Scientifically speaking textile originated about a million years ago when by force of not-so-circumstantial evolution, man lost his body hair and soon felt the effect of climatic changes, effectuating the usage of animal skin for covering. According to Christian mythology, when Eve bit into the proverbial apple, she became conscious of her nudity and even more than Adam. They must have covered their bodies with some handy material like leaves. Thus "Textile was born" irrespective of whether the universe took six days or 13.8 billion years.


Initially used for protection against nature, textiles were required increasingly to satisfy human's aesthetic needs and ornamentation in his apparel and surroundings. The transition from the purely functional to the decorative use of textiles has been accompanied by a shift in the manufacturing of textiles from a highly individualized and specialized cottage craft to a mechanized and large-scale operation, that took India's non-existent Indian economy during the British rule, by storm.
Fabrics of the likes of Dacca Muslin have been the cause of much envy of every European craftsman as Indian textile travelled the globe for hundreds of years, clothing the Kings and Queens. It's also true that India, in its sense of commercial enterprise, was not an industrial one. The term 'cottage industry' is used when products are manufactured on a small scale, and small it surely was for India. From the advent of the East India Company, there was a drastic change in the running of these cottage industries. The urge to have more luxury items at the cheapest prices, resulted in  European traders and merchants exploiting the Indian peasants to great extents due to which these industries suffered losses in production. Later the Industrial revolution in the West also gave a fatal blow to their economy and led to considerable decline in the number.

In the face of such uncountable adversities, most of India's cottage industries managed to persist. In certain industries, the artisan adapted himself to the changed circumstances and produced articles which were more marketable, adjusting simultaneously,his workmanship to modern requirements. The weaver took to mill yarn and the fly-shuttle, the dyer to synthetic dyes, and the brass and copper smith to sheet metal. The Swadeshi Movement with its emphasis on khadi, greatly softened the attitude of the Indian public towards the products of Indian handicrafts, further fuelling our efforts in the Independence Movement.
The revival of Industrial India since independence was led by the government's policy towards cottage and small industries as it was recognised that these industries have a significant contribution to make in the context of the two-fold problem of expanding employment and increasing the supply of consumer goods. Vast increments in production was administered to tackle the paucity of capital resources restricting investment. For instance, the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 was aimed to ensure that the decentralized sector acquires sufficient vitality to be self-supporting, consequently improving the competitive strength of the small-scale producer. The State Bank of India chimed into the same tune as they launched pilot schemes for the enlargement and coordination of credit facilities available to SSIs at selected centres.

The establishment of National Small Industries Corporation, whose function is to organise production for meeting government orders and provide assistance in manufacturing of parts and components so as to counter balance the technical avalanche India founds herself rumbling down into.


Despite such efforts, the cottage industry has hit a ceiling that's coming down even lower, primarily due to lack of protection against competition from large scale industries and not meeting the need for progressive expansion and modernisation of rural industry that could be brought about by the establishment of small industrial units in villages and small towns interspersed all over the country, thus leading to a pyramid of industry, broad-based on a progressive rural economy. To conclude, albeit ironically, small scale and cottage industries emerged from the alleys of metropolitan slums as the progressive force behind the country's development post independence and they still have a special claim for consideration in that they are the local investments through which the decentralization of industrial production in India can be harnessed.