weavers, iron smelters and factory owners

Class- 8 History

1. Weavers, Iron Smelters and Factory Owners CLASS-VIII (HISTORY) SUBJECT- SOCIAL SCIENCE PREPARED BY- PAVAN KR SAHU (TGT-SOST) KV,BARGARH

2. Introduction The English East India Company came to India to trade in Indian goods. Slowly it occupied our Nation and the pattern of trade changed over the decades. The crafts and industries of India during British rule focused on two industries-textiles and iron and steel. The industrialisation of Britain had a close connection with the conquest and colonisation of India. In eighteenth century India was a leading nation in terms of craft and trade but with industrial revolution, Britain came to know as ‘Workshop of the world’. With the growth of industrial production, British industrialists began to see India as a vast market for their industrial products, and over the years, manufactured goods from Britain began flooding India.

3. Indian Textiles and the World Market Around 1750, India was the world’s largest producer of cotton textiles .  Indian textile was renowned both for its fine quality and exquisite craftsmanship . From the 16th-century European traders began buying Indian textiles for sale in Europe .

4. Words tell us Histories Muslin: The material was first made in the city of  Mosul  (now in Iraq), from which it derived its name .  The word muslin means any finely woven textile used for making cloth Indian textiles were famous in Western markets under different names such as ‘Muslin’, ‘Calico’, ‘Chintz ‘ & ‘ Bandhna ’

5. Calico: The word Calico is a general name for all cotton textiles used for making clothes. When the Portuguese first came to India in search of spices they landed in Calicut on the Kerala coast in south-west India. The cotton textiles which they took back to Europe, along with the spices, came to be called “calico”. Chintz: The word chintz meaning a printed cotton cloth, is a term derived from the Hindi word chhint , a cloth with small and colourful flowery designs . Bandanna: The word bandanna, which refers to any brightly coloured and printed scarf tied around the neck of head, is derived from the Hindi word for tying bandhna

6. Indian Textiles in European Markets The popularity of Indian textiles during the 18 th century, worried the wool and silk makers in England. They began protesting against the import of Indian cotton Textiles. Calico Act: In 1720, the British government banned the use of printed cotton textiles in England. The law was called ‘Calico Act ’. At this time textile industries had just begun to develop in England. The English textile producers found it difficult to compete with the Indian textiles. Hence they prevented the entry of Indian textiles into England. To over come the stiff competition from Indian textiles in the European market, the English weavers invented new machines to make cloth cheaper . In 1764, the spinning jenny was invented by John Kaye which increased the productivity of the traditional spindles.

7. Spinning Jenny The spinning jenny is a multi- spool spinning wheel. The device dramatically reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn. A single worker was able to work eight or more spools at once. In 1786, the invention of the steam engine by Richard Arkwright revolutionised cotton textile weaving.

8. Richard Arkwright Arkwright's achievement was to combine power, machinery, semi-skilled labor, and a new raw material (cotton) to create mass production. Cloth could now be woven cheaply and in immense quantities. However, Indian textiles continued to dominate world trade till the end of the eighteenth century. The Dutch, the French and the English trading companies made huge profits from textile trade. These companies purchased cotton and silk textiles in India and paid for it in silver. When the English East India Company gained political power in Bengal, it stopped paying for it with precious metals. The company collected revenues from peasants and zamindars used this revenue to buy Indian textiles

9. Major Weaving Centres in India

10. Weavers specialised in weaving. They passed their skills from one generation to the next. Some of the weaver’s community in India were … The tanti weavers of Bengal The julahas or momin weavers of north India, Sale and kaikollar and devangs of south India Indian Weavers

11. The Art of Weaving Cotton was first spun into yarn. This was called spinning and was done by women. The charkha and the takli were household spinning instruments. The thread was spun on the charkha and rolled on the takli . A Char kh a When the spinning was over the thread was woven into cloth by the weaver. Weaving was mostly done by men.

12. The decline of Indian textiles The development of cotton industries in Britain affected textile producers in India in several ways. Indian textiles now had to compete with British textiles in the European and American markets. Exporting textiles to England became increasingly difficult as very high duties were imposed on Indian textiles imported into Britain. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, English- made cotton textiles were preferred to Indian goods. Indian textiles lost their market in Africa, America and Europe.

13. Continue.. Thousands of weavers in India did not have any work. Bengal weavers were the worst hit. English and European companies stopped buying Indian goods. During the 1830s British cotton cloth flooded Indian markets. In the 1880s two-thirds of all the cotton clothes worn by Indians were made of cloth produced in Britain. This affected the entire textile industry in India. Thousands of rural women lost their lobs.

14. Ray of Hope During the national movement, Mahatma Gandhi urged people to boycott imported textiles and use hand-spun and hand-woven cloth. Khadi gradually became a symbol of nationalism. The charkha came to represent India, and it was put at the centre of the tricolour flag of the Indian National Congress adopted in 1931.

15. Cotton Mills Come up In 1854, the first cotton mill in India was set up as a spinning mill in Bombay . By 1900, over 84 mills started operating in Bombay but colonial government did not support the mill advancement by denying the import duty on British good. In 1861 the first mill in Ahmedabad was started. In 1862 the first mill in Kanpur was started. The textile mills faced some problems initially The mills found it difficult to compete with the cheap textiles imported from Britain. In most countries, governments supported industrialisation by imposing heavy duties on imports. The first major boost in the development of cotton factory production in India was during the First World War. During this time textile imports from Britain declined and Indian factories were called upon to produce cloth for military supplies.

16. Mumbai Textile Mills Manchester of India: Ahmedabad

17. The Sword of Tipu Sultan and Wootz Steel: Tipu Sultan ruled Mysore till 1799. He fought four wars with the British and died fighting with his sword in his hand. Tipu’s swords are now part of valuable collections in museums in England. Tipu Sultan’s Sword: The swords were special as they were incredibly hard and the sharp edge could easily rip through the opponent’s armour . This quality of the sword came from a special type of high carbon steel called Wootz . Wootz was produced all over south India. Wootz steel when made into swords produced a very sharp edge with a flowing water pattern. This pattern came from very small carbon crystals embedded in the iron.

18. Wootz Steel: The Wootz steel was produced all over south India by Mixing iron with charcoal in small clay pots kept in smelting furnace. By intricate temperature control of the furnace, steel ingots were produced. Making of Tipu Sultan’s Swords: Francis Buchanan toured through Mysore in 1800, a year after Tipu Sultan’s death. He has written about the technique used to prepare the swords. Wootz steel was produced in many hundreds of smelting furnaces in Mysore. In these furnaces, iron was mixed with charcoal and put inside small clay pots. Through an intricate control of temperatures the smelters produced steel ingots that were used for sword making

19. Abandoned Furnaces in Villages: As the British establish political power in India the production of Wootz steel stopped and iron smelting furnaces were abandoned .

20. Reasons for the Decline of Iron Smelting one reason was the new forest laws . when the colonial govt. prevented people from entering the reserved forests, the iron smelters could not find wood for charcoal and could not get iron ore . Defying forest laws they often entered the forests and collected wood secretly but they could not sustain their occupation on this basis for long. after much effort they were allowed but had to pay great taxes which often reduced their. By late 19th century iron and steel was being imported from Britain .This inevitably lowered the demand for iron produced by local smelters. Ironsmiths in India began using the imported iron to manufacture utensils and implements . This lowered the demand for iron produced by local iron smelters.

21. Iron and Steel Factories come up in India In the year 1904 American geologist Charles Weld and Dorabji Tata discovered iron ore in the Rajhara hills of Chhattisgarh. The Agaria community were native inhabitants of this region. Rajhara Hills had one of the finest ores in the world. The Tats were not able to start their Iron and steel factory near the Rajhara Hills as the region was very dry. The steel factory needed plenty of water. A few years later a large area of forest was cleared on the banks of the river Subarnarekha to set up the factory. The industrial township was named Jamshedpur after Dorabji Tata’s father Jamsetji Tata.

22. Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) that came up in Jamshedpur began producing steel in 1912. TISCO was set up at an opportune time. All through the late nineteenth century, India was importing steel that was manufactured in Britain. Expansion of the railways in India had provided a huge market for rails that Britain produced. British experts in the Indian Railways were unwilling to believe that good quality steel could be produced in India. In 1914 the First World War broke out. Steel produced in Britain now had to meet the demands of war in Europe.

23. Continue.. Imports of British steel into India declined dramatically and the Indian Railways turned to TISCO for supply of rails. As the war dragged on for several years, TISCO had to produce shells and carriage wheels for the war. By 1919 the colonial government was buying 90 per cent of the steel manufactured by TISCO. Soon TISCO became the biggest steel industry within the British Empire. The iron and steel and cotton textiles industries expanded only when British imports into India declined and the market for Indian industrial goods increased. This took place during the First World War and after. As the independence movement gathered strength the industrial class became stronger. The British government struggled to maintain its control over India. It had to give in to the many demands of the rising Indians in the last decades of its colonial rule.