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almost two-thirds of the domestic market for cotton textiles, with imports restricted
to about one-tenth. The most successful industrialists in Ahmedabad, and later in
Coimbatore and other inland centres, were those who had close links to the local
labour and capital markets, and were able to influ-ence supply and distribution
networks directly. The development of the cotton textile industry in India can be
characterised as a process of 'relentless impro-visation in the use of old machinery,
the manipulation of raw materials and the exploitation of cheap labour',23 coupled
to the success of emerging groups of industrial entrepreneurs in devising and
adapting market-substituting insti-tutions to secure stability in the supply of labour,
capital, raw materials and an adequate level of technology. As the number of
improvisers increased, and as the institutional networks necessary for their success
became more decentral-ised, so the apparently 'modern' cotton textile industry in
Bombay gave way to more 'traditional' ones elsewhere.