Weaving a better life for the cotton workers

Indian cotton was so popular around the globe that many European textile merchants forced their governments to ban its import to ensure their own sustenance! This fierce dominance of Indian cotton, which had even threatened the Roman empire’s textile trade with Greece in the early centuries of the Common Era, continued till early 1800s. 

However, India, which exported 50 per cent of world cotton in the 1800s, today holds a meagre 5 per cent share in the cotton market. Malkha, borne out of the almost three decades long struggle of cotton handloom industry activist Uzramma, is an attempt to bring back the gloriousy days of the industry. 

“What compromised our dominance in world cotton was the invention of the spinning wheel and the East India Company forcing mechanisation on our growers and weavers. Indian farmers were compelled to grow cotton to fit the machine, ignoring weather conditions and successful established practices such as inter-cropping and saving seeds,” explains Uzramma. 

Yet, even today, we stick to this inefficient model of cotton processing. “This method of cotton spinning is not apt for the type of cotton produced in our country or our weather. Yet, the industry has been using the same machinery for 200 years. 

We’re still baling and unbaling cotton, because the spinning line of machines can only deal with bales. But this destroys the vitality of the fibre and it’s an expensive and intensive process. Even the ones we use at Malkha, are scaled down versions of the same machine. The only difference is that our carding machine takes unbaled cotton. 28 years of activism, and I’m still fighting the same fight.

Farmers are still dying. They are still starving. The issues they face are still the same,” she laments, and adds, “When you are good at playing tennis, why would you choose to play golf instead? We should focus on creating machinery and systems that are more apt for our cotton. But this is a gargantuan task. Individuals cannot accomplish this on their own.  It should be a state-funded initiative.” Uzramma says Malkha is now at the threshold of making a change in the system in its own way. 

“We are trying to set up spinning units near the farm lands so that we can cut down the transportation costs and re-establish the connection that the farmers and weavers had in the old days. This would enable the farmers and weavers to get a bigger percentage of the profits,” she says.

But the policies being imposed by the government are not helping the initiative. She also says, “Demonetisation had made a big impact in the lives of our weavers. We had no means to pay them during this time as there was a cash crunch. 

So, instead of the regular process where we collect money at the exhibition stalls, deposit them in banks and then withdraw that money for their salaries, we had to transport the cash from the exhibitions directly to them. They also had a tough time withdrawing the cash they had remitted in the banks because most of them used co-operative banks. 

Even still, we can only withdraw Rs 30,000 each time, which means we have to make multiple withdrawals at different times to get the required amount to run the company. How does the government expect us to run initiatives like this in the present environment?” Yet, against all odds, Malkha has elevated itself to a sought-after fabric by designers across the globe today. 

“Malkha retains a certain springiness that is not found in other cotton. It also holds its shape well. This makes the fabric appealing to designers. Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Wendell Rodricks and Anita Dongre are a few of the designers we repeatedly work with. Now we are also in discussion with some international designers who are keen to work with the fabric,” says Uzramma. 

However, the farmers and weavers are now apprehensive of a new possible threat looming over them — the GST roll-out. 

“We still don’t know how much the cotton industry will be affected by this. In Telangana, the state government has announced huge subsidies for yarn and handloom. So, I believe the effects of GST must be neutralised by it. However, I have no idea how the cotton industry and handlooms in the rest of the country will cope with GST. 

They will most certainly take a hit. But how big a hit, we can know only after we have better clarity on which products, like yarn and handlooms products, will be taxed,” she states. Uzramma will present a talk on Malkha and its prominence in the world market, in Chennai, on June 12.