Cotton textiles, India's most important industry, underpinned the social relations and economy of Bombay City. It was Bombay's staple industry and its only large-scale employer of labour. It was also the foundation of the city's prosperity and growth from the late nineteenth century onwards, and the basis of its claim to be a major industrial metropolis of Asia. Its development influenced the nature of the local labour market, the patterns and rhythms of rural migration and the relationship between workplace and neighbourhood in the city's mill districts. The previous three chapters have analysed the processes of social formation as they affected the city's workers in general. The final three chapters turn specifically to the case of the cotton-textile industry and examine some of the major influences which shaped the relationship between labour and capital. This chapter will examine the origins and development of the cotton-textile industry to delineate a historical context within which business strategies, the organization of work and the deployment of labour took shape.

The Bombay millowners were neither, it would appear, driven by the relentless pursuit of the most advanced and sophisticated techniques nor by the imperative to achieve and maintain ideal standards of labour efficiency. Rather, they sought to maximize profits in the short run within the economic and political conditions in which they found themselves.