> That doesn't happen until after the luddite's first appearance in ~1816 [1]

According to Parthasarathi [1], Indian cloth already began having issues from the 1720s as East India Company contracts begun squeezing out local merchants. From the late 1760s, Indian weavers begun having trouble. South Indian weavers reported that in 1779 their incomes had dropped 35% since 1768 (Parthasarathi p. 78-79.) The Luddites first appear in history around 1811, a good 40 years after the beginning of the decline of Indian cloth.

1830 is much too late for the "turning point" as the Cuddalore Weaver's Protest had already occurred by 1778 [2]. I suspect your source comes from before the opening of the East India Company records.

> No, The displacement is what the Luddites were railing against.

Correct, I never disagreed.

> Weavers had been highly paid, profitable and skilled occupation from the "dark ages" onwards.

> The weaver's guilds had a hand in various wars, revolutions and many other social developments between 1100 and at least 1500.

The class consciousness of weavers only appeared from the beginning of industrialization. Weavers guilds operated in different economic and social circumstances with very different economic arrangements than the Luddite-era weavers. Guilds often enjoyed exclusive market privileges and thus had much more pricing power than weavers in the post-feudal era.

> The weavers just weaved, the merchants sourced the raw materials. the concept that the average weaver knew the conditions, circumstance, much less people that produced it is on very shaky ground.

Of course, at that time the flow of information and general levels of education were low. But it's hard to imagine that weavers weren't aware of the prodigy of Indian textiles at the time. Indian exports dominated the textile market until the late 18th century and weavers would have been competing for sales to merchants with Indian exporters. Naturally most weavers would be completely unaware of the contracts and pricing power of the East India Company at the time and its knock-on effects in India. I'm not trying to imply that the Luddites cheered on the EIC in their exploitation, and don't think they did at all unless there's evidence of the contrary.

> I suspect that given that the producers were Christian, much less protestant, would have meant that sympathy would have been limited. Given how xenophobic people were back then.

Europe and the Islamicate world had a lot of mutual animosity and respect for each other at the time. The British viewed Mughal wealth and organization favorably, and this was the basis for the term "mogul" as used in "business mogul". [3] Whether that would lead to sympathy or not is unclear.

> Technological advances meant that they were ruined almost overnight.

Correct but their relative market position came at the expense of the market position of the Mughals. The guild based systems which created guaranteed markets of the middle ages were already long broken by the time of the Luddites. The very ruin from relative riches due to mechanization itself was based on riches based off the ruin of the Mughals. That the Luddites were trying to protect their own lifestyle is neither enigmatic nor evil. The Mughals attempted the same. But instead of trying to cast the Luddites as virtuous heroes, it's important to contextualize them as parties who were protecting a treasure that they had received at another's expense.

[1]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/transition-to-a-col... The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720–1800

[3]: Parthasarathi p. 103 and Revolt, Testimony, Petition: Artisanal Protests in Colonial Andhra by Swarnalatha

[3]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mogul