In this book, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar presents the first major study of the relationship between labor and capital in India's economic development in the early twentieth century. He explores the emergence of capitalism in the region, the development of the cotton textile industry, its particular problems in the 1920s and 1930s and the mill owners' and the states' responses to them. The author also investigates how a labor force was formed in Bombay, its rural roots, urban networks, industrial organization and the way in which it shaped capitalist strategies.