Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:39:06.792Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Changes in Wool Production and Usage in Colonial India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2003

Tirthankar Roy
Affiliation:
Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune

Abstract

The paper shows how production, marketing and uses of wool changed in colonial India (1858-1947). The changes involved location, products, people, and nature of the firm, and were induced by two circumstances, one arising from the raw material side, and the other from the consumption side. There were limitations on access to common grazing lands, a theme that takes us to those of herding, customary rights, and the economics of wool production. The economic character of weaving was bound with that of wool production. The nature of that bond changed in the colonial period. On the consumption side, imported garments altered tastes and introduced new standards. This latter process encouraged standardization, larger scale, and urban production, and in a more limited way diversification and technological change. Power-looms, hosiery, and worsted were the outcomes of the last process.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)