As this book goes to print, life is slowly returning to normalcy in India following multiple waves of a debilitating pandemic that took the lives of more than half a million. Debates on the true extent of deaths notwithstanding, the pandemic infected above 40 million in the country and impacted lives and livelihoods across the globe. There is considerable uncertainty in Europe with the Russian invasion of Ukraine; political instability in neighbouring Pakistan with the ousting of the incumbent prime minister in a no-trust vote; mass protests following the economic crisis in Sri Lanka; strict lockdown in China as it grapples with another wave of COVID-19 outbreak; and inflationary pressures remain a concern worldwide amidst supply disruptions as recovery from the pandemic-induced recession had commenced. By contrast there is exuberance in the Indian financial sector, ‘unicorns’ are disrupting the market with their technological innovation and the initial public offering market spanning diversified industries is buoyant with unprecedented proceeds and a robust pipeline for the near future. While most struggle to make sense of how the platform economy creates value or how the digital transformation has created nouveau dollar billionaires, a ‘crypto mania’ is sweeping through the country. Not surprisingly the Government of India has announced that it will issue a digital rupee as central bank digital currency and that incomes from crypto assets will be taxed. In stark contrast to the exuberance in the financial markets and the ongoing digital transformation, the farm sector has witnessed prolonged large scale agitation.

In an unanticipated move in November 2021, the Government of India repealed three controversial farm laws enacted in September 2020 that were at the centre of protracted protests by farmers: mostly from the north Indian states. As agitating farmers and farmer unions demanded repeal of the farm laws and that the minimum support price (MSP) be made the legal guarantee as the floor price for all market purchases, the deep-rooted agrarian distress in regions such as Vidarbha in Maharashtra faded into oblivion as if those in crisis were unable to protest vehemently or end their lives tragically enough to draw media and policy attention. Of course, the issue of agrarian crisis has to be seen in the larger context of the changing structure of the economy and society. The underlying structural transformation of the economy has undoubtedly resulted in millions moving out of agriculture, and rising non-farm employment.

Are the dice loaded against the Vidarbha farmer in the gambles with cotton? Does the agrarian crisis stem from the nature of cotton cultivation? Taken together, the insights from the preceding chapter brought to the fore the limited livelihood diversification options for households and the overarching dependence on cotton cultivation. Even the outcomes of landless non-cultivator households hinge on the fate of cotton every season, given its importance in absorbing agricultural labour from the villages and their vicinity.

In this chapter, we discuss the changes related to agricultural inputs and agronomic practices of cotton cultivation. These changes have elements of accidentality as well as gambling akin to developments that have transpired in the history of the region's cotton economy. While doing so, we connect the findings to technological changes, policy environment, and behavioural motivations of farmers in their input choices. In particular, we address the following questions: How do farmers choose their inputs in cotton cultivation? What have been the changes in the input use patterns over the last decade? What has been the implications of these changes on farmer incomes?

Having examined several experiments with cotton seeds during the colonial period in Chapter 2, we begin by focusing on the input that has amassed the most attention in recent times—seeds. Over the past two decades, the seed market for cotton has undergone tremendous changes that have generated intense debates. At the centre of the debates has been the issue of proliferation of Bt cotton. The debates have revolved around issues of yield effects, monocultures, monopoly of multinational and agribiotech firms such as Monsanto, regulation, health hazards, and seed sovereignty, among others. In this backdrop, as if history has repeated itself, there has been an emergence of ‘loose’, ‘stealth’, and ‘illegal’ cotton seeds in the form of herbicide tolerant (HT) Bt seeds (HTBt henceforth).

These debates notwithstanding, what was the experience of Vidarbha's cotton farmers with growing Bt cotton? Following our discussion of seeds, we move on to an equally critical input in cotton cultivation—pesticides. In particular, we explore the patterns of Bt cotton and pesticide usage in cotton cultivation. We comment on the rationale of decision-making by farmers in relation to pesticides by examining their use over a two-year period.

Vidarbha is a major cotton-growing region in central India. On the political map of India, it is located in the eastern part of the state of Maharashtra, the richest state in India in terms of gross state domestic product and home to the country's financial and commercial capital—Mumbai. It has been a frontier, not only geographically and culturally but also in terms of recasting the global system of cotton growing and manufacturing since the second half of the nineteenth century. It is however a land of several contradictions.

First, despite being home to the winter capital of the state, Nagpur, there has been long-standing demand for separate statehood on grounds of political negligence resulting in significant developmental backlogs. Ethos of being separate from rest of the state are also reflected in the arena of cricket as Vidarbha has one of the three first-class cricket teams in the state, the other two being Mumbai and Maharashtra. Second, it is one of the most mineral-rich regions in the country and contributes to over two-thirds of mineral deposits of the state and most of its forest resources. Yet, as if there were a ‘resource curse’, it is one of the most backward regions. Third, far from the popular imagination of Vidarbha as a homogenous region, it is an amalgamation of two administrative divisions having distinct linguistic and sociocultural histories. Whilst the Amravati division (western part) has a shared history with the erstwhile Berar Province, the Nagpur division (eastern part) has a shared history with what comprised districts of the Central Provinces during colonial era. The cotton tracts of the former have primarily been the epicentre of agrarian distress and witnessed a spate of farmers’ suicides over the past two and a half decades whereas the densely forested areas of the latter are afflicted with Naxalite–Maoist insurgency. In fact, the parts of eastern Vidarbha that have been witnessing Naxal extremism for over half a century continue to have meaning in the political assertion of Gonds as erstwhile rulers of the kingdom of Nagpur, but they are conspicuous by their absence in the agricultural development discourse on Vidarbha that is primarily concentrated on western Vidarbha. Fourth, it became a prominent centre of Buddhism, but it has witnessed centuries of bloody power struggles that shaped the history of India.

We have come a long way in our understanding of the changing circumstances of cotton growing in Vidarbha, and livelihood of agricultural households comprising cultivator and non-cultivator households. An inquiry into the historical roots of the region's cotton economy from a longue durée perspective revealed how constant alteration of the region's boundaries owing to political instability and sustained conflict in the precolonial era and subsequent colonial takeover in the second half of the nineteenth century transformed the region and its economy (Chapters 1 and 2).

We examined how the region witnessed an agrarian transformation that encompassed dismantling of feudal institutions such as balutedari, granting of property rights to cultivators under ryotwari in Berar, and rising demands of land revenue under the khatedari system that compelled cultivators to be dependent on usurious credit and commercialized agriculture.

We also saw how the colonial economic interests and American Civil War; historical events and processes that we characterise as accidents from the farmers’ perspective catalysed the integration of Vidarbha into the ‘Empire of Cotton’. We illustrated how the colonial efforts to convert the Bombay Presidency, Berar, and central India as an important source of raw cotton for Britain's industrial demand through crop improvement initiatives as well as investment in roads and railways that had begun before the American Civil War gathered momentum in the post-bellum period. The devastating effects of the famines in the late nineteenth century and epidemics exacted a severe toll on the region's demography along with the ecological impacts of the cotton expansion. Although the region went through phases of trade integration, the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century global integration established it as a vibrant cotton economy. Credit markets as well as cotton towns flourished. The region however was bereft of irrigation works unlike in other regions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In Chapter 3 we described our fieldwork and data collection in the villages of Vidarbha over the period 2009–2021. Having described the nature of our surveys and characteristics of the sampled households in detail, we examined the changes in cropping patterns, input use, and household incomes of cotton farmers (Chapters 4 and 5).

On a mid-May afternoon in 2018, as the usual scorching heat greeted us during our visit to a village in Wardha district, we witnessed a disturbing event. A tractor was dragging a dead bullock along the stretch of an allweather road bisecting farmlands en route to the village. As we wondered how the tragic visuals symbolized the essence of agrarian change and continuity—tractors replacing bullocks and human labour increasingly giving way to machines—we spotted a group of villagers consoling the visibly distressed farmer who had just lost an important asset and an animal he had shared a bond with. After all, bullocks and oxen have been valuable assets for Vidarbha cultivators, and are an integral part of their cultural identity, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 5.

What struck us at this instance, however, was that each farmer had a theory about the cause of the young bullock's sudden demise. The competing theories of the bullock's death notwithstanding, the farmer's misfortune was aggravated by the fact that he had lost one of his pair of bullocks right before the commencement of land preparation for the major agricultural season (kharif). Before tragedy struck, we were told he had hoped of repaying his debts, and marrying off his daughter with the income that he would earn from cultivating cotton on his two acres of land. To make matters worse, vagaries of monsoon, risk of pest infestation, and uncertainties of the market loomed large on the horizon. We could not help but wonder if, at the end of the cotton-picking season, he would manage to get the money he had hoped for. During a follow-up visit that year, we found out that though he could recover from the loss at the start of the agricultural season by managing agricultural operations with a rented pair of bullocks, he ran out of luck months later when a drought-like situation prevailed. His cotton yields were low, and it was only with the financial support of his kith and kin that he could wade through the year. Without recourse to any earning from rabi cultivation due to poor retained moisture on his plot, he waited for the next season hoping it would bring better outcomes and help him finance his daughter's wedding. He was unable to repay the loans he had borrowed.

The two preceding chapters provided an expansive historical background of Vidarbha and elucidated the transformation of its cotton economy. The colonial takeover resulted in the dismantling of traditional institutions such as balutedari and introduction of the khatedari system that bestowed property rights on the farmers who became central to the revenue of the state. With expansion of railways, there was growth of ‘cotton towns’ along the railroads such as Khamgaon and Murtizapur (in present-day Akola) as well as market towns such as Amravati and Akola. The local economy was stimulated by the American Civil War but with later changes such as crackdown on usury; and introduction of courts, Vidarbha became increasingly integrated with global markets in a manner that increased dependence of the farmers and agricultural labourers on cash and credit. Consequently, the colonial state's attempts to settle cultivators for cotton expansion irrevocably altered the rhythms of Vidarbha society.

Communities such as the Banjaras, who were pivotal in the movement of raw cotton and food grains on carts and pack bullocks, lost out with the expansion of railways and decline of the cattle economy in the second half of the nineteenth century. They were also coerced into settling down for cotton cultivation by the colonial state that was suspicious of their mobility. Mobility restrictions for Banjara communities based on ‘pass system’ became increasingly punitive, thereby adversely impacting the culture of fairs and bazaars in the region that had been facilitated by logistics services offered by the Banjaras. We also briefly described the developments since India's independence in the context of the plight and predicament of cotton farmers of the region that has been the epicentre of farmers’ suicides in the past twenty-five years.

As seen in Chapter 2, in the late nineteenth century, the region was ravaged by famines, crushing revenue demands, widespread undernourishment, disease, and mortality, but farmers’ suicides were unheard of. Indeed, the American Civil War–induced boom in the cotton economy made fortunes for many in Vidarbha as well as Bombay, but it also marred fortunes owing to crashes and panics. Moreover, far from having similar impacts on different communities in Vidarbha society, the cotton boom generated unprecedented wealth for merchants, traders, moneylenders, and large khatedars in particular. Kunbi peasants and agricultural labourers, on the other hand, were even more vulnerable to food inflation and adverse income shocks as traditional forms of social insurance weakened.

By now, we have a fair understanding of the history of Vidarbha until the colonial takeover. Regardless of the political instability that marred the region over centuries, it remains to be seen why and how cotton became the mainstay of the region's economy ever since. Is it possible that the developments in cotton economy in one region structurally transformed cotton economy in faraway regions? Were there transnational impacts that the commodity has had over centuries that have not been analysed? In this context, major upheavals in the world cotton trade need to be accounted for. Prominent among these upheavals was the American Civil War that broke out in 1861. Furthermore, British trade policy—during and following the Company's prolonged domination over India—also influenced the directions and quantum of cotton trade of the region.

In this chapter, we present a sketch of how cotton became the staple of the American South and how the United States became the leading exporter of raw cotton in the world by the middle of the nineteenth century—a watershed in Vidarbha's economic history. In doing so, we examine how ‘King Cotton’ and its retainers were central to the American Civil War that disrupted the supply of raw cotton to the growing demand of the Lancashire mills. We locate the emergence of India in general and Berar and the Central Provinces in particular, on the world map of cotton through these tectonic developments. We also delve into changes in contemporary institutions and agrarian systems of the region following the colonial takeover. In essence, we give an account of the major events that shaped the extent and nature of expansion of cotton cultivation in the region. This account will demonstrate how Vidarbha farmers entered the metaphorical casino of gambling with cotton.

We posit that to characterize the cotton economy in colonial-era Vidarbha, it is necessary to identify underlying developments that fostered cotton expansion. We draw attention to major historical developments in faraway lands—the United States, Britain, and China—in conjunction with domestic factors that shaped the cotton economy even before the colonial takeover. Since the colonial takeover in 1853, there was a transformation of local institutions in the region. Traditional land revenue assessment and agrarian relations were dismantled, and property rights on cultivated land developed. Credit markets also underwent significant changes. There was considerable expansion of the railways and communication systems. There were several efforts to introduce new seed varieties.

Over the past two and a half decades, literature pertaining to Vidarbha region in central India largely focused on the story of agrarian distress manifested in the form of farmers’ suicides, as elaborated in the foregoing chapters. In this context, the predominantly rain-fed cotton tracts of Vidarbha appeared on the map of agrarian crisis primarily because of a spate of farmers’ suicides. Scholarly discourse and popular writing on the crisis in Indian agriculture has found neoliberal policies since the economic reforms of the early 1990s and the state's withdrawal from agriculture as a corollary of neoliberalism that centred on removing obstacles to free market capitalism, as the prime suspects for the grim situation. Rising cost of cultivation, falling profitability, growing indebtedness, susceptibility to market and natural forces, and general developmental backlogs are recurrent themes in analyses of economic distress of farmers. While this narrative describes the plight of farmers by emphasizing agrarian distress and farmers’ suicides, a mere focus on the grim realities of agrarian life, though necessary, misses out on three critical dimensions of life and livelihood of agricultural households central to the cotton economy.

First, in a production system that has been historically exposed to considerable risks owing to it being nested in interconnected systems of global demand and supply, contemporary discourse has focused on a time horizon that is confined to neoliberal policies and the post-colonial Indian state. Therefore, ascribing culpability to the state and broader economic paradigms although ideologically expedient owing to the proximity to what has transpired in recent times, lacks critical awareness of inveterate historical forces that have shaped institutions and political antecedents of the cotton economy of the region. True, there are several accounts of social distress attributed to neoliberal reforms in the Global South, namely in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. However, the evolution of institutions, state actions, and capitalist development are intertwined in a complex manner that makes it naive to simply infer that neoliberalism is the root cause of agrarian distress. Moreover, contrarian views on the opportunities created by neoliberalism also abound, a cross-examination of which is crucial for scholarly progress. Second, among the tales of tragedy unfolding in the region in the form of the agrarian crisis and farmers’ suicides, there are stories of upward mobility and optimism.