Cheap machine-made thread destroyed India's spinning industry in the nineteenth century, yet handloom cloth p…

Question

Cheap machine-made thread destroyed India's spinning industry in the nineteenth century, yet handloom cloth production nearly tripled between 1900 and 1940. What made it possible for weavers to survive competition from mills when spinners could not?

Accepted Answer

## Model Answer Weavers survived because they had advantages spinners lacked: 1. **Technological adaptation:** Weavers adopted the fly shuttle, which increased productivity and reduced labour costs. By 1941, over 35% of handlooms used fly shuttles; in Travancore, Bengal and Madras the proportion reached 70–80%. 2. **Specialised weaves:** Mills could not imitate intricate designs — Banarasi saris, Baluchari weaves, Madras lungis and handkerchiefs — giving handloom weavers a protected niche market. 3. **Stable demand for fine cloth:** The rich continued buying fine varieties even during famines, providing steady demand that coarser mill cloth could not capture. Spinners, by contrast, produced a uniform product easily replicated by machines at lower cost, leaving them no such refuge. *Source: Chapter 4, Section 5.1 — Small-scale Industries Predominate* --- ## Explanation The examiner expects **three distinct reasons**, since this is 3 marks. Each point should be traceable to the passage:…

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