The amount of a particular economic service or economic good that a group of consumers or an individual consumer will want to purchase

at a said amount or given price would be the laymans definition of demand. The demand curve is normally downward sloping, since the consumers would want to buy more as the price decreases. Demand for a service or a good is usually determined by many factors other than just its price for e.g. the price of its substitute and complementary goods. Sometimes, rather in extreme cases demand maybe completely unrelated to price or almost infinite at a given price. Demand and Supply are the two key determinants of the market price of a good or a product. The Demand of cotton fabrics/textiles and cotton wear in United Kingdom since early1800 supplied by India. History states that there is this enormous demand of cotton textile and cotton fabric wear in United Kingdom. The supply of that was fulfilled by India right since the early East India Company first set its foot in India during the 1800. Even in 1840 Madras exports to Britain were much greater than its imports from Britain. ( (Giorgio Riello, 2009) Cotton is a tropical plant and it does not grow anywhere in Britain. (Claire, 1996) In the late eighteenth century when the cotton textile industry was getting established, most of the raw cotton came from the slave plantations of the British West Indies. After the American War of Independence (1775 83), much of the raw cotton needed for the Lancashire mills came from the slave plantations of the Southern States of North America. It would not be wrong to say that one of the chief interests of the British East Indian company was cotton. Britain, it is claimed, effectively destroyed the indigenous Indian cotton industry, in order to create and protect the market for cotton cloth produced in England. ( (Claire, 1996)( (Bowker, digitised 19 Jun 2009) During the Civil War (April 1961 April 1965), the supply of cotton dropped suddenly and significantly and created a depression (called the cotton famine) in the cotton area of Britain where people were put out of work; however the trade picked up again after the war was over. From the 1830s, as Britain established an increasingly wide network of control over India, cotton goods in a semi processed were imported, subject to further processing and largely re-exported. In the early twentieth century, India was incorporated into the world economy, it became locked into a different international division of labour, importing manufacturing goods (principally from Britain) and exporting raw materials to the benefit of British interests. ( (Neil Brenner, 2006) From 1959 to 1965, the volume of raw cotton exported to United Kingdom grew tow and half times and the total value of Indias cotton exports grew ten times. ( (Lewis, 2006) Indias golden age had occurred during the 1940s after the outbreak of the SinoJapanese war removed the two leading textile producers of Asia from competition in the market. India remained a rejoicing neutral power and enjoyed a prolonged wave of industrial expansion. From 1941 to 1942 it became a net exporter of cotton cloth for the

first time since 1820s. During the three years of 1942, 1943 and 1950 it even became the worlds principal exporter of cotton piece goods. It surpassed the UK from 1954 as an exporter of cotton piece- goods and remained the chief source of supply of such goods to the British market until 1970, its shipments thereto reaching peak volumes during the years 1960 and 1968. Its eminent position in the world trade in textiles was however undermined by the post- war recovery of Japan, by the expansion of the domestic demand from 1951 and by the foreign exchange crises of 1956 and 1966. In the world league of exporters Indian ranked second to Japan for twelve years (1955 to 1966) and then third to Japan and Hong-Kong from 1967. (Kawakatsu, 2002) The history states that one of the most attractive and lucrative business is that of cotton plantations in the Asian sub-continents mainly India, Japan and China. However according to modern studies the three top cotton producers of cotton are China at 25.5million bales (32.7%), then is united Stated of America at 17.6 million bales (22.6%) followed by India at producing 12.5 million bales (16%) ((Xinhua, 2006). The two top cotton exporters according to a study in 2009 by National cotton council of America are United States of America and India. (America) Thus I would like to conclude that based upon these inferences the need for cotton wear and fabric is on an all time high in United Kingdom. Looking at Indias production of cotton, clearly it can supply to the demand of cotton in United Kingdom. For the Indian farmer cotton is nothing less than white gold. It falls in the category of cash crops. The cotton industry in India if matches pace with the textile industry will determine Indias ability to whether once again become an important raw cotton exporter or would remain a major source of the same to the world.