The truth behind tech revolutions: Time to rewrite history

One of the enduring mysteries in my life has been trying to understand why the Industrial Revolution, which started in England in the mid-18th century and introduced spinning and weaving machines, did not first happen in India. After all, India was producing most of the world’s cotton thread and cloth at that time. Whenever I ask this, I get the answer: “Indian labour costs were so low that nobody needed to invent machines to spin or weave.” 

The term “Industrial Revolution” was popularised by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee in an 1882 lecture at Oxford University to describe how the use of spinning and weaving machines transformed England — they brought about a shift from the “domestic system” of production, where work was done in homes or small workshops, to the new “factory system”, driven by machinery and organised for mass production. He used the word “revolution” because he saw the changes being as profound, rapid, and disruptive to society as a significant political revolution. In other words, he stated that it was not just the use of machines but rather a fundamental restructuring of the economy, society, and human relationships that qualified to  be a “revolution”. 

I wish I had been there in the audience to stand up and say: “Great marketing of Britain, Mr Toynbee!” And before you wonder why I am so rebellious, dear reader, here are some facts. 

It has been a widely held proposition that the use of these machines by British cotton manufacturers enabled them to produce their cloth so economically that they could not only end all cotton cloth imports from India but also wipe out its spinning and weaving industries. 

However, the truth that is not mentioned in this telling is that to get the Manchester-based spinning and weaving manufacturers up and running, the British government passed laws in 1700 to impose heavy import duties, ranging from 15 per cent to 75 per cent (depending on the type of fabric) on all imported Indian cotton cloth (called calico because the British imported it from Kerala’s Calicut port). Since this didn’t produce the desired effect of reducing demand, a second law was passed in 1720 to ban the import of all Indian cotton entirely. This law also provided that consumers wearing imported cotton could be fined 15 pounds and that people who stocked or sold such cloth could be fined 200 pounds. When even this failed, British weavers protested by attacking women wearing calico, tearing their clothes, and even throwing acid at them. 

Perhaps the most carefully hidden secret behind the Industrial Revolution story was what gave British cotton manufacturers the final edge to compete with Indian handloom spinners and weavers. The secret, of course, was that from around 1800, Britain imported most of its cotton from the American South, which had been turned into a vast forced labour camp with tens of thousands of enslaved Africans, who provided them raw cotton at an unimaginably low price and in massive quantities. 

Once I unearthed these facts, I sank into a deep depression: Is it possible that humanity can stay ignorant of such facts and be led to believe for the past 200-plus years that the phrase “Industrial Revolution” can be used to justify actions which otherwise would perhaps be termed “colonial exploitation”? And even more worrisome are phrases like “technology-driven growth” or “technological revolution” being invoked to describe actions that are in fact a combination of various initiatives, with the technological component being a minor one. In other words, do we need to re-examine the several “technological revolutions” we have known using a “political economy” lens? That is to say, use a diverse set of tools and methods drawn from economics, political science, and sociology, and not just engineering, to re-examine the several technological revolutions we all believe have happened. 

The First Industrial Revolution (18th-19th centuries) introduced machines powered by steam, which began to replace hand-made production. The Second Industrial Revolution (late 19th-early 20th centuries) brought electricity and mass-production techniques, like assembly lines. The Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the Digital Revolution, leveraged computers and the internet to automate factories and integrate systems. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) is about artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics — working together in connected, intelligent systems. Now, the Fifth Industrial Revolution is emerging… 

Maybe it is time to revisit what Mahatma Gandhi said during the Swaraj movement: “The craze is for what they call labour-saving machinery. Men go on ‘saving labour’ till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. I want to save time and labour, not for a fraction of mankind, but for all; I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of a few, but in the hands of all. Today, machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labour, but greed… It is not that we do not want machinery, but we want it in its proper place. We will not have it before it has been simplified and made available to all.” 

Is this the next movement we all have to embrace, and which may be as vital today as the Swaraj movement was in Gandhi’s time?  The author (ajitb@rediffmail.com) is devoting his life to unravelling the connections between technology and society