ABSTRACT
In late 19th and early 20th century British India, the cultivation, extraction and use of indigo was at the heart of a public debate involving craft revivalists, anti-colonial intellectuals, and colonial administrators. This chapter follows the story of colour via colonial science and the dye industry to the self-conscious discovery of craft in the nationalist imaginary in the voices of Coomaraswamy and M. K. Gandhi. It illuminates the trajectory of the nationalist valourization of indigo in India1 but its primary goal is an inquiry into the subjectivities of craft using indigo as a point of departure. The entanglement of the knowledge of indigo with experience-based practices of indigo farming, dye extraction, and dyeing became a conundrum for colonial scientists interested in the commercial manufacture of indigo in India.
