The Most Underrated Industry in India

Ask someone to name India's most important industries and you'll likely hear the same answers.

Technology.

Pharmaceuticals.

Finance.

Startups.

Manufacturing.

Few people would immediately say textiles.

And yet, I believe India's textile industry may be the most underrated industry in the country.

Not because it lacks scale. Not because it lacks impact. But because we've become so accustomed to its presence that we've stopped seeing it.

India's textile story didn't begin decades ago. It began centuries ago. Long before India became a global hub for technology, Indian fabrics were traveling across continents. Merchants crossed oceans in search of Indian cottons, dyes, and weaving techniques. Entire trade routes were built around the demand for Indian textiles.

For much of history, the world didn't look to India for software.

It looked to India for fabric.

What's remarkable is that much of that expertise still exists today.

Travel across India and you'll discover that textiles change every few hundred kilometres. A different weave. A different technique. A different story. Bengal has its handlooms. Rajasthan has its block prints. Telangana has its ikats. Tamil Nadu has its weaving traditions. Gujarat has its own textile legacy.

Every region contributes something unique.

Every craft carries generations of accumulated knowledge.

Every fabric represents a way of seeing the world.

Few countries possess this level of diversity within a single industry.

Yet most Indians rarely think about it.

That's what fascinates me.

We celebrate Japanese craftsmanship. We admire Italian luxury. We respect French fashion. We travel abroad and appreciate the cultural confidence with which these countries present their traditions to the world.

But when it comes to our own textile heritage, we often overlook it.

Perhaps because it has always been around us.

Human beings have a tendency to undervalue what's familiar. We assume that if something is close to us, it must be ordinary. We reserve admiration for things that come from elsewhere.

The irony is that many of the world's most respected fashion brands already understand the value of Indian craftsmanship.

Global luxury brands source fabrics, embroidery, and artisanal work from India. International designers study Indian techniques. Buyers from around the world recognize the quality that exists in Indian textile clusters.

The world sees value in Indian textiles.

The question is whether Indians do.

A few months ago, while searching for handloom suppliers for Naya Pannah, I traveled to a remote village near the India-Bangladesh border. The journey involved a flight, a train, and eventually a rickshaw ride into a small weaving community.

There, I met a fourth-generation weaving family.

Watching the loom operate was a surprisingly emotional experience. What stood before me wasn't simply a machine producing fabric. It was decades of accumulated knowledge being put into practice. Skills passed from parent to child. Techniques refined over generations.

It reminded me of stories my grandmother used to tell me about making fabrics when she was young in Uttarakhand.

Standing there, those stories suddenly felt real.

For the first time, I understood that fabric isn't just fabric.

Behind every weave lies knowledge.

Behind every technique lies history.

Behind every piece of cloth lies a community of people who have spent years mastering their craft.

That realization changed how I think about the textile industry.

This isn't simply a manufacturing sector.

It's one of the largest collections of living knowledge in the world.

When a textile tradition disappears, we don't just lose a product. We lose expertise. We lose stories. We lose cultural memory. We lose a unique way of solving problems and creating beauty.

That's why conversations about textiles should never be limited to fashion alone.

This is about culture.

It's about identity.

It's about preserving skills while making them relevant for the future.

The countries we admire most have mastered this balance. Japan didn't become globally respected by abandoning Japanese craftsmanship. Italy didn't become a design capital by ignoring its heritage. France didn't build luxury by pretending its traditions didn't matter.

The strongest nations don't choose between tradition and modernity.

They combine them.

India has the opportunity to do the same.

Not by treating heritage as nostalgia.

Not by locking it away in museums.

But by bringing it into everyday life.

That's what excites us at Naya Pannah.

We don't see handloom and textiles as relics of the past. We see them as tools for the future. We see extraordinary craftsmanship that deserves a place in modern wardrobes. We see stories that deserve new audiences.

Because heritage survives when people use it.

When people wear it.

When people value it.

The future of Indian fashion won't be built by choosing between being modern and being Indian.

It will be built by confidently being both.

And when that happens, India's most underrated industry may finally receive the recognition it has deserved all along.