An excerpt from my piece for State of Fashion, unpacking the impacts of colonial violence on India’s land and labor— and the folks that are reclaiming our regenerative approaches. ⁣

 

istory shows us that textile and fashion production has fuelled these colonial empires, and the emergence of sacrifice zones. In 1664, the East India Company was established as the largest importer of cotton to Europe. A systematic plan was implemented to subdue the Indian textile industry and economy by coercing Indian farmers to abandon their farming of subsistence crops in favor of the cotton crop. Not only would this eventually subject farmers to a cycle of interest-laden debt, it would also eventually diminish the food supply greatly.

 

India was to constantly supply cotton that would be taken to Britain’s Lancashire cotton mills and the market for British cloth, ensuring that the colonized remained subdued and profitable for the colonizer. India became an exporter of only raw material, that was only to be sold back in India at rates that left local spinners and weavers unable to afford the cotton required for their production. The extraction and destruction of artisanal industries and agricultural practices that the land could not sustain ensued.

 

What is important to note is the pattern of exploited labour around the world, and the positioning of Britain as the “workshop of the world”. British-manufactured cloth severely undermined the Indian cotton industry during the nineteenth century, due to the speed of the U.S. – British cotton production system, which was predicated with the use of slave labour in America.

 

Enslaved African people allowed White plantation owners in the South to garner insurmountable wealth from cotton. Exploited labour and agricultural dexterity set the groundwork for the international fashion industry, America’s first big business boom. That is, after America’s indigenous populations were forcibly removed from their long inhabited land in order to cultivate the fertile land for these plantations.

 

What is important to note is the pattern of exploited labour around the world, and the positioning of Britain as the “workshop of the world”. British-manufactured cloth severely undermined the Indian cotton industry during the nineteenth century, due to the speed of the U.S. – British cotton production system, which was predicated with the use of slave labour in America.

 

India’s Decolonial Leaders

History also shows that local textile and fashion production can free sacrifice zones from their hostage position. During the Indian fight for independence from the British, Mohandas Gandhi helped spur the khadi movement, which sought to boycott cloth manufactured industrially in Britain, promoting the spinning of khadi for rural self-employment and self-reliance. This constructed the framework for the larger Swadeshi movement, now known as the ‘Make in India’ campaign.

 

The origins of the Swadeshi movement propagated the idea to use only goods produced in India, and burn British-made goods. Khadi, a hand-spun, hand-woven Indian cotton, is synonymous with Indian independence today.

 

Leaders continue to establish an equitable understanding of both land and labour, and in doing so, whether they know it or not, they are helping to decolonize the industry. Today, Indian leaders such as Vandana Shiva are working with small farmers to save indigenous varieties of seeds, and wage a war against GMO companies like Monsanto.

 

Nishanth Chopra of Oshadi Collective has created a regenerative fashion supply chain by creating a chain in which farmers regeneratively grow cotton, local weavers turn it into textiles, with even a natural dyeing collective and block printing studio on site. As Chopra said in a recent Vogue feature, “I didn’t even know it was called ‘regenerative ag’ at the time,” he says. “I just thought it was ancient Indian farming.”

 

The Kheti Virasat Mission in Punjab is rooted in the mission of reviving the charkha, the type of Indian spinning wheel referenced in the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, as well as organic farming, conservation of water, biodiversity conservation, seed conservation and more. In a recent documentary about the organization, Kheti Virasat Mission’s Associate Director Rupsi Garg notes the ill impacts of the Green Revolution in Punjab, including the loss of organic khadi production on farms. For its benign name, the Green Revolution marked the abandonment of traditional farming methods during the 1960s and 1970s, notably in Punjab. This national program was backed by advisers from the United States and other countries, and initiated Indian farmers to grow with pesticides, high-yield seeds, non-indigenous varieties, and a lack of crop rotation, all with the goal of increasing yields and production.

 

Although the production of wheat and rice initially doubled due to this initiative, farmers faced the loss of indigenous varieties in crop cultivation, even leading to the extinction of certain varieties. It also caused the land to become infertile with time, leading to the loss of groundwater in many areas.

 

“Because of the Green Revolution and mechanization, this great tradition of art and craft vanished,” says Umendra Dutt, Executive Director of Kheti Virasat Mission in their documentary. “This is not just making yarn on a charkha (…) it is about making an entire lifestyle rejuvenate.”

 

 

From Sustainability to Decolonization

If sustainable fashion exists to challenge the way the fashion industry has operated, it must go beyond buying our way into a new reality. We must always question the type of system we are trying to “sustain.” True sustainability means we must decolonize fashion. After all, we can’t expect to fix a problem with the same culture that has created it. So, what does it mean then, to decolonize?

 

To decolonize the fashion industry is to address wealth inequality. The fashion industry cannot operate without the high-skilled labour of garment workers, yet CEOs make millions off the backs of those that earn the least. It’s not capitalists who create capital, it’s the labour behind the label. The sustainable fashion movement must park a key shift on how we view labour. Garment workers are not expendable. Garment workers are artisans, and fashion is art, not a disposable commodity.

 

To decolonize the fashion industry is to also reorient metrics of success beyond the idea of unlimited, exponential monetary growth through the extraction and exploitation of finite resources and human labour. The sustainable fashion movement must explore business models that are rooted in circularity and longevity. To decolonize the fashion industry is to dismantle a system predicated on speed, coming at the expense of quality, the environment, and garment workers’ rights.

 

The sustainable fashion movement must go beyond a model that is rooted in arbitrary trends, and champion a culture of personal style and individuality, rather than exasperating a consumer culture based on trends and cheap goods that will last a few months at most. To decolonize fashion is therefore also to interrogate power and hierarchy, a conversation that demands an intersectional approach that is tied to class, gender, race, and more.

 

Who has access and agency in this space? And who is stripped of it? The sustainable fashion movement must centre Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) voices as leading actors. These communities have nearly always been historically sustainable, despite the colonial hangover their cultures have experienced. To decolonize the fashion industry is therefore in essence to return to BIPOC knowledge. Regenerative agriculture, the use of natural fibres that frame fashion as a product of agriculture, and localized economies are not new modalities. They were the traditional practices of many BIPOC cultures before colonial modes of agriculture, predicated on output and the loss of indigeneity, were introduced.

 

Sustainability isn’t about reinventing the wheel – it’s about following the lead of the cultures that have always held regenerative, symbiotic relationships to the planet.

 

That’s to say, sustainability is decolonization.