A Forgotten History of Cotton in India - Part 1

From ancient origins to the reign of Bt cotton

Did you know that cotton can grow without pesticides, fertilizers, or irrigation?
For millennia, this was a given in India. Farmers planted their local varieties—desi cotton—and the rain was enough. No need for chemicals, no need for sophisticated machinery. Just the cycle of the seasons, the land, and knowledge passed down from generation to generation .

Cotton cultivation in India dates back nearly 5,000 years. Traces of it have been found in excavations in the Indus Valley: fibers, fragments of fabric, carbonized seeds. Long before Europe discovered this fiber, India was already making it an art. It was spun, woven, and dyed, and its fabrics, renowned for their softness and strength, traveled as far as Egypt, Arabia, and China.

In Europe, cotton was unknown before the medieval Crusades, and even then, people still believed that the plant “produced” wool. It was only with maritime and colonial expansion, starting in the 16th century, that European merchants began to import Indian fabrics on a massive scale, which were in high demand on the market. Colorful cotton fabrics from India were so highly prized that they triggered a veritable “cotton craze” in Europe in the 17th century—to the point that some countries, such as France, banned their import to protect their own textile industries.

But at the end of the 18th century, England, embarking on its industrial revolution, saw Indian cotton as a strategic resource. Manchester's new mechanical spinning mills required a regular supply of long, uniform fibers. However, the cotton cultivated in India for thousands of years— desi —produced a shorter fiber, ideal for hand spinning, but incompatible with English machines.

The British therefore introduced another species into India, Gossypium hirsutum, native to the Americas, called “English cotton” in the Indian subcontinent. This long fiber was perfect for their machines, but much more demanding: water-intensive, sensitive to local insects, and dependent on inputs.

Colonial authorities not only promoted this crop; they imposed it, while prohibiting or severely restricting the cultivation of native cottons. Indian weavers were directly prevented from working: looms were destroyed, the export of Indian yarn and fabric was heavily taxed, and in some areas, home weaving was outright prohibited. Peasants were forced to grow this long-staple cotton for export, and this raw cotton was sent to England, spun and woven in Manchester mills, and then reimported to India for sale—often at a lower price than local fabrics.

Within decades, this planned system wiped out most local varieties and shattered the artisanal textile economy that had been India's pride for millennia.

In 1947, at the time of independence, the country was ruined in many ways: economically drained after two centuries of colonial plunder, weakened by famines (including the Bengal famine of 1943, orchestrated by the British, which caused several million deaths), and deprived of its agricultural autonomy. It was necessary to feed the population, rebuild, and modernize. In this context, returning to peasant seeds was not a priority. Hybrid varieties were adopted, massive irrigation was encouraged, and the Green Revolution finally established an agricultural model focused on yield.

In the 1990s, the country's economic opening coincided with the arrival of multinational seed companies. Monsanto entered the scene with a promise: Bt cotton, genetically modified to resist certain insects, would finally free farmers from the spectre of pests and losses. The World Bank made its aid conditional on the introduction of this technology, which was validated and promoted by Indian institutions. Within a few years, Bt cotton covered more than 90% of India's cotton areas.

But what was supposed to be the end of the problems turned out to be the beginning of another story.