IN THE 1920s, the freedom struggle was marked by Mahatma Gandhi promoting handspun khadi (cotton) and initiating a movement to boycott foreign cloth. I choose to remember this part of our struggle for independence as I feel it becomes significant and symbolic in the fight against Bt cotton. Then, it was about challenging the takeover of British imperialistic forces of our textile market, now it is about an American multinational seed giant taking control over the very basis of our cotton sector, the seed, using the tool of genetic engineering. Bt cotton was controversial at the time it was introduced in 2002 and a decade later the controversy still remains, though you can hear many a time the biotech seed industry ranting falsely about its success.