India can lead global textile market again — with right infrastructure: Rahul Gandhi

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday, 5 April, that with the right infrastructure and with dignity for every hand contributing to the textile value chain, India has the potential to lead the global textile market once again.

The leader said that India's textile legacy is unmatched — but the majority of the cotton seeds used now and the technology being employed in India comes from and remains dependent on foreign companies. Meanwhile, the country's farmers and textile industry workers, including the most skilled traditional artisans, remain underpaid.

Gandhi visited a local fabric store, HP Fabrics, in Delhi to understand the supply chain logistics in cotton fabrics.

"India's textile legacy is unmatched — every 100 km, a new art form and a new story... But today, the majority of our cotton seeds and farming technology depend on foreign companies, our farmers remain underpaid, and our supply chains are deeply fragmented," Gandhi said in a post on X.

India's textile legacy is unmatched—every 100 km, a new art form and a new story. But today, the majority of our cotton seeds and farming technology depend on foreign companies, our farmers remain underpaid, and our supply chains are deeply fragmented.

I recently met with the… pic.twitter.com/wkW6HME9Bl

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 5, 2025

Gandhi added that he met with the family that runs HP Singh fabrics to understand the supply chain that takes a simple cotton bud and weaves it into beautiful fabrics.

"It is their strong belief that India — which is about 10x behind China in textile exports — can once again become a global textile hub if the government supports the right measures: such as investing in indigenous cotton, building integrated textile zones, and establishing India-led global certification systems," he noted.

"With the right infrastructure and dignity for every hand in the value chain, India will capture the textile market once again," the Congress leader asserted.

He also attached to his post a six-minute video of his visit to the store and his conversation with the owners. The YouTube video carries the title 'Desi Cotton, Desi KalaaKar [artisan] — India's Global Textile Future'.

From Andhra Pradesh’s kalamkari and ikat to Gujarat's ajrakh, Rajasthan's bagru, Bengal's jamdani and the once world-renowned Indian ‘chintz’, based on block printing — every 100 kilometres in India reveals a different textile tradition, a different art form and a different story, Gandhi points out.

But behind all this beauty and heritage lies a challenge, Gandhi noted in his YouTube post.

"Today, the majority of India's cotton is genetically modified BT cotton — controlled by foreign corporations such as Monsanto.

"Our indigenous varieties are disappearing, our water usage [to support the BT variety] is unsustainable and our farmers remain underpaid.

"Despite being one of the largest cotton producers, India lags nearly 10 times behind China in textile exports," he noted.

Speaking to Gandhi, the Singh family (which has direct, intimate interaction with the supply chain) emphasised that India can reclaim its position as a global textile powerhouse — but only if the country invests in indigenous cotton, builds integrated textile zones and creates India-led global certification systems. After all, we have historically had the widest and deepest and oldest knowledge and expertise of these crafts.

"Unlike countries like China and Bangladesh that thrive on vertical integration, India's supply chains remain scattered and inefficient, driving up costs and pushing out the very farmers and weavers who built this industry," Gandhi said.

The former Congress chief said his conversation with the Singh family was not just about fabric, it was about respect, sustainability and economic self-reliance.

"With the right infrastructure and dignity for every hand in the value chain, India can — and must — lead the global textile market once again," he stressed.

Fabric was once at the heart of India’s freedom struggle to get out from under the British yoke. — handspun and handwoven handloom fabric — became the symbol of our nation’s demand for self-rule under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress. And the agitation against foreign domination of our traditional arts — and its artisans — was .

And yet, after decades of working to protect and amplify that legacy, in 2020, the BJP-led central government chose to scrap . With a centralised oversight and support system dismantled, the burden to sustain it falls to private entities and designers —  at an international or national level.

Then, saw agitation across cloth markets in India. The blow was deferred as a result.

In 2022, of the government's neglect — while it is still alive in name and an agreement with the workers sees wages paid (though in 2020 already), there have been no financial statements since FY21 and operations are suspended at several mills. While it turns a profit from rental income, the Modi government’s vision of privatising has also not come to fruition, with 7,200 jobs in the balance.

GI tags have been attached to some textiles — but even the average Indian outside the North-East, far less an international buyer, is likely to have heard of .

But its not just traditional forms of textiles either; all of India’s textile industry — including the more mainstream and more innovative ends —  

The Covid-19 lockdown that played havoc on South India's huge Tiruppur textile hub was — with no mitigation in sight, it remains just another industry and another huge set of migrant workers left to get to their feet as best they can on their own.

At the other end of the supply chain, at the very root of it, farmer suicides in the thousands across Maharashtra — mainly cotton growers — have gone unaddressed for years, from political and apolitical agencies alike.