Can ‘going organic’ save India’s besieged cotton farmers?
Tall stone chimneys towering above glass skyscrapers are the only reminders of the textile mills that spurred Mumbai’s growth as India’s commercial capital. Today, malls and corporate offices have replaced the mills. Workers have made way for yuppies. And condos have been built adjoining the chawls (tenement houses) where workers once lived. Parel, in central Mumbai, was once a crowded working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city. It is now one of the city’s hottest real-estate locations. The chimneys that rise high above the skyscrapers are the tombstones, the last remnants of Parel’s industrial past. Mumbai was once India’s largest textile centre, but now not a single mill operates here. What happened to the city’s 250,000 workers? ‘Most can’t find work and have moved back to their village. Some are working in temporary jobs as taxi drivers or security guards,’ says Datta Ishwalkar from the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti (Mill Workers’ Struggle Association). As work shifte
