Brief History: The Freedom Struggle

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In 1942 Quit India Movement started, Government policies were exploitive and political leaders of all ideologies were being sent to jail, except the Communist who was against the movement. As a result Unions and workers were taken over by Communist. This move hampered the unity amongst the workers as they got divided. Soon fragmentations on the basis of cast, creed, and region started forming and number of Unions started rising. Workers also participated in the freedom struggle.

Congress’s Swadeshi aandolan also gave boost to the cotton industry and local consumer started depending on the mills for cotton “Dhoti’s and Saris”.

The events of Second World War also gave the much required thrust to cotton industry of Cawnpore. During the war period demand for a lot of war products had increased, and entrepreneurs of the city cashed in on the opportunity. They earned huge profits by supplying the demands of war, and Mills were never more profitable. In 1943 city had 17 mills, 534500 spindles & 10000 looms with 44480 permanent workers working daily. These mills consumed 176982 ‘kandi’s’ of cotton everyday.

1947: 4TH ALL INDIA COTTON SUMMIT was held in Kanpur, all 3 previous events were hosted by Bombay. Many aspects related to the growth of textile industry were discussed & delegates from all over the nation came here. The mills kept working but by now mainly Indians owned the industries built by British. With getting Independence on 15th august 1947 the mill developed further.

The people coming in the city (refugees) played a vital role, the original concept of Quality was changed and business like transport was taken up by them. Practices like Black marketing, fraud, duplication of products, and exploitation for maximum benefits, all started in this period. On one hand it led to creation of an environment against commercialization & British in particular on the other it boosted thoughts like Socialism and Communism.

1948 Within a period of 7 months (September 1 to march 31) cotton Mills in Cawnpore consumed 131651 bales of cotton, which was only after Bombay and Ahemdabad, and no city in north India even came closer. In the whole country 1978995 bales were consumed (weight of each bale was 400 Pd). Total 585179 pound of foreign cotton was consumed in the country out of which 37806 was consumed by Kanpur.

According to a book “kanpur kaa itihaas” written by Narain prasad Arora & Laxmikant Tripathi in 1958: city has 17 mills out of which 15 were in the main city, and Kanpur was a major center of cotton production in India. They wrote “The city has grown at a tremendous pace in the last 10 years; consumption of cotton has increased by 62% since 1935 and 50% workers have increased by then. Most of the workers of cotton mills mainly come from the farming belt of nearer places, with permanent residents only accounting for 20% of total working population. 98.74% of these workers were males as females were mainly engaged in picking up “goodar”. Out of the total population 70-80% of workers were Hindu. Labor colonies like macrobertganj colony made by Cawnpore woolen mills & Allen ganj another colony hold most of these workers. Government was also planning to construct more colonies by 1954.”

Writers of the book predicted a healthy future for the Textile Industry of the city, whose backbone were its Mills. They wrote “the future of textile industry looks good & so dose the future of the city”. According to the book India at that moment was one of the largest Cotton manufacturers of the world. It was ranked 5th in number of cotton spindles and 3rd in consumption and labor. Out of the total cloth produced in the country, 16% was made in Kanpur.