been imposed upon us uncritically.
of course silk was a luxury and muslin was exotic mr. anon...but i am not even making apoint about that...all i am saying is that our traditional tehcniques were adept at making soft yarn by spinning higher counts out of small stapled cotton...case in point being Dhaka muslin. phew!
so i am thinking right now...where exactly do you beg to differ...
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