ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the subsequent developments in the weaving industry and its implications both for the lives of the weavers and the city of Banaras. Since the publication of The Warp and the Weft in 2010, more recent work dealing with the theme of the construction of Banaras has been published. In Dodson’s introduction, he challenges the construction of Banaras as an eternal, religious city and consciously emphasises that Banaras’ long experience as the imperial territory of Great Britain was formative of the city in many fundamental aspects. The period of the 1970s–90s, considered the golden era of the Banaras sari industry, saw this class of Muslim gaddidars flourishing and carving out markets at the national and international level. The depiction of the structure of the industry and its ethnic composition that we have delineated accords with the findings and interpretations of many close and long-standing observers and of the Banarasi sari industry.
