Suicide Deaths and Quality of Indian Cotton: Perspectives from History of Technology and Khadi Movement Author(s): C. Shambu Prasad Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 34, No. 5 (Jan. 30 - Feb. 5, 1999), pp. PE12-PE21 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4407604 . Accessed: 13/06/2014 06:16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic and Political Weekly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.92.9.57 on Fri, 13 Jun 2014 06:16:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Suicide Deaths and Quality of Indian Cotton Perspectives from History of Technology and Khadi Movement C Shambu Prasad The suicide deaths of farmers is a failure of agricultural science and the historical nature of the crisis needs to be appreciated. This paper seeks to retrace the route by which the present connections between Indian cotton and the mechanised textile industry were first established, a direction that has led to the present crisis on the fields of the cotton jflrmers.