Meena Menon - A Frayed History: The Journey of Cotton in India

A Frayed History

A Frayed History

The Journey of Cotton in India

Meena Menon

Uzramma

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ePub ISBN-13: 978-0-19-909149-2

ePub ISBN-10: 0-19-909149-8

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To

the farmers and hand weavers of cotton in India

Contents

Tables

Boxes

Map

It was Uzramma who opened the fascinating world of cotton to me when I met her during my research on organic cotton in 2003. She was already well known for her views on cotton and the technology of the Industrial Revolution, which was unsuited to desi short stapled cotton. My initial research on organic cotton was at the behest of Ashish Kothari and with support from P.V. Satheesh of Deccan Development Society. Both have been engaged for decades with the issue of sustainability and protecting biodiversity. I spent some months travelling to cotton-growing areas in villages and I lived with many farmers who were hospitable and a little puzzled over my interest in their lives and what they grew. But it didnt affect their warmth in hosting me for days, taking me to their fields, and sharing their ideas on farming without chemicals, often using their own seeds. The contrast between urban living and rural life cannot be more stark. There is little money, so much of hardship, and yet the farmers were trying to be on top of things in their own way. The wretchedness in Vidarbha is a little apart from the bigger farmers there who pioneered the organic movement that has fallen apart now. I tracked cotton and its farmers as much as I could even after my research. During my research I visited Ponduru, a town that took you back in time. Hill cotton was still grown there and woven in the khadi weaving centre and on old pit-looms. But I could see changes coming, as the younger people didnt want to sit for hours on the looms and weave all day for little money. They were eyeing jobs in nearby cities. Farming has become a penance for small and marginal growers, and the suicides were an escape from a life on the razors edge. In Vidarbha, farm suicides coexisted with the many efforts of NGOs who were trying to suggest alternatives to the high cost of cotton cultivation and curb debt deaths.