Parampara - Future of Craft Traditions

Paramparaa

future of craft traditions

Seminar Proceedings National Craft Seminar 2014 a part of, ‘Garvi Gurjari National Craft Fair and Summit 2014’

Paramparaa

future of craft traditions

National Craft Seminar 2014

a part of, ‘Garvi Gurjari National Craft Fair and Summit 2014’

Seminar Proceedings

organised and conducted by:

Design Innovation and Craft Resource Center (DICRC), CEPT University, Ahmedabad Partners:

Government of Gujarat

This publication is a compendium of the talks and papers presented at the seminar Paramparaa: Future of Craft Traditions held in Ahmedabad, India 21st February 2014.

While some are from the manuscripts submitted by the authors, some are edited transcripts of the talks delivered on the occastion and we trust that this compilation will be accepted more as a record of the day. .

Design Innovation and Craft Resource Center (DICRC) and the Faculty of Design, CEPT University wishes to acknowledge all speakers and participants for their contributions to this publication.

Every effort has been made to acknowledge copyright owners wherever necessary, but the publishers would be pleased to have any errors or omissions brought to their attention so that corrections may be published at a later printing.

Editing and Compilation: Rishav Jain Research Assistant: Samhita Gandhi

Published by Design Innovation and Craft Resource Center (DICRC) Faculty of Design, CEPT University Kasturbhai Lalbhai Campus, University Road Navrangpura, Ahmedabad 380 009.

Gujarat, INDIA All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or published in any form or by any means including print, photocopying and word-processing or distributed in return for payment or by public lending without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher.

Subject to copyright laws. All quotations, reprints etc. must include a reference to the title of this publication. Š 2014 Selection+Editorial Matter: DICRC Individual Papers: The Authors

Overview The National Craft Seminar 2014 - “Paramparaa: Future of Craft Traditions” was a part of the seven day long, ‘Garvi Gurjari National Craft Fair and Summit 2014’ from 21st to 27th February, 2014 at Ahmedabad organised by Ministry of Cottage Industries, Government of Gujarat, India.

The seminar was conducted and organised by Design Innovation and Craft Resource Center (DICRC), CEPT University, Ahmedabad who was the Partner Institute for the Garvi Gurjari National Craft Fair and Summit 2014. The seminar took place on the 21st February 2014 at Gujarat University Convention & Exhibition Center, Ahmedabad. The Seminar was targeted towards the craft sector and all the professionals related to it. The target audience comprised of craft-design professionals, master craftspeople, craft experts, buyers, researchers, academicians, students and other aspiring professionals.

For more information visit: www.nationalcraftseminar2014.com About Garvi Gurjari National Craft Fair & Summit 2014 Ministry of Cottage Industries, Government of Gujarat organized “Garvi-Gurjari National Craft Fair & Summit 2014” at Ahmedabad, Gujarat from 21st February to 27th February to showcase the handloom and handicraft products of Gujarat as well as from across the country and to bring all crafts on a single platform, so that the artisans can interact with the buyers directly, educate about the values imbibed in the respective crafts and enhance their business potential.

More information: www.garvigurjariexpo.com

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions National Craft Seminar 2014 21st February 2014 | 3:30 - 7:30 pm Gujarat University Convention and Exhibition Center, Ahmedabad

organised and conducted by:

Design Innovation and Craft Resource Center (DICRC), CEPT University, Ahmedabad Partners:

Government of Gujarat

Core Team Prof. Krishna Shastri A/Prof. Jay Thakkar A/Prof. Rishav Jain

Team Members Rajdeep Routh Mitraja Vyas Yash Rathod Tushita Varma Mansi Sathyanarayan Manushi Mathur 6 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Contents 1

Overview

2

Seminar Note

3

Seminar Focus Areas

4

Seminar Schedule

5

Welcome Address: Prof. Krishna Shastri

6

Introduction to DICRC : A/Prof. Jay Thakkar

7

Seminar Sessions

7.1

01. Putting Ideas First: Knowledge mapping as a catalyst for development, equity and growth in the crafts sector: Ritu Sethi, Anjali Bhatnagar

7.2

02. Branding and Marketing in Crafts Sector : Amita Puri

7.3

03: Creating Cultural Assests : Role of INTACH in Heritage Conservation and Crafts Promotion: Divay Gupta

7.4

04: Traditional Artisans and Technology: Kiran Vaghela

7.5

05: Technology Upgradation in Crafts: A.G. Rao

8

Question Answer Session

9

Concluding Session

10

About The Speakers About Design Innovation and Craft Resource Center (DICRC) About Indext C About Faculty of Design, CEPT University

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 7

8 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Seminar Note Craft Traditions in India represent the cultural ethos of the society from which they originate. Since craft is an extension of the culture of the community, it is a vital medium to communicate and sustain our own Indian culture. Crafts have been believed to exist, ever since the origin of mankind, and the craft traditions have been continued since then. The Garvi Gurjari National Craft Fair and Summit 2014 celebrates the rich craft traditions of India and National Craft Seminar will look at the diversity. The rich legacy of craft traditions needs to be continued and passed on to the future generations. This seminar looks forward in the future and attempts to redefine such continuing craft traditions. The seminar will discuss topics like Craft Mapping, Craft Design Innovations, Building Crafts, Marketing and Branding, Technological Advancements, and Education and Skill Development.

Seminar Focus Areas Craft Mapping Since the craft is a decentralized sector, it becomes essential to encompass an accurate amount of data related to this sector. Craft mapping is an essential tool that will help generate a vital evidence of sector size, which in turn will help identify various issues concerning the sector.

Branding and Marketing With increasing global exchanges between various countries, the craft sector in India is already making its mark in the global economy. In this situation diverse marketing and branding platforms provide a strong backing to the craftspeople, thereby making the selling and buying an easy activity. Marketing and branding play a crucial role in order to reach to larger markets and promoting Indian crafts on a global platform.

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 9

Building Crafts Right from the traditional and Verncaular houses, splendid palaces and magnificent monuments, crafts have been an integral part of the Interior Architecture in India.

Crafts in Built Environment looks at the enormity of scale of craft productions interwoven with layers of culture, traditions and modernity.

Craft Design Innovation The field of design is associated with crafts in a number of unconventional ways.

This topic takes a look at various design innovations which involve crafts wherein craftspeople make a vital contribution. Craft Design Innovation creates the synergy for collaborative processes leading towards value building. It also creates new set of skills and brings traditional and new design thinking knowledge together.

Technology Upgradation Technological advances help achieve better means of production. These advancements help to negotiate between the laborious tasks and creative skills of the craftspeople. By understanding various aspects of technological upgradations; a harmonious blend between craft and technology can be created in current milieu.

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Seminar Schedule Time

Details

11.00 am - 1.30 pm

Registration

3.30 pm - 3.45 pm

Welcome Address : Prof. Krishna Shastri

3.45 pm - 4.00 pm

Introduction to DICRC : A/Prof. Jay Thakkar

4.00 pm - 4.30 pm

Session 01: Anjali Bhatnagar

4.30 pm - 5.00 pm

Session 02: Amita Puri

5.00 pm - 5.10 pm

Question and Answer Session

5.10 pm - 5.30 pm

Tea Break

5.30 pm - 6.00 pm

Session 03: Divay Gupta

6.00 pm - 6.30 pm

Session 04: Kiran Vaghela

6.30 pm - 7.00 pm

Session 05: A.G. Rao

7.00 pm - 7.15 pm

Question and Answer Session

7.15 pm - 7.30 pm

Concluding Session : A/Prof. Rishav Jain

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 11

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Welcome Address Prof. Krishna Shastri Prof. Krishna Shastri is the Dean,

Namaste. Jai Shri Krishna. That is our traditional way of welcoming our guests. This

Faculty of Design and Coodinator, DICRC,

panchakshar consists of all prayers of the universe and brings joy and the warmth

CEPT University, Ahmedabad

of receiving. With that spirit, I welcome you all to our seminar, Paramparaa :Future of Craft Traditions.

I would like to extend my warm welcome to our eminent speakers for the day who have courteously agreed to be a part of this event. A very warm welcome to all our guests who are here with us from different parts of India and abroad. I also welcome all the Faculty members, students from various institutes across India. A very special welcome to the members of the Government of Gujarat – Indext C, and other dignitaries from Government.

India, as Mark Twain, the eminent author and scholar remarks, was the cradle of the human race, birth place of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of traditions: the one land all men desire to see and having once seen, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the show of all the rest of the globe.

The richness of the country lies in its diversity where each sector has made contributions globally. And, one cannot forget the Paramparaas in varied fields, and today we celebrate one such Paramparaa: Our Craft Traditions.

Out of a million colored strands of tradition filled with song and verse, legends, myths, native romances and episodes, the instances of everyday life of the community and out of nature’s own rich storehouse, was woven a rich creative and forceful art. The role of Craft in the Indian society was pivotal, for it made the village society self contained, which later inspired in Gandhiji’s dream of Sarvodaya- a self supporting community which stood for the good of all.

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 13

The execution of craft was not just an economic compulsion but a sacred duty. The growth of crafts in society was the sign of the cultivation of sensitivity. Craft was a way of life. I remember, Gandhiji when he says, “A country remains poor in wealth, both materially and intellectually, if it does not develop its handicrafts and its industries and lives a lazy parasitic life by importing all the manufactured articles from outside. There was a time when we manufactured almost all we wanted. The process is now reversed, and we are dependent upon the outside world for most manufactured goods. We do not want to follow the frog-in-the-well policy, nor in seeming to be international, lose our roots. We cannot be international, if we lose our individuality, i. e., nationality.”

Dr. Radhakrishnan also narrated craft spirit in Indian environment and considered it as a key factor for the Nation’s development. Renowned philosopher and thinker, Rabindranath Tagore also says, “Life is perpetually creative because it contains in itself that surplus which ever overflows the boundaries of the immediate time and space, restlessly pursuing its adventure of expression in the varied forms of selfrealization.”

Tagore reminds me of Shantiniketan’s philosophy of ‘knowing crafts and weaving them in the life of learners’. But much before Shantiniketan, we have lots of literature of Takshila. Takshila university was established in around 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The campus accommodated students from as far as Babylonia, Greece, Syria, Arabia and China and offered over sixty courses in various fields, such as science, mathematics, medicine, politics, warfare, astrology, astronomy, music, religion and philosophy where craft was an integral part of science and technology.

At School of Interior Design, CEPT University, the living traditions - Arts and Crafts have been the integral part of our teaching and learning philosophy right from its inception. An intensive amount of research is being carried out in craft sector today as well. We have established, three years back, with the help of INDEXT C, 14 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Government of Gujarat; Design Innovation and Craft Resource Centre. We have looked at crafts and craftspeople in a very different plane. we have shared our experiences with various scholars, designers, professionals and even with small scale industries. Our concerns led us to organise series of seminars to derive new visions out of discussions with various people from various fields.

Our first series of seminar was, Interior Design Traditions where we focussed on 1) before independence, 2) After Independence and 3) the contemporary times. It gave us visual mapping of total phenomenon of craft traditions and its expressions at various scales as an integral part of Space Making. The second step was to create a dialogue between all the fields of crafts and that gave us opportunity to look at crafts very closely in an integrated manner.

This would be our third series of seminars starting today concentrating on touching, feeling, knowing the real crafts, and nurturing them so that it flourishes to the fullest in the future. Each craft has its own life to it, from where it grows, nurtures and expands. We need to understand that craft is like a living organism, where there is a complex life like system behind it. We need to take craft forward by holding hand in hand, where we have added sensitivity, sensibility and responsibility.

We should understand, craft will develop when they speak of an age when dignity lay in silence and beauty in subtlety. With this attempt, we have invited eminent speakers from all over India discussing topics like Craft Design Innovation, Craft Mapping, Identity Development, Building Crafts and Technological Up gradation.

The idea is not merely to look at these as subjects or topics but larger areas of concerns where we all need to work upon. We need to develop an attitude where all our understanding is assimilated towards crafts and craftspeople. A reflection of which will be seen in our society.

Through such intentions, our concerns needs to be addressed in a very different Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 15

manner, and many questions arise in all our minds, What should be the process of revival of crafts, is an appropriate technology for crafts sector an answer? Is it really necessary to increase the speed of production of craft elements? If so, how one would take craft community along. Can we Assimilate crafts in our modern day to day living and living environment? what are the various sectors involved in assimilation process? and also, what role does a designer play in transforming the entire scenario. With such thoughts, I hope this seminar acts as an undercurrent to many of us and provokes us to understand the profoundness that lies within the vast world of Craft.

Thank you.

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Introduction to DICRC A/Prof. Jay Thakkar A/Prof. Jay Thakkar is the Head of Research

What was interesting today morning when we were sitting for Shri Narendra

at DICRC and an Asstistant Professor

Modi’s speech; he actually talked about four larger issues which we are kind of

at Faculty of Design, CEPT University,

dealing with. One issue that he talked about is the data collection and mapping

Ahmedabad

and understanding who are these crafts people. And we will go through the presentation; I will show you that that is one of the areas of focus. Second he talked about education and training, like online courses, E-courses. I am really talking about design courses to the crafts people and that’s the second area. Third he talked about innovation and fourth he talked about largely marketing and branding. And these are the kind of issues that we have been dealing with at DICRC at large. So I am just going to briefly run through what we do at the center.

We have largely five focus areas. One is the research and documentation, second is innovation and development, third is education and training, fourth is application, collaboration and fifth is resource building and dissemination.

Largely within the research, we look at traditional and vernacular buildings and crafts. Innovation and development looks at bringing crafts people and designers together onto two sets of platform where they work together and produce innovations. Education and training largely looks at training the crafts people as well as training the designers about the crafts. Fourth is application and collaboration where we collaborate with various bodies, NGOs, organizations and universities to develop research and design projects. And finally when we put all of this together, it has to go out into the public domain, into an open source. So we are trying to develop a resource bank with all of this our data is out in the public domain.

Note: This is an edited transcript of the talk delivered at the event.

This is a little run through of what we have in the research and documentation.

We do building mapping because we look at buildings and crafts as synonymous where our team goes and maps various buildings.

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 17

We have developed a mobile application where all the data is recorded on that application and then it is put down online. This map is online so then it is available for people to see the buildings which are worth documenting. We are also trying to develop a catalogue for traditional building elements where columns, doors, windows and everything is up online.

Second area is documentation where we understand that for us the building is a code of knowledge and we want to decode them. So that is one of the reasons why we do mapping and then we do documentation where the entire team goes.

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Core focus areas of DICRC

We have documented a couple of houses in Gujarat, Himachal and Uttarakhand.

We do extensive set of drawings to the last core and the last detail of nut and bolt.

So tomorrow if we need to reconstruct all of them, there is a possibility to do that.

They are converted into AutoCad 3-Dimentional drawings and they will be out for people to use them.

Second we do an analysis of what are the different crafts that are being used, what are the traditional techniques, what are the methods of construction so that it can be woven back into the education, into the profession. We are trying to develop an interactive kit. If you all have time; this kit is live and working at the CEPT DICRC pavilion. It is like a walk-through of an entire house and various elements which are there. So you can click on them, they will open up, they will tell you which crafts have been used and which are the different components. It is an educational kit; it is a first live project. It is up and running. All of you have received a kit today and it has a CD in it, that CD contains this. So please make sure that you go through it and share this information with everybody.

A snapshot of Interactive Kit (left) and Researchers doing Craft Mapping (center and right)

Another area that we are looking at is craft mapping. Our team goes there and identifies the different sets of crafts people. We all talked about crafts today. Shri Narendra Modi also talked about various crafts people, but we really don’t know where they are, who they are. So that is why we have started this pilot project to Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 19

identify who are these people. Secondly for us understanding the people associated to building are not really recognized because when we look at crafts as a product and not as a service sector. We are also trying to map all the people who are related to building crafts. Similarly we have a mobile tool, an online tool where we put up the data and so all these people’s information will be up online tomorrow for you to review. You can search them by craft or by technique or by region or by specific status.

We do various work in cluster mapping. We identify the crafts. We do documentation, so understanding who these crafts people are, what are the processes, what are the methods and the social conditions. We are trying to develop a detailed listing of various building crafts which is happening, so trying to understand the crafts which are associated to interiors and architecture and trying to develop various projects and portfolios in relation to that.

We do various workshops, we have done around 6-7 workshops till now. This is the Earth Craft Workshop, before that we did Metal Craft but we have not been able to put it up. We did the Earth Craft Workshop in collaboration with Hunarshala, Kiranbhai is sitting with us who is one of the speakers. We basically develop and bring crafts people and artisans together on the same platform and they work for a period of 7-10 days or 15 days together to develop new sense of ides, new sense of innovation and sharing of knowledge between both the fields. There are various prototypes which are developed out of this where Adobe, Rammed Earth, Wattle & Daub were the three techniques which were explored to develop various elements. This was the wood workshop where around 30 crafts people and 30 students, designers, architects and professionals from across India had come on board to develop various sets of let’s say collaborative co-creations with wood carving, turning, carpentry, inlay and they had developed various sets of products, all of this is on display in the pavilion.

We do various exhibitions, this was the one with stone. it was about stone technics 20 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Space Making Earth Craft Workshop

we did various industry visits and called various speakers. We had developed various partitioning systems because we understand that if we can use stone as a dry construction system and we can use it in multiple manners, we were trying to do as a small scale production system. This was the exhibition which we had developed.

This was the second workshop on Bamboo. We had around 24 crafts people and 24 designers who got together as a team of two persons (one craft person and one designer), and they developed 24 different products. This is the exhibition of that.

This was the Lacquer Craft where we worked with the people from Dholka who came together and developed let’s say a partition but more like a demonstration of what they can do. So, these are the kind of different techniques, forms, colours, scales. We have also been working with Surface Narrative crafts we have done two workshops, one is with Madhubani painting and the second one is with the Gond.

The artisans had come down from Bihar and we kind of had the whole display system and worked on various different aspects of two – dimensional paintings.

We have started something called Innovation Internship and Innovation Fellowship program because we strongly believe that it is very important to link design and craft together. This was one of the project in which Poorna from IICD had come and worked with us to develop a stone partitioning system. Helen from France had developed an exhibition system. Jimena from Mexico had developed a modular system. This is where we collaborated with Craft Canvas who helped us in developing this product. It’s called Aarka is a modular system.

It will be soon available online for the sale. So what we are trying to do is bring designers and crafts people together and develop new products, put them in the market and then bring that item back into the craft center. We work with faculty of design for various research dissertations which are there. We are also trying to develop various training modules during the workshops, during the sessions and during the discussions which people use in order to develop new systems.

Arka: Outcome of our Innovation Internship Program

We are trying to develop craft documentaries which are currently online and free Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 21

on the Youtube. We are basically trying to promote crafts through various mediums.

As we say that we have done this seminar; this is another series that we did earlier which was called Celebrating Skills, Samvaad. We have various lectures from various speakers, professionals, crafts people talking on various platforms and these are open to all. The information for that is largely available on our website so whoever wants to participate can come and do that. We have worked with Hunarshala on one of the training courses which they are developing on the Rammed Earth construction. We are there in the discussion sessions during the development.

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3-d panaoramic reconstruct : a part of Indigenous Building Practices 01 - Himachal Pradesh

We have worked with the University of Melbourne very closely for the project in Himachal Pradesh. We have done documentation, planning and research on various different houses and temples of Himachal Pradesh. We have mapped around 14 different villages in Himachal and put down all the information which was all converted in a research project into a book called Prathaa, which is available online currently on Amazon. It was published by SID Research Cell and this entire project has got the Zoomtobell Award for one of the finest research projects.

We have worked in Uttarakhand on the houses in Kumaon, documented some of the houses and for that we had got some funding from Zurich. We have done some of the exhibitions and pavilions that because we constantly believe that it has to be out in the open and we should share the information constantly with public in order that a larger segment of the society can benefit from this. This was in Ahmedabad haat, and this was in IIID pavilion, Bombay. This was with the Craft Roots exhibition in Vadodara what we had done. These are some of the collaborations that we have with some of the organizations, institutions, and partners.

This is one of the interesting sections because what we are trying to do is whatever the data we have, we are currently putting it all online. It is available for everybody to use as an open source platform because we strongly believe that if you really want to take the craft sector to a next segment, we all need to share data. We cannot hold on to the data because we are largely getting that information and knowledge from the crafts people and they are ready to share their knowledge anytime. And that’s the kind of policy that we are also trying to adopt over here.

We are trying to develop two labs – Building Lab and the Craft Lab, and within both the Labs all our data related to buildings, crafts, mapping, documentation and portfolio. It is in the process, it will soon be up. We have a data bank where all the reports and everything is up. So all our papers, collections everything is currently available online for anybody to use.

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 23

And that is our website which is called dicrc.in. It is open so anybody can come in and share; and hopefully soon we will also be able to provide a platform where if you have some data and if you would like to share, then we are trying to work towards that so that the larger segment can also contribute towards the craft center.

Thank you very much!

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Snapshot of Gallery on the DICRC Website

Seminar Sessions Anjali Bhatnagar Amita Puri Divay Gupta Kiran Vaghela A. G. Rao

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 25

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Putting Ideas First: Knowledge mapping as a catalyst for development, equity and growth in the crafts sector Presented by Anjali Bhatnagar, Written by Ritu Sethi Anjali Bhatnagar works with Craft

The crafts1 of India pose a challenge to us all. There are a multitude of characteristics

Revival Trust, New Delhi

and situations, materials and processes, contexts and regional variations that encompass this one word. What we wish to explore here given this vibrant cultural legacy is the path to development and sustainability, emphasizing mapping, access to information and the necessity for knowledge-based intervention as one of the several critical catalysts in the creation of an enabling environment for the crafts and craftspersons in India.

As we are all aware, craftspersons2 work with materials as diverse as metal, wood, clay, paper, glass, grass, fibre, leather, textiles, and much more. From the making of the Nadaswaram, the classical wind instrument in Narasingapettai to the Perhkhuang, the bamboo string instrument from Mizoram, from the idols cast in bronze in Swamimalai to the Dhokra lost wax metal castings of the tribals of Bastar, from the weaving of Eri and uga in Assam to the embroidery of the Toda tribals in the Nilgiris the variety is enormous.

Equally relevant when talking about crafts is the widely dispersed nature of production with the parallel existence of isolated individual family units with large craft clusters. From rural hamlets outside the city of Banaras where brocade weaving is a home based activity involving family members to Pethapur where

Note: This paper is written by Ritu Sethi and was presented by Anjali Bhatnagar at the Seminar on her behalf.

Snapshot of Craft Revival Trust website

block-making similarly is a home-based activity to Bagh in Madhya Pradesh where the iconic block prints are produced in karkhanas with over a hundred persons employed.

Skills and techniques, craft ritual and folklore are handed down orally, within and across generations, taught through alternate knowledge transmission systems that Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 27

do not form part of mainstream educational systems prevalent today. Specialized crafts and handlooms are hereditary specialties passed on from generation to generation. The Moosaris of Kerala who cast the bell metal Charakku cooking utensils in diameters of up to 8 feet, the Patola yarn resist saris woven by members of the Salvi family in Patan characterised by mathematical precision in the multiple tying, dying and weaving, the Sthapatis of Swamimalia who cast the bronze idols are only some such examples.

Mainly located in rural areas, the craft sector provides employment to many millions, an overwhelming

majority of whom belong to the weaker, more

vulnerable sections of society, being either Scheduled caste or tribe or belonging to minorities or to other backward classes. These immense numbers of selfemployed, self-organised, skilled craftspersons are the bearers of India’s traditional knowledge, a source of creativity and keepers of our national cultural identity.

Over the last few decades shifting dynamics have led to an erosion of livelihoods in the craft sector. The crisis in crafts has been ascribed to many reasons, not least being the disappearance of traditional markets with a dramatic shift in consumer choice from hand-crafted, hand-woven goods to factory-made products. The economies of scale inherent to the factory sector result in the mass production of goods of uniform quality at prices unmatchable by craftpeople. Simultaneously, the availability of replicated craft products that are marketed as handcrafted, and traditional at far lower prices than the original has hit crafts people hard. Across villages and cities the once ubiquitous terracotta water container has been replaced by cheap, factory moulded plastic copies, with none of the advantages of the cooling and healing powers of clay for the user and to the detriment on the livelihood of local potters. From factory printed Bandhni, the traditional tied and dyed textile of Rajasthan and Gujarat to the rubber reproductions of the Kolahpuri chappals, to the hand woven brocades of Banaras now replicated on the powerloom, are only a few such examples.

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This coupled with an aggressive and sustained marketing push from the organised factory sector has rapidly expanded its market share. Craftspersons, themselves caught in a cycle of low output and marginal profits, and dispersed across the country, lack the marketing and lobbying power of the organised manufacturing sector and are unequipped to tackle this pressure. Compounding the crisis is the lack of interest in the younger generation of craft families in continuing in craft practice due to perceived prejudices and inequalities of status, which have led to issues of deskilling, urban migration and unemployment.

Hence, any path toward development and sustainability in the crafts cannot be isolated from this larger context and must simultaneously take into account all these dimensions. While seeking meaningful formats to work it is hardly surprising that there are any number of debates around the appropriate path to development, equity and sustainability. CRT presents for discussion a particular focus - knowledge intervention as an underlying premise for creating an enabling environment for the craft sector in India.

The selection of this focus on knowledge as an instrument for constructive change and a catalyst for introducing systematic, significant windows of opportunity for the crafts and craftspersons in this area of diverse traditions and pursuits, divergent customs and contemporary relevance is for five distinct reasons At the outset, it is well-documented and proven that free and open access to information creates an environment that empowers individuals and societies.

Second, for any strategy or action to succeed, an accessible framework of information and data is a necessary prerequisite, as the availability of information works as a problem-solving methodology which can be applied as a tool for development, essentially as a means of removing bottlenecks to viability and growth. Given the scale and potential of the sector, the absence of hard facts and lack of information not only on the numbers involved but also on changes and developments in this Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 29

area, have been a major reason why the sector has so often been ignored at policy levels and by development experts.

A third reason for this approach is that although techniques and skills are abundant, craftspersons themselves often remain isolated owing to their inability to access information. This lacunae of information thus curtails the ability of craft communities to respond effectively within the contemporary matrix, in effect crippling those who suffer from the twin drawback of information deprivation and poor outreach. At a time when the rest of India is going through a phase of resurgence facilitated by the growth of the general economy, the effects of economic reform and benefits of the rapid spread of information technology have largely bypassed the craftsperson, creating a new form of deprivation and impoverishment for those with no access.

Fourth, for revitalizing crafts, especially languishing ones, the documentation of crafts is an invaluable reference source and imperative for the development of the sector, for preserving traditions and protecting copyright. There is an urgent need to research, analyse, categorise, and document craft traditions and developments.

For developmental intervention to be effective it is necessary to study traditions and develop an understanding of the constraints and parameters within which craftspersons operate. Craftspersons themselves do not have access to the knowledge of their forefathers and there is a very real danger of techniques, motifs, designs and traditions dying out due to change, underuse, or even the death of a specialised artisan or craft family/group. The fact that many craft traditions are oral makes documentation even more critical. In the absence of any documentation, oral traditions, once lost, can never be revived. It is a permanent loss. This cannot be overemphasised. To quote Hampate Ba, “ We loses a library when a craftsperson dies.�

The fifth reason for the use of knowledge-based interventions, is that despite the progress in communication technologies, there are glaring gaps in awareness, 30 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

information and exposure about the crafts and craftspersons. In fact, there is a surprising lack of information about craftspersons and craft products in the public space. Information, even when available, is hard to access, often out of print, and frequently out of reach. This seems even more glaring considering their contribution not only to the economy in terms of employment but also their immense cultural significance.

The challenge ahead lies in designing frameworks that are sensitive to the sheer complexity of the sector while simultaneously reflecting its dynamism and pervasive plurality. This knowledge-based intervention is poised as a value-add and while urbanization and its consequent ramifications have fostered change it has required all of us to take on an anticipatory stance. To move from being victims lamenting a loss to an informed lobby with the ability to highlight and address, successfully, issues that affect the sector while simultaneously establishing its contribution.

It is time to build an information and knowledge infrastructure for the crafts. To remedy the relative neglect of this aspect at a time when despite the value of crafts being recognised world-wide innumerable factors continue to endanger their very experience.

What is critical at this juncture is to explore the issues that confront the process and to evolve methods of thinking and acting- guidelines, if we may that contribute to making this process a meaningful exercise.

The first step would be to create a baseline foundation of the crafts a censuscum-economic survey on the situation at hand. The process needs to involve all the constituents while rooting the work in a development framework with the craftsperson at the centre of the exercise. Defining the terminology, clarifying misused definitions, counting the numbers, making available a list of creators of the craft form, are some of the tasks that need to be undertaken. At another level Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 31

is the documenting of community knowledge, traditionally transmitted orally, the raw materials and their processing, colours and motifs used, the ritual or symbolic significance of the process of creation, techniques employed, values ascribed to a piece, the norms, perceptions and beliefs associated with a piece, are some of these. Presenting not only the skills and techniques involved but the specific meanings of the form of expression, meanings derived from the local context in which the craftspersons operate and the purpose for which they produce. A small step in this direction has already been taken by the Craft Revival Trust to create an accessible infrastructure for the crafts on the web. Making information freely available on craftspersons and on a wide variety of craft subjects available, to anyone at anytime and anywhere.

I am delighted to say that in 2012-13 the CRT encyclopedia received over 5.8 million hits. The site now has information on over 1100 crafts with over 65,000 craftspeople listed - www.craftrevival.org The next step would be to build a theoretical framework that legitimizes and amalgamates the principles and concepts of oral, and local knowledge of craft practice within the commonly accepted scientific and technological infrastructure.

This knowledge, an intrinsic part of craft practice developed over the ages has responded and evolved to changing ecologies and environs. For instance the understanding of plant material by craftspersons to weave baskets, thatch homes, make furniture, build bridges, make music, create colour and a myriad other uses is only one such example. We need to apply scientific rigour to the study of processing of materials and techniques of craft production wether it be plant or metal, leather or clay, stone or wood by uncovering and studying the underlying principles at the heart of the technicalities of craft. Studying the parameters and creating standards and applications while retaining the creative, removing the subjective approach.

This collaboration among scientists, technologists and the bearers of oral craft knowledge through application of stringent scientific principles to traditional hereditary knowledge to document concepts, principles, applications and practices could lead to a uniquely Indian knowledge system, creating networks and linkages 32 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

both within and outside the sector giving India a global edge.

A third step would be the introduction of craft study in the curriculam of schools and colleges, recognising that the current lack of awareness, not only on the material cultural manifestation but also on producers, is a form of deprivation for everyone of us. This need has become even more immediate with the passing of the Right to Education bill and the push to universalise access to education at the secondary level especially since there is an underlying belief that knowledge garnered from text books is superior to received oral knowledge. Simultaneously, there has to be a move towards greater equity, a removal of barriers within academia and scientific and technological laboratories, against the bearers of craft-related knowledge for a more equitable, even-handed inclusive education. Moving beyond tokenism to create substantive chang. In 2003 DeMontFort University, Leicester, UK awarded an honorary Doctorate to the master Ajrak hand block printer and natural dye revivalist Shree Ismail Khatri.

Simultaneously information relevant to the crafts sector and for craftspersons has to be better disseminated to reach the target audiences. This includes making sure that information related to government schemes and programs, responsibilities of institutions like the National Handloom Development Corporation, weavers service centres, etc., banks and financial institutions programs be transparent and easily available to craftspeople. Linked to this is sensitising such institutions to the needs of craftspersons, by training them on how to work with the sector. Concurrently there is need to create linkages and networks to help craftspersons out of their relative isolation by improving their access to market intelligence on trends and forecasts, product and design development, technological improvements that reduce drudgery, and other areas that draw them into the mainstream of progress.

Fifth, using international legal instruments like Geographic Indicators (GI), for which India has become a signatory, for protection of intellectual property of craftspersons. While building and strengthening the post GI registration measures Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 33

to prevent unauthorised commercial exploitation and protect the craftsperson.

Simultaneously work towards identifying a national community rights approach that strengthens and makes communities aware of their rights.

We are aware that these are paths as yet not travelled. However we are optimistic about the contribution that can be made and we need to continue to push out boundaries and create the freedom to learn study, preserve, choose, connect and reach.

Footnote 1.The term craft has been used in a generic manner to include the hand crafted and hand woven, inclusive of pre and post loom work and pre and post craft work.

2.The term craftsperson has been used generically to cover weavers, artisans, pre and post loom work and pre and post craft work.

3.Official government statistics estimate that over 135 lakh people are engaged in this sector 65.51 lakh in handlooms and 70 lakh persons in handicrafts.

34 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Branding and Marketing in the Crafts Sector Amita Puri Amita Puri is the Executive Director of All

The inaugural session today as well as the welcome address mentioned about

India Artisans and Craft workers Welfare

the craft traditions and richness in India. Looking at the current landscape, we

Association (AIACA), New Delhi

neither see the crafts context too much in the current urban setup, nor do we see workshops or factories practicing it. The context is largely rural, disorganized and home-based. The people who practice it are primarily people who are socially and economically vulnerable. As a consequence, as discussed by Anjali, they suffer not only from the lack of knowledge and access to raw materials; but also from the lack of technology and design, market research, credit and markets for them. Recently; or it has been happening for the last few decades, the competition from the millmade products has been plaguing the sector.

If we look at the available support; we have a lot of government schemes at the central level as well as the state level that exist for the artisans and promotion of the sector. The basic issue lies in the implementation and the evaluation of those schemes. Also, the private sector investment, marketing or creation of supply chains is inadequate, and awareness of the sector and sensitization especially amongst the youth in the country is fairly low.

It is not that this sector is devoid of any kind of potential. If we look at the export figures; they were about over ten thousand crores two years ago. We have a growing middle class and an expanding domestic market. We have also started hearing about socially responsible consumers who are asking for ethically produced goods such as the natural dies and organic products. According to me the biggest advantage of the craft sector is that it is largely ecology sensitive. Italy is a great example where the entire economy is transformed and it has built its brand only

Note: This is an edited transcript of the

on the hand-made sector’s potential.

talk delivered at the event.

These are just some figures to show the exports of handicrafts from India. During Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 35

2012-2013. It was 3.3 billion with 22% growth over the previous year. There is an increase in domestic consumption and it continues to provide livelihood to millions of people. For such a sector which is the second largest employment giver in India; branding and marketing become very important aspects. If we look at branding in general, the purpose or the objective of branding is to build awareness and purchase intent. Therefore as a characteristic, it is inseparable from the product or the business firm that is promoting it. The purpose of branding is also to build the image and personality, develop brand loyalty and to be able to distinguish the product from the other products.

Some examples of what has been or can be done to build a brand for the sector exist in geographical indications. They are primarily a tool to protect intellectual property rights which came into existence in India in 1999. The fact that geographical indications are available for indigenous knowledge and the craft traditions are primarily presented in rural areas present a good way for us to tap into them and lead to the increased sales as a result. There have been about 184 registrations under geographical indications out of which 50% were in the handicraft and handloom field.. These were last year’s figures and I am sure that the numbers would have increased by now. The rest include agriculture and food items. As I spoke about the increases, it would be an advantage if we could use these figures for branding or promoting handicrafts. The potential is great; however there have been few limitations.

One is the registration process itself as it does not protect the knowledge or the technology. The benefits have not percolated down to the real producers and there have been no post GI mechanisms, neither for strategies for branding nor for marketing or distribution or even enforcement.

This is a second example of how certification has been used to give branding for the sector and this is being done by AIACA. I don’t know how many of you are aware of craftmark but if you buy Fab-India products then you will see it on most of the products. Fab-India uses craftmark. The objective of craftmark initially was 36 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

to deal with the competition from machine made products, which was the biggest challenge affecting the crafts people or the craft members who were a part of the network that AIACA represents. There was no way that people could distinguish between the hands done and machine embroidery. The second one was about creating a brand for the sector and the third was to be able to position the goods for them through the brand to get the premium prices in the market.

We follow a specific process for awarding the craftmark certification. For each craftmark certification there is a verification visit that happens where the documented processes for that particular craft are validated. Once the validation happens along with certain social standards like minimum wedges being paid, no child labor being employed; the craftmark certification is provided. 153 organizations have been awarded craftmark since its inception about 6 years ago.

The members are present across 20 states in India including NGOs, individual artisans and organizations in the private sector.

Like craftmark you would have also heard of the government promoted marks. The handloom mark and the silk mark are known including craftmark and the other marks. I think the challenges that lie are in the realm of outreach. We haven’t been able to reach out to enough craft people or craft groups in terms of authenticity.

So how do you insure that its only authentic products that carry that mark; talking not only about craftmark but other marks as well. Also, once the certificate has been provided, how do you insure the enforcement and create awareness about the mark itself.

Interestingly last week we had someone from NDTV marketing division who was volunteering at the organization and we said what are the possibilities about branding and craftmark and the solutions as far as the sector is concerned. She came up with two or three ideas which I am sharing with you here. Some of them have been tried on a small scale by some organizations. They are basically in the realm of tying up with a TV channel to host a craft based campaign. The tie ups Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 37

with magazines were to talk about the stories, behind the scene stories, the kind of work that has happened with designers and crafts people tie ups along with the role of social enterprises in providing livelihood and capacity building. There are lots of such examples and many of them come from the Kutch area in Gujarat.

The third was about the tie ups with hotels. There have been tie ups as small scale experiments in the realm of craft tours which is another example of how crafts can be linked with tourism. Moving onto marketing, most people and most craft practitioners understand the fact that if the market did not exist then there wouldn’t be the craft people either. Looking at the craft sector and why people buy crafts; the reasons are beauty, utility and uniqueness. Markets have a huge potential to provide a commercial relationship that provides sustainable livelihoods as well as links to technologies, and access and experiences that can help the crafts people in escaping from poverty and getting a sustainable source of livelihood. A market that works for the crafts people should look at certain things which include greater earnings for producers and workers as well as greater affordability for the poor consumers with improved choice and reduced risk.

The typical challenge that the craft sector faces while interfacing with the market is because of its nature and everything that we have been speaking and hearing about.

It is primarily the lack of resources to meet quality and quantity requirements to adapt to changing conditions. Also, the high transaction costs, limited negotiating ability, understanding, their position in terms of the par equation and the lack of market orientation are the reasns for it. There have been experiments and some success stories as well or the challenges that we have heard about; there are stories of some work done towards that. The work that CEPT shared about their center also included some of these areas.

So, in case of marketing what are the typical platforms that are being used currently apart from the government emporiums? Some of them have done a reasonably good job including local haats and bazaars. Your local markets are not completely 38 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

devoid of crafts. Any saadi shop will contain both hand loom and power loom. It is a different matter that they will try to sell powerloom saadis as handloom saadis.

There is an interesting e-commerce experiment or a flood of websites that has started selling hand-crafted products. You have Jaipur, you have ‘India in my bag’ and even main line web portals that have started looking at hand crafted goods.

Regarding exhibition platform - apart from Delhi haat, which started in the 90’s; the same story is now being replicated across many cities, though unfortunately not on the same successful level. We also have private entrepreneurs and social enterprises that are working towards increasing the market for crafts.

This is from the AIACA example; we come up with a catalogue every year that goes to largely the overseas buyers. This is a partnership that we have with a chain in the US where they talk about craftmark and promote hand crafted goods. Apart from this, there is a shift from exports to the domestic sector. I have been speaking about the growing middle class and the fact that there is a customer base that is increasingly asking for hand crafted goods; we have looked at things like corporate gifting catalogues. We have also looked at an e-store and other events to tap into

Craftmark Showcase: A diverse trunk of products

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 39

this market.

One of the government examples that I really like is the Chhattisgarh Handicraft Development Corporation where they have looked at things like a“mobile emporium”. The person who was heading that told me that allthey did was to carry the emporium right in front of one of the very popular malls in Gurgaon and they said that they sold everything within four hours. They have also come up with a website. They have come up with their own hologram and guarantee cards to induce trust in the products that they sell. They have spoken to military canteens and also talked to the railways; and he told me that MOUs are in progress to promote handicrafts apart from the tie up with tourism in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh both.

While marketing and branding are very important for the craft sector, I don’t think we can look at them in isolation. We need to look at the support that is holistic and provide inputs that affect each part of the value chain for us to make this into a growth industry.

40 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Creating Cultural Assets Role of INTACH in Heritage Conservation and Crafts Promotion Divay Gupta Divay Gupta is the Principal Director at

I have a very small fraction of work that we do in crafts. My main work is related to

Architectural Heritage, Indian National

heritage conservation, which is looking at historic buildings and their restoration.

Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage

And my presentation is

(INTACH), Delhi

conservation and alight field of craft promotion thereby. I am just going to give

about the role that INTAC plays in both heritage

you a small background to establish the context as I understand most of the people here are from the craft sector and not from the heritage conservation sector.

As we understand that perhaps India is a blessed country where we might have the highest concentration of heritage anywhere in the world which includes a large part of built heritage and all these photographs that you see are actually all from Gujarat. Within India, I think Gujarat would be perhaps a place which has the highest concentration of heritage within India. During the British period, half of the principalities out of 500 were in Gujarat. However most of this heritage is highly threatened, a lot of it is not known and not even protected. Very small handful close to about 7000 or 9000 heritage buildings in this country are actually protected between the central government and the state government, including not only British buildings or people’s homes but also archeological sites, or even 7th century temples like this one in Kutch. For that matter eventhough the oldest Muslim monument in the country, the Ibrahim Roza; which actually came 40 years before the Muslim conquest; established that even Islam came to India peacefully.

May be in a smaller doze but yes it also came peacefully through traders like Christianity and other religion.

Note: This is an edited transcript of the talk delivered at the event.

So in this context INTACH was established exactly 30 years ago mainly to document as well as then conserve and promote this unprotected heritage. We work through divisions. I am representing the Architectural Heritage division here which looks Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 41

after the building conservation part and my colleague Bindu Manchanda is also here who is from the Craft and Community Heritage division. We have other divisions doing training, which is the Heritage Academy, Documentation Center.

We have education services to raise awareness; along with a Tourism Division.

Recently we have also started documenting the intangible heritage which is quite closely linked with the tangible heritage that we list. We also have Material Heritage and Natural Heritage divisions. Our main mandate is basically to conserve the unprotected heritage, which we first identify through listing, mapping, research and documentation and then take up a few of these examples as pilot projects for their conservation.

One of our emphases has been the adaptive reuse of these heritage buildings, focusing mainly on creating cultural assets. And a lot of these reuses are actually related to crafts as they have become craft centers or haats or some tourism activity which in some way or the other promotes crafts. Also, during conservation we require a lot of building crafts and not the embellishment craft which sometimes are not even considered crafts such as carpentry work, masonry work and lime work which are basically traditional construction skills.

These are our aim and main objectives of Architectural Heritage division and like any other profession we are also governed by certain principles. As we have a very weak legislative framework, most of the times we need to rely on the international conversation principles which are Euro centric to a very high degree. At times they conflict with the continuity and craft traditions. The first principle says preserve as farms. This is a very ruin, monumental centric approach where we are expected to do minimal interventions. You are not supposed to add anything to the building to retain authenticity in both material and skills during its conservation. So there is very little a crafts person can be involved with. As in his creativity will not be utilized there if he was to exactly replicate or do only a small restoration of a broken jaali. And even for the new interventions there is a principle that it has to be clearly identifiable. These are issues or conflicts which go against the living 42 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

tradition of the crafts per say the conservation norms. Also I think the replication and reconstruction is highly fraud upon or it has to be done in real emergency cases where we have absolute documentation.

Inthis context about 10 years ago we came up with our own charter; INTAC Charter for Conservation which we thought is more grounded to the Indian context. This was actually a challenge to the international charters or principles and we tend to follow the INTAC charter for our works. I will just share a few examples based on this charter that we have been working on for last 10-12 years and this is where we have addressed that dilemma between craft continuity and conservation principles.

Our charter talks about the use of local materials and traditional technologies.

The building conservation process should sustain the traditional skills and the knowledge base, along with improvement of quality of life within these local communities and also contribute towards the continuity of the skills. So this is more to do with not preserving a monument but continuing the tradition it was built within.

Restoration Plan of Reusing

For example, this is Gohar Mahal, an 1819 building which was up for demolition

Historic Gohar Mahal -1819 As Bhopal Haat – Craft Center 2005. and involvement of craftspeople (Right)

and declared as unsafe building by the government. We were able to rescue and restore it in 2005 and reutilize it as a craft center. Now it is almost like a hub. If we did not have to use the monumental centric approach, we would not have been Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 43

able to make certain changes or replicate such things. I think that even the cost was much less then for a new construction if we were to do that. During the process we also realized that a large amount of craft skills that went into the building were not available locally. Only very few people knew that kind of lime work or the finish.

The very shiny lime plaster was so complicated which incidentally we still have not been able to replicate. Even after about 3-4 chemical tests we were not able to understand what were the exact constituents within it. There were these kinds of challenges and very few people in Bhopal knew how to make lime plaster. Most of them had moved to cement plaster. So whole capacity building had to be done, training had to be undertaken to be able to do that including the technique for wall paintings. However it is a good example of a reuse and a particular building was saved which had a dual purpose. It revived quite a few building crafts and also became a platform for other artisans and crafts people to be able to sell their ways as a craft haat or a craft center. These are just some examples and photographs of how this building is used today. And just to give a few numbers, there are about fifty new trained building craft persons and almost about a thousand artisans are getting the benefits every year because of this haat. This was one of the first conservation projects. Now interestingly after this, all these fifty people have been engaged in many other projects related to state archeology. Also, some other heritage hotels started coming up, so these people got continued employment.

Another project that we did was a building in Srinagar that had got gutted in a fire accident in 1998 and we started restoring it in 2000. We basically recreated the entire essence of this building and converted it into a state emporium. This was actually a residence and because of the state emporium, we had to incorporate a lot of modern requirements. So we used kind of a balanced approach where the building shell is actually historic but the insides are quite modern. All the walls were saved during the process but the building was built around it. And in fact when we started in 1999, Srinagar was still not a very safe place. The militancy was just about dying. We got only four hours to work and this was the result. In 2004 this was inaugurated and we were able to recreate it to the exact finest detail of how it 44 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Restoration of Emporium building, Srinagar

existed and this is the inside. You can still see the old walls that have been retained.

This is the state emporium and we didn’t plaster the old walls but plastered the ones that we built. This emporium now showcases the Kashmiri crafts. And even this was challenging because there was a large amount of unemployment of the local crafts people especially the people who used to make Shikaras because there was no tourism in 1989. As the militancy started about in 2000, they didn’t have any work to do for almost 10-15 years. This building had beautiful carvings and there was a very little record of what those carvings were; we just had a few photographs.

But we let the old masters decide on what kind of carving was the best. We could just found a few of these and then these old masters were able to find others. They used the same techniques and about 50 young boys were able to produce this kind of work. It is not authentic in any way as we do not know if this was the same arch but it is of the same period. This project gave them this employment and also Interior view of Emporium building, Srinagar

contributed to the local economy.

A similar case is Moti Mahal in Gwalior, which is actually a development commissioner’s office but inside it was the Darbar hall, which was the first assembly building in Madhya Pradesh. Before Bhopal became the capital, Gwalior was the capital and one opposition member had thrown a chair here. The chair was still lying and the building was not working but we were able to restore it back. It had rooms like these. This is also a lost craft, most of the people thought they were precious stone but after a lot of research actually now we know that it is Meenakari work.

Actually this is just glass work with a foil behind it. But it is so beautifully

done that even if you see all of it; it is actually replicating the Pitrudura work. Since it was in the office, everybody used to kind of take this out thinking these are Rubys or those kinds of things. We were able to replicate this piece and again involved a few local people but this involved a lot of conservators.The craft people were not really involved because this technique is lost and there are no craft people available to do this. So this is where the conservators stepped in and they were able to replicate and do this kind of work.

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 45

Another example is of Chanderi. It is again a dual thing about using a particular

Before and After Images of Restoration of

building for crafts as a reuse and crafts for its restoration. This is the state of the

Mahal Parisar, Chanderi, MP

building that we got; this is the main palace building. This was just a pile of stones and during restoration we were able to find most of these columns; we were able to put them together. When we managed to clear it; there was almost one storey of debris. All the beams were just lying and this was another process of identifying what column was from where and what beam of what size.

This was used as a public lavatory for the entire village and this is what we were able to restore it back to. This is basically how we found the building originally, during the process, and this is what it is today. It is a training center for the weavers.

Chanderi is known for its textile, I am sure all of you know. And this is actually a training center for the village where people are trained. We only restored the building but thereafter the local community, the Panchayat took over. And then they set this up where weavers are taught weaving along with computers, similar to what Hon. CM was also talking regarding upgrading their skills. This is the final result of the palace. Now it actually looks like a palace not like what it looked like earlier. So this is the training center where they are taught computers. They became quite popular like, when the Common Wealth games happened, instead of giving flowers they were given the Chanderi stoles, and now it is well recognized globally.

46 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Craft Promotion through Heritage Tourism at Raghurajpur, Odisa

Another example is again what the Hon. CM spoke about, is the craft promotion through heritage tourism. And this was tried for the first time in Raghurajpur in Orissa. It was actually a tourism initiative under the rural tourism scheme to put this very small tiny village on the tourist map which is about 55 kilometer away from Puri. You may ask why? The reason is that 100% of this village was involved in some activity related to crafts. They were either artisans or performing artists and this used to be like a service village to Puri. The potters used to supply all the materials and do the paintings. The town had lost all its charm because there was no market and most of the young people were going out to the cities to become taxi drivers or join service sectors. This was an integrated project because both hardware and software were used, hardware were basically related to the infrastructure upgradation whereas software was for doing design workshops with these people and create new products which were more marketable. In fact it resulted in a reverse migration in the village. Lot of those people said why we should be driving taxis when we can earn a decent living by doing the traditional crafts. That is a very positive trend because we generally see people going out of traditional or craft based economies and to do something else.

These are some of the products that we developed from the Pattachitra, the teaboxes and some other their things. Also the project was used for demolishing Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 47

certain social barriers. The girls in the village were never allowed to paint. They were only allowed to mix the colours. Only men were allowed to paint. Through this project we broke that social taboo. For all the infrastructure projects that we did, for all the new buildings that we built like their corporative office, the restaurant; only girls were allowed to paint. And so, the villages themselves saw that the girls could also paint and if not better; equal to the guys. Also most of the guys had anyways moved onto making tiles, driving taxis or serving as behras in the hotels. So the girls were readily available there to do it. We never anticipated that aspect of the project but it happened.

This is Gotipuva which is called the mother dance of Odisi, and only men, young boys are allowed to dance. We created the amphitheatre, certain infrastructure improvements in the village and can you imagine this village now! The tag line of the Odisa tourism today is “To experience India, come to Odisa; to experience Odisa, come to Raghurajpur”. This is the tag line of the Odisa tourism for a small village which has no monument or anything. It is just craft based economy or people which have been put on the map. And of course they are doing very well.

Now even we can’t afford their works.

On the other end we also undertake not only the training and capacity building that is required for a specific project but we also have INTACH Heritage Academy which undertakes a comprehensive training and capacity building in building crafts. It trains both the artisans in conservation and conservators and also sometimes the building crafts. So each of them can understand and appreciate our requirements and we can understand their limitations and requirements. Most of it is really related to building crafts like the lime plaster, mud plasters or timber conservation.

The heritage education awareness undertakes a lot of craft appreciation for schools and colleges. This inculcates our appreciation or again as the Hon. CM was saying “mahatmy”, it is the significance of crafts, to disseminate that significance through appreciation and respect.

48 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Gotipuva Dance form

Besides that we have publications on few of the building crafts mainly related to the ones that are intrinsically involved in the conservation like lime mortar which is another dying art or craft I would say. Then “Timber in Kerala” is on timber, about how to be able to identify which timber to use during conservation. Both these books are actually based on traditional technologies. One is on traditional conservation techniques of timber architecture. Because Kerala had a long tradition of temple building and construction, they had very specific and even traditional conservation techniques for these temples. So this was all documented and published. There are other in the series related to stone and some are in the pipeline.

As I have mentioned we also have a Craft, Community & Heritage division. This is a division which basically works if we have a specific large initiative like we have had Odessa or Jaisalmer where we had taken up conservation projects of artisans and crafts people. Some crafts people have been selected and upgraded, innovated and some other infrastructure projects have also been created for their market or some forward linkages we were talking about.

I was glad to hear Jay; they are also doing similar things. In this year we also have embarked on creating a directory for traditional building crafts. We have just started and we hope that this will become a directory which can be used by all architects, builders and designers. Basically the spectacular heritage buildings that we see were really created by these artisans and crafts people, it is their contribution. So we have started this particular project in which we are looking at building crafts related to wood, stone, lime plastering, mud and terracotta, also araish work which very few people are able to do. It is really out of fashion. I think something really needs to be done about mud and in fact now lot of state governments have schemes “replace your mud houses with pakka houses” and most of the states are rolling out money thinking that mud houses are really bad for people. In fact one of the manifestos of the present Tamilnadu government is to make the state mud house free. This is one of the manifestos of the present government there; “Mud house free state”. hSometimes it is also glass work and metal work.

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 49

Many times we assume that crafts and conservation are kind of highly linked or they are one and the same thing. However, sometimes they could also be in conflict. I think we should look at these areas and the ways to resolve them because if they are in conflict then they don’t support each other. They can work in cross purpose.

So as I see as a conservation person, I thought these are just the challenges that are a pause for the craft.

One is of course as we talk a lot about India having a living tradition of craft.

However, as we work more and more on conservation we find that yes it is a living tradition, but there is very handful of those people who are working with these particular things and very few people are actually living these traditions. We have not really documented if it is really a living tradition or not to be honest. Also, in research we find a lot of the present building crafts to be actually a British revival, they are anyways being lost. So we are not sure if we are now restoring let us say a 10th century or a 15th century building; and all the documentation that we find is actually the revival of their specific craft from 19th century. We just kind of always assume that that was also the same technique and material and the methods used in the 15th century based on the 19th century documentation. So this was another of our dilemma that a lot of our crafts were actually revived during the British period, blue tiles and all sorts of things. Secondly, only recently I got to know that there are certain quality control and standards for crafts. I think there has to be the quality control and standards for building crafts because again many times we tend to use those things for our conservation where we have no mock up or quality control standards whether they are exactly the same or contains what degree of same historical authenticity.

Replication is another issue specially related to the creative and artistic license that we give to a craft person. For an example, Srinagar. Most of the monuments many times have documentation. Do we let a crafts person decide whether to replace a jaali in a monument, the design or you would want to say that we want a mobile design? Is that about it or you say no I want it in this exact specific geometry. So 50 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

what is the creative or artistic license a crafts person can use in that conservation project? A lot of people say otherwise but many of these processes of traditional crafts making are actually not as per the present environmental standards. A lot of craft that is produced especially from the use of historic materials; lot of those materials are now considered carsogenic or poisonous including lead and paints and even the processing of smelting. It is not climatic and we cannot give a blanked certificate to crafts for being ecological. So we have to look at each one of them one by one and may be improve them including the lime preparation because this process of putting lime involves harmful fumes. And especially in dense urban areas lot of neighbors object that the fumes are harming them.

Also, to what degree do we allow modern technology and materials? For example, wall paintings. We went to Iran and this was exactly the same dialogue they were having on Adobe because they were restoring a whole quarter made of mud. I realized it was not mud, it was actually cement made to look exactly the same like mud. So they argued that all the people in this town have left and mud requires weekly, monthly maintenance. Who is going to maintain it? So you kept the character but it is in cement. There was an artist from Mexico and she was also suggesting that the Mexican paintings, native American paintings were known for to be the most vibrant in that particular century because they always used to use the most vibrant of the colours. They say that they use the most vibrant palette ofthat particular period and today also they are using that vibrant palette. But that is not the historic palette. Now they have access to a different vibrant palette but it is ingrained in their cultural heritage to use the most vibrant palette. So would you let them do it or you would restrict them from using only earthen or only traditional colours.

Paying capacity and financial viability is another huge issue especially with government projects as they are mainly tendered. It is like who can make the cheapest of the jaali, are you ready to pay that price? I mean there are instances; Vijaynagaram, the people used to be paid as much gold as much they were able Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 51

to carve out of the stone. Though I think it was not gold; it was grain, because the linguistic translation for the gold and grain is the same, kanak. Lots of people think that was gold but I think they were paid that much food. But in any case that was the respect or the level a crafts person had as per the social hierarchy.They could command that money. But in today’s work especially in conservation, when most of these are tendered out, we are supposed to give a lowest minimal price. So how do you engage a master craftsman in it? There is a question of paying capacity and financial viability. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the issue of continuity is there.

It is very interesting that in Korea, they list master craftsmen as treasures just like historic monuments. And there is an annual stipend that they give to them, within the obligation that they will train x number of people. They will take those many interns so that that specific tradition continues. It is a government scheme. They are all listed and they are called the national treasures. So I think that is one of the best things you can do to establish continuity. Because as we all know this is all related to either families, or gatosor guilds. These are just some of my suggestions that I thought I will share.

I think if we are looking at the marriage between building crafts and conservation, we have to reconcile those challenges that I just enumerated the reconciliation of the crafts norms and standards with the conservation norms. And of course huge efforts are needed in training conservators in craft as well as crafts persons. We are doing a bit but I think it is just a drop in the ocean. That needs far more efforts in this particular sector. I don’t know if it is applicable in Ahmedabad and Gujarat but in Delhi, under the Delhi urban act, urban DUAC and the Urban Art Act, it is mandatory for every single project to devote 1% of the project cost for public art in that particular thing. Why can’t we use the same law and make it mandatory to use the local crafts in a public building. Every single public building that is constructed, why we can’t say only 1% to use it to have, like handles or something else. On my arrival to this building I thought they have used stone work, but when you come closer its fiber glass. So why couldn’t it be the actual craft. I am sorry I am not criticizing but we keep talking about China. All the material that you are giving 52 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

to this bag is all Chinese. And this is a craft seminar. I am just illustrating. So what are we talking about, of promotion and this? I mean why couldn’t somebody just run to those 5000 people gathered just at our back to get those 300 bags. I am just saying it as an example, not criticizing.

Somebody has already said craft appreciation to be included in curriculum. And I think when we were studying architecture, craft was an essential part of our education. Architecture has moved more and more away from that. I don’t know, I teach in Architecture College but nobody is teaching vernacular architecture there.

And in fact the present faculty themselves are not teaching vernacular architecture to the students, because they are the new generation which had not gone through or looked at the craft. They themselves do not know. And the crafts are not being taught even in the architecture colleges. So this is something that we have to really look at and say that building crafts development programs have to be included in the architecture. I think the Hon. CM also said this. A lot of people are doing research, mapping and documentation, but I think there is a need to synergies and partnerships to be made.

I have another idea that you have a SCZ, Gujarat is known for SCZ, why can’t Gujarat also give us SHEZ, which is Special Heritage Economic Zone for all the craft clusters in the state. This can be done very easily. It can be done within your development plans which are under preparation right now. They already have this category of special planning zones. One is Sabarmati Ashram and Sarkhej is another one.

Why can’t every city and craft cities have these SHEZs, where you have special development and special infrastructure. Gujarat is blessed as you don’t have power cuts but there could be many other places where you can have these areas which will be special because crafts people are living there and they have better infrastructure. These can be the model areas of our city rather than them being the worst areas of blight.

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Traditional Artisans and Technology Kiran Vaghela I will start with Hunarshala Foundation, as it has been told that Hunarshala has

Kiran Vaghela is the Managing Director of

an extensive contribution in Kutch earthquake rehabilitation. In that we tried

Hunnarshala Foundation, Kutch

participatory approach for rehabilitation work with 100% community involvement.

Normally the word participation has really been talked about but when it comes to groundwork, the participation gets reduced to just digging of the foundation, whereas here even the funds were transferred to the community. They exactly knew that how much money was available to build their homes. All the design processes were very participatory. Community had a 100% say in each of the processes right from the designing, planning and budgeting to the implementation. By participating in these processes we learnt a lot. The ideas of sustainability that the whole world is talking about; we found that most of the solutions are lying there with the community and in the traditional knowledge and traditional wisdom.

This is a quote by J. C. Kumarappa. He had met Gandhiji at the time of our independence struggle; when Gandhiji asked what sustainability is. He gave a vision of a self-sustaining community and village. This was told in 1930, that “Sustainable society is the one which manages its economic growth in such a way as to do no irreparable damage to its environment. It satisfies need of the people without jeopardizing the prospectus of future generation.�

We started Hunarshala 10 years back, and I am going to share with you is the journey of these 10 years and the learning throughout. We have emphasized on the path that we have taken; we want to emphasize our built environment in two layers. One is community and the other is sustainability and environmental sensitivity. We have set up four objectives for our organization. First is to understand the traditional knowledge and validate through the scientific research, initiatives and link them

Note: This is an edited transcript of the

with our contemporary application through the team of artisans.

talk delivered at the event.

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Second objective is to promote ecofriendly, cost effective and low energy building design, material and techniques which have glimpse of the local culture and the aesthetics. Third is to work towards environmentally sustainable towns and villages which promote the management and empowerment of the local community, ensure dignified living of citizens by providing basic housing and services for economically weaker sections of the society. Under this we are working with Bhuj slums. Our dream is to make Bhuj- a slum free city where everybody has one’s own house and there are no informal settlements as such. Fourth objective is to have an appropriate response towards the disaster by providing guidance to the affected community and the owners during the construction processes. We have worked on many disasters in India right from Kashmir to Tamilnadu in Tsunami. We also worked in Kosi flooded region, we worked in a Bandaache and we have also worked in Iran. I understand what Guptaji was saying and I have also witnessed the same thing. Today I am going to take only first and second objective as I find them more relevant.

Under the first objective we are running three programs – Artisan Entrepreneur Development Program, Research and Development program, and Education program. Under these programs we work with master artisans to become entrepreneurs as they are lying in isolation somewhere and not connected with the market. They have the craft skills but not the entrepreneur skills to communicate, to link, to deliver, and to take the professional pressure. So what we are doing is, we identify the master artisans and form a small team around them. They actually become artisan’s company and we create linkages with the market. We have an incubation company which is an extension of the education program.

In the education program – Karigarshala, we are offering two courses for the school dropout children, one in carpentry and the other one in walling system. In carpentry they learn joinery for a year along with all the other subjects. In walling system they learn different techniques for making a wall and different finishes. In this Karigarshala, the students learn the skill in the first one year and later one and a half year is the incubation time where they learn to become entrepreneurs.

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In the research and development program the traditional knowledge is validated for its authenticity because of the co-existence of a large number of traditional technologies. If you submit the plan to the authority, they ask so many questions about the structure and calculations; basically they don’t encourage you, on the contrary they discourage you to use traditional technology because there is not enough technical data available. So in our laboratory set up we have the Applied Mechanics lab in which building components are tested for its technical properties along with the related time. We also conduct student workshops and short term courses and working on the idea of A3 - where Architects, Artists and Artisans work together and create building architecture products.

We have learnt different technologies from the community. One is Wattle & Daub Various techniques in mud construction in Banni; very extensively used for their traditional houses. The other is Adobe; how to make Adobe, what are the soil compositions, where to take the soil from are important aspects because Kutch also has salinity affected land, so how to identify right soil and details of that.Then the stone masonry and Thatch Roof and wooden understructure; basically this is the list of the technologies that we are working on.

Under the Research & Development program we are extensivelyworking on wood.

In Kutch,wood is like

“apne aap me virodhabhas hai ... “ but Kandla is a major

importer of timber and there are hundreds and hundreds of sawmills creating piles of wood waste in Gandhidham. By using this wood we have created building elements. You can see the logs. There are floor boards and this is for the walls.

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Wattle and Daub, Adobe and Thatch roofing

The floor board has been checked and tested for its load baring capacity for the different span.The trusses and frames are also made using the same waste wood.

As mall piece of wood is tested till it breaks for the load it can carry; as a result we have found that this wood has the safety factor of more than 4.

We work extensively on lime technology because Kutch is a lime stone region also. All villages with lime stone used to produce the lime by themselves. Now the cement has completely taken over and the knowledge of lime is totally gone from the area. Now some old craftsmen and artisans know about the lime technology.

They work with us and are a part of Hunarshala and with them we are trying to revive the technology. We are doing a very scientific testing of lime for the plaster and the masonry mortar. Earth technology is also one of the main construction technologies in our region due to the climatic reasons. As some regions in the Northern part of the Kutch only have soil, therefore the Adobe house - earthen construction was the main material.

After earthquake, the community had expressed that they wanted to continue with the same technology but the women said that we wanted to come out of the derisory of the regular maintenance of this house because they have a lot of other work to do. All the work right from the earning, to maintaining the house and looking after the children, everything comes onto women shoulders and they said that “we want to use soil as a construction material but we want to improvise it. How can we do that?� So we interacted with engineers of science and Auroville at the time of the earthquake as these two institutions worked on stabilizing our technology. By using small quantity of cement in earth we can stabilize the earth.

These are the soil cement blocks and this is rammed earth. During the earthquake there was a shortage of masons as around 300 thousand houses had collapsed.

And all the housing construction was going on so we were looking forward to using stabilizer for our technology. If we eliminate the skill of masonry, then we have designed the frame work through which a house can be built above the plinth Stabilized Soil Cement blocks

within three days. So during the earthquake this kind of construction was going on.

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These are mud rolls. Kutch has very hot climate and our country tile though it breaths, it also brings dust and heat from the top. So we have replaced the battens with the mud rolls which create insulating layers under the country tile. Recently one architect Mehul Bhatt has incorporated this mud roll in a contemporary structure he has designed here. We also use this as a lost form. We put mud rolls and we put ferocret on top of it. We have done research on bamboo. Also, in Bihar we participated in creating guideline for bamboo construction. We have tried Basketry and we make larger span structures with weaving of bamboo.

These are the slides from education program where the students are school dropouts and most of them are also child laborer. The ones at the age of 16-17, lost interest in formal education in schools as the education system is quite loose.

In government schools the condition is not good; sometimes the teachers are not regular. Also the family condition of those who are economically weak in the village; they expect their children to go and earn after age of 13. Even if they earn Rs. 25, it will support their family. So under these circumstances we are offering two courses, one course is in carpentry and the other in walling system. We have designed the carpentry program in a way that the Guru-Shishya Parampara can continue where children learn the skill from the master artisan along with class room teaching where they learn basic mathematics so that they can keep their basic accounts.

They can quantify and quote their work and they also learn material science and technical drawing. When we interact with the artisans, most of them say that “you 58 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

Left: Mud Rolls, Right: Bamboo structures

speak a very different language and we don’t understand your language.” Normally architects and engineers speak in the language of drawing and artisans don’t understand that at all. Though they make very complex big structures by their own hands but they can’t read the drawings. I am saying most of them, some are also good at it or after experience they learn. In this course they learn engineering and architectural drawings and their interpretation and critical reading. These are the products they have developed during the learning and making of carpentry. These are masonry, the walling system students, learning different masonry systems by learning the basic masonry unit and this is the first week’s class. This is dome construction and this is rammed earth.

I have already spoken about the incubation company. After the first batch of carpentry was completed, we asked students about what they wanted to do. Then they said that “we want to try ourselves in the market. We want to check ourselves in the market”; we said this is a good idea but we meet again after three months; then we want to know your experience in the market. So after three months they came back and talked to us. We asked “how much you were paid?” the answer was “50 Rs.” At the end of the day three of them used to handle all the work and were paid only Rs.125. Then we asked “how did your employer rate your skills?” They said that we were working on our own.

Then we asked about what did they want to do next, and at this young age they had no answer. During that discussion we conceived the idea of the Incubation Company. We thought that at such a young age it is not easy to face such market forces. Because to buy things from the market, to produce something and to sell it to somebody, everything they won’t be able to do at this age. They need certain experience and someone to lead them. That’s why we started Incubation Company.

It is a partnership firm owned by the students. They work there for 18 months, in those 18 months they learn to manage the business. They become entrepreneurs.

They learn how to interact with the clients. They also plan how to do production and learn how to keep the accounts. The first year is almost over and “Wood Grain”, Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 59

the incubation company of the children, they have worked worth almost Rs. 25 lacs. Now they are full of confidence, eager to move out from Wood Grain and to start their own work, as now they have financial strength also to start something of their own.

Similarly in the walling system; they have setup Kamerai, a random stone is known as Kamerai in Kutchi language and their company is also called Kamerai. They have completed three projects. The first project was to create a dormitory for themselves; staying facility for these children. 80% of what you are seeing in his image is done

Student Dormitory at Hunnarshala

by the students. This is students’ work, merely 18-19 years old Students.

This is the project of Aujari. This is Avadat in Ahmedabad created by architect Mehul Bhatt, they have worked on the floor. They made a floorboard. They made profit of almost Rs. 15 lac. They have completed it within one month, earlier than the decided time frame.

Again this image is from the students’ dormitory. That jaaliis their production.

They have got a small project in Saurashtra to make a wooden fence for a school.

Another outcome of this education program, so far 37 students have passed out from this course. Out of 37, 40% students have cleared their 10th exams and 12th exams. Now, this was also a big learning for us. Somewhere the education they didn’t want to pursue, somewhere they felt that this is not my cup of tea and some damage also done by the school or education method got covered up in just one year of doing handwork. I don’t know so I cannot criticize the method fully but the damage has been repaired in one year. Some of the 12th pass students are looking forward to appearing for NID or some other professional courses because they know the technicality. They know certain things in drawing and creating forms, about the design, and so far 2 students have appeared for the NID exam. One out of the two is also going to appear for the architecture because another two years are not complying the minimum subjects required.

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Avadat, Ahmedabad

Various Artisan led companies : Span, Wood

We are helping the master artisans to set up their own companies. One artisan’s

Grain and Mathachaj

company is called Span, working with space frame. We have simplified the space frame; it works for a certain span but it can take a very large span like 6-8 meter, 11 meter span. They come and make a frame share.

I will quickly run through the slides. This is Wood Grain, working on a roofing system, taking wood as under structure. These are examples of the project they have implemented. They are doing excellent work; now Wood Grain is employing many of our passing out students.

The company named Layers is working with Rammed Earth. Recently the G.R. Patel house in Ahmedabad was a huge work that they have completed. It is behind Karnavati club, they have completed a Rammed Earth wall worth Rs. 17 lac and that too within time.

This is our laboratory building in Hunarshala. This is a women’s company - Mathachaj.

9 women in partnership are doing thatch. Usually all the artisan companies work for the architecture firms who are giving their inputs. But what we do is, we try to link them with other architects. Those who come forward, we link them with the architect because that is the intension of getting in the market. This is a school in Ahmedabad. We do students workshop in which our Karigarshala students and our engineering school students, they work together for two weeks so that Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 61

the gap between them is minimized. We minimize the gap between the formal and informal. We also offer short term courses on various technologies that we have developed. For the Rammed Earth course many participants from overseas have also approached us. This project is in the desert of Kutch, this is dining for an industry and the interior views of it. This is organic farm’s training center. This is in stone, thatch, concrete stabilized earth blocks and lime plaster. They have received a big project in UAE, restoration project of a Fort that they have done in Adobe. More than 150 artisans worked for four years there and most of them have built their own house now. This is irony. This is really very contrasting; those who keep building houses for others don’t have their own house. And after this project everybody has built their house who did not have one before. They have started their construction business independently. This is Hodko, Sham-E-Sarhad, very iconically famous in the tourist circuit.The artisans were with us in even designing of this project where all the work happened on site.

Various Projects by Hunarshala Foundation: 1. Hunnarshala office building 2. Agrocel Industries Canteen, Dhordo 3. Chintan Organic Farm, Kukma 4. Restoring The Heritage Mud Forts Of UAE 5. Shaam-e Sarhad

1

2

3

4

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5

Technology Upgradation in Crafts A.G. Rao A.G. Rao is a Professor at the Industrial

I am going to talk a little bit about the topic given that is “Technology Up gradation”.

Design Centre, IIT Mumbai.

Now let’s look at what it can mean. There are two things related to the problems of craft with technology. One is; technology takes you into a linear interpretation. It wants to develop us faster and faster. This is one direction which technology takes whereas second is fragmentation. Earlier craft was very holistic. Now a specific part is done by somebody and the others by some other people. These are two fundamentals in technology which create problems for crafts in a big way.

So this linear interpretation we are talking about demands new tools to increase production rate. This is one expectation. Even when we were to design handtools, people were expecting that if we design new tools then we can make something more. Sometimes it looks like a very stupid idea because hand tools are some things which you get used to, and making any new tool is suddenly not going to make something more. So it can be either power added, yes that makes a machine and makes it more; but it does not remain a tool anymore. So that is a kind of thing which we have come across.

Second is, tools and machines try to replace skills of craft persons which is another danger with technology. Instead of adding the crafts persons it suddenly starts replacing the skills which they have. This is creating lot of problems for us. To take this for example, this thing needs a very skilled person to make this, you know the bird in a bird, and they used to take a lot of trouble to make that. Now it can be done with the lesser cutter, the machine cuts it, so these are mass produced. You will know the difference, suddenly you start getting cheaply available products. So what do we do? If we are going to create skilled based crafts only, then this kind of a technology is a danger of that craft. So one alternative for craft is to have art

Note: This is an edited transcript of the

content where machine cannot reproduce it. When that content comes, craft will

talk delivered at the event.

survive. Otherwise technology in that direction is going to damage crafts.

Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 63

Then you can see jewelry design, this is Stereo Lithography. If you see these small parts, they are made on computer, then template as stereo lithography model, then that is given to a craft person and they make it. So reversely now we are moving in a very big way in jewelry design, some craftsmen are employed, but what they are doing is master only this thing and stereo lithography has taken over. They take on from wax models and give it to manufacture. So the craftsman is threatened. See these are the problems which are going to come with technology. So we need to look at craftsmen friendly technology up gradation. This was one of my interests that how do we look at crafts as craftsmen, they are the people who are holding our crafts and it should benefit them in certain sense. And my experience mostly has been with Bamboo craft so I will elaborate a bit on how we went about it.

This was way back in ’93, we got a small project for a year. We created a workshop called “Jagruti”. What we realized then was two students who were employed were not able to go to the villages. So, I said “No, it won’t do, we have to bring craftsmen in.” So we had 15 craftsmen, 15 designers and 30 students. All sat together and we had morning sessions. People like Ranjan and all came for the sessions and in afternoon everybody designed and came up with lots of products. We documented all of that, but what happened at the end of the workshop was; three women came to me and said “sir, yeh to bahot achchha hai, we have never seen this slides vagehra.

But can you place some orders?” So the reality has donned us. It is not just this they need. They need market; and what can we do about that. Second experience for me was at that time when I was working with the perfume industry. Gujaratis who are very big in the international market were filling up something like 150 perfume bottles per minute in US. They were giving gift packs with every three bottles. I suggested, “Sir, why can’t we give Tripura basket, they are beautiful baskets.” So he said, “Ok, I will finalize it today itself. Can you supply two million baskets? I didn’t know what to say.” Then he gave me a long lecture. Like, “aye hai idhar India se, kuchh ata nahi”. This is our problem, we are into everything, but if we cannot supply one product than we lose rating for the other products. So this was one of the problems. It was like a slap for me so I was seriously thinking about it.

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Then much later in ’97 I took a sabbatical leave. I had never been to North-East, so I went there. I f you go to Tripura, you can see the same beautiful baskets in each village. They are complaining that there are no orders and on the other side when you want larger orders, the products are not available. There is some miss-match so I went there to the govt. department, the MD was sitting there. He wanted orders to be given. In fact I shouted at him saying you should come to Bombay if you want orders, you can’t expect orders while sitting here. There were enough markets outside still that was the situation.

My trip related to the UNDP project at the level of two small technologies. Again there was a notion that if you develop hand tools, the production will increase. I was sitting in Tripura in PCDI for a month, there was a master craftsman. He said “sir, hamko kuchh nai chahiye. Yeh sab bahot ho gaya. Ek do-se me sab kuchh kar leta hu.”

See, typical Indian craftsman is not like a Japanese craftsman. Japanese craftsman makes a 50 tool rich operation. But the Indian craftsman is very innovative. With the same tool he will do 50 operations. So the most important thing they had was tools. So I thought they don’t need new tools, what they need is more money and more market. So if they want more money than they cannot keep selling the same baskets. They have to sell it to different markets. So we started with new designs.

Andif you want to make a new design, you will need new tools. Then the tools need to become innovative. This is how we went about it. After a year when we developed tools, the same craftsmen were showing our gadget and telling in one workshop that “bhaisaab ye humko jarurat hai”, so then I thought that we had achieved something. Just to give you a background this is the Bamboo studio as a result of all that you have seen. We now function from this Bamboo studio at IDC. Now, look at the traditional tools. What happens to them? These are Dhuas from North-East. Each area has its own Dhau. In fact we had a problem when we were designing the tool kit. If you use any of them there will be fights between them. So we had to use a machete. But one important thing about tradition is that people adopt. It is difficult to replace a tool which is traditionally used for long period so it is better that some tools are used the way they are.

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Then we did a systematic survey of all the tools and we found 97 tools, from which we could identify the ones that can be used for Bamboo. Some of them were wooden tools, some other various tools, not much information was available.

What we did was we took sketches, we made plastic models, and we let the local craftsmen make the molds. We were trying out multiple things and this lead to a tool kit. We had a workshop with craftsmen in North-East where they proposed some 18 tools. So we thought this should go into the tool kit. We asked them to try all those things and asked for their feedback for what more they wanted.

So they started adding more toolsone by one. Now there are some 33 tools that have come into the tool kit and we started manufacturing this with one Indian manufacturer called Lamy craft. They made 1000 pieces but then they left because they said there are no orders. So this was next problem. I will explain you a little bit about the approach that we took. In the tool kit what we did was 1/3rd of the tools were standard tools which are already available because the new standard tools are mass produced and cheaply available. 1/3rd were adopted tools from the tools used in China and our country. If you see for example in the middle there is a tool, it is a scrapper, this is Chinese scrapper which we adopted. 1/3rd were our own tools; we slowly came up with gauge and certain things we have innovated. This was the composition of the tool kit. But then we went into each operation, so these tools were fine. So there is hex saw, there is a pruning saw which came from the craftsmen. They said we want this because it is extremely useful for cutting green bamboo. So the green bamboo cutting now is very easy. People want to go in the field and cut it. This saw is still not made in India, it is imported. We got it from the Chinese and put it in the tool kit. Then there is the mini hexsaw, a very small thing. It is easily available. The way we developed it was, we took each operation and went into details of it to create new tools. If you see the green one, it is a new tool; some red ones will also be our tools. Some of these things are available in the market.

Some of these things became very popular, like the measuring tools. We found that it is important to go into the whole lot. They had no tools for measuring in the bamboo craft. Like other than Bamboo we have the measuring calipers. This was 66 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

the standard tool available that we added. But the gauge is something new which we have innovated. This has a facility to see three dimensions. They were making something like 0.3 mm thick chips, they never knew, they never measured. So we gave the tool for measuring. This measuring tool along with the width sizer have become very useful for people. This has become very popular. Then there are four small machines which we actually incorporated in our tool kit and we re-engineered some of them. So this is a splitting machine, if you take a 4 mm strip, it will make it into 2 mm, 2mm into 1mm and 1mm into half. This is a Chinese machine but we re-engineered and improved many things. This is a simple machine which people can get into. Then the width sizer - this was from Thailand probably a Japanese design, I found it and then we re-engineered it. One manufacturer makes these four machines. In this you can fix the width of the bamboo, within 3-4 days you can learn it, you can easily make even bamboo strips. Otherwise grey skills are required some times. Some things of this kind of level of technology have a lot of advantages for the craftsmen. Then there is a sander, this sander is our innovation.

We took a grinding wheel, we put a sander and we can finish the baskets and all the other things.

Now when we talk about technology, this is a coil technique that I have introduced in the country. It is actually from Burma and it has moved to Thailand. There I saw them making the baskets. I told one of my craftsmen about it, he came and applied a method which became very popular. We just give the tool which is given in the tool kit, using that they can make long strips of bamboo and coil it. Then several shapes can be made out of it. You see there is a mold with this. Now comes the technology, with tools you need knowledge of molds. So one thing was bamboo craft did not have any inputs in the molds. Though some people were making it traditionally but it had not spread. We came up with solid molds and developed a little bit knowledge based on that. This is a knob known mold we need it with something like plywood; you don’t need a full touch so it is cheap and simpler molds. Then we adopted some of the existing machines into the coil technique.

This is a jewelry machine which is made for bangles. We simply took it so it can Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 67

become much simpler and we could coil it with that. So now the products come.

See these are some of our students’ designs. This lamp is made using 5 techniques.

The current technique is simple. You make a plate, you press into a mold and make it and it will take the same shape, you finish it and it becomes a finished this thing.

Now there can be many innovations, it can go further into shapes and such things.

These are quite attractive to make. Then you can go into postmoderns. I do run an elective called Craft Creativity and Post modernism. So if you run just craft courses it does not fit into a post graduate course. So to solve this problem I have put a mixture of the two and we talk about creativity and post modernism. I can see that there is an enormous scope to see craft as a post-modern venture. What is happening with the whole industry is that there is no demand for individual creativity. Many of my students who have joined industries are coming back now after 5 years saying sir, we are bored. Either you are a part of a team or you do a little bit. As you go up in the organization, there is no need for creativity. It reduces, you get into more organization and knowledge based work , but they are bored. So I think one of the things in future will be post-modern ventures based on craft. Work with craft groups because they need many designs. There will be one trend of post modernism specific designs. You can work with craft groups and this is going to be the future.

One more thing that we came up with was what you call product specific tools.

If you take one product, you could have several tools to make that product. I call these tools something like cars. Cars have tools specially made for that. We found these 18 tools that can be used to make this pack. What you see are these packed frames, I will show you the tools so you get a clear picture. So what we have done is a simple saw with a block, so you can cut however you want. When you cut, it will cut 1 mm out of 2 mm. After that we have another tool. Now we are cutting with that exact length with a Jig. So whatever you cut it will cut only 1 mm because it is locked. So this is an innovation in the tool.

Second is another tool which you can insert because Bamboo is very linear. If 68 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

you want to take out just half of a strip then it is very difficult. But now with this tool it can be done very easily. You see 1 mm piece has come out. Now they put another piece and it becomes a plain frame. After thinking a lot we came up with a solution for the problem of bamboo weaves. So the edges are taken care of and you can come with many new products. Then we introduced a mold. I call this a recessed mall in which 90^ is easier to stick. This has been another problem with the bamboo craft. Bamboo craft is very good as far as you are using the central. So if you are in the central zone they can do very well. In fact I feel you need special scales to start in the middle because when we introduced our scales, they had big problems. But these are the things which give you right angles quite easily in the molds. And even to remove like in injection mold in machine we have pins. When the pin is pressed with another pin, all the things come out, otherwise many times you have to put a knife and the piece gets spoilt. These are known principles in engineering and plastic molding. One can bring this kind of technology to help their work so the middle part remains same. For the middle part one can use beam.

Then there is a simple die to make the stick. You take any square stick, you heat it in the machineand you get a round stick. After that you see this had two slots so to make that again you cut with this thing. I innovated with one more thing, you take like a pencil sharpener, you put it, you turn it and you will get the result. It is very difficult to make a small notch in bamboo because bamboo is always linear in its structure, two cuts and putting into this. One good thing was, during one workshop I was showing this to the people, they said, “sir it is so simple, we can also think of such thing.” I think that is more important. What we can really do is not so much of designing of but if we can open people’s mind about such innovations then they will start doing a lot of things themselves.They could be quite simple techniques and simple adaptations.

Then we also introduced natural die colouring. We started putting in treatments because we found there are many organizations already working in bamboo but the results actually never reach the craftsmen. So we started doing Boric Acid treatments on bamboo and then colours with natural dies like Indigo, tea, Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 69

manjishtha; each one gives a different colour. So we started developing a package andtraining.

We have nice manuals made in this. As it is seen, the combination of die, molds and all that can take this product into another level. After this what we have come up with is a package of training. We do one week – two week training, which incorporates an industrial format, like in morning I have power point presentation, after that they plan how to make say 30 products, planning is taught, then within a week they are able to learn three products. We take new 5-5 molds and all of them use that. Everybody is able to come up so the technology assistant package is given; one mini tool kit is given to each person. So now I manufacture this mini tool kits in my company because the other person has left that.

Now I will show you some of the other technology developments, how it can take over. See this is a traditional thing what is seen. , In the regions like Bastar,they have an iron rod, this is pure iron which they use and do beautiful designs. They have a local technique and they also have so many people, bhatti hota hai, they keep all of them on it, it gets cool but now technology wise we adapted into the Bamboo thing same technique because they are ignorant. This is one level of technology adaptation and other we are already doing. But after that, now this is a pyrographic tool, this is already available, we are not making it but it is worth something Rs. 3000-5000. It is not beyond technology and you can even import it even today. This gets hot and this can open up not only Bamboo but it can open up another craft because it burns and people were already doing it abroad with wood and other materials. So this is something technology can do. Not only takes that technique to one level but it can open up a new generation of new types of things. You can use the technique on the pumpkins and people are actually doing such things. So that can open up new job opportunities for the craft.

Recently we were working on this. This is laser cut. Now this is a technology developed in Switzerland. Recently we just had a workshop and the students were 70 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

working, they adapted lesser cutting machine and just within no time they are able to use that. Now this is going to be a new technology which may give fantastically new possibilities and it can become a new craft too. But it is not a traditional craft.

Such things are going to open up new crafts traditions. This is just using ipad to show this. You can see that precision. We can design and people can learn and may be the other things will come, and I don’t know. The technology will take things it will change the questioning of certain crafts. May be we need to adopt certain ways of dealing with crafts. But technology will over head in many ways. I think chief minister made very important points. We do lack a country strategy to do it.

In China, strategies are very well defined. So their craft also goes on along with the industrialization whereas here each is competing with other. In fact in UNDP project which is supposed to help the poor people; all the developed technology actually did some damage. Only local group strategies are available. I will just give you one group where we worked which is called Chaitanya,a small group that formed with YUVA It was an interesting experience because 10 girls from that community hired a small place in their own place. They didn’t want to leave Bolwada, Parel area. But they started production. We were hearing some of the presentations earlier where Kiran talked about very interesting things.We trained them. Some were doing only dying, planning, dying, and quality control. All those things we started teaching and we have a very nice case study. If you see here, it starts with the place mats, the process, and the earning stays with the community you buy it from, because these girls were not able to make it themselves.They bribed their parents for this activity.

But they know how to use the machines. So they will make it 1/3rd, then sizing, finishing they will do, from that it goes to treatment, the natural dying, weaving, given to given design.

See here, we start telling them how to order. So every two weeks they should order so they will have the stock. They have to keep kerosene to treat and heat.

Otherwise because of general ill-planning of the craft they will not be able to make it to the targets. So these are some things we taught and all these things helped quite a bit. 2-3 years they worked very well. But the tragedy is that it got closed Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 71

a year after that because all the girls got married which is a good thing. But the problem was, this is a social problem and we don’t know how to deal with that. So these are some other things which we need to tackle. Now we are working with many groups and NGOs though initially we work on many projects and later we will tell them to integrate. One is Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra. I was there recently. They have adopted into rakhi, so it’s a beautiful thing. It does not need a big this thing but many people are doing the very fine thing. And they make one lac rakhi, each cost Rs. 25-25. So it is a very self-sustaining adaptation which is trading people the very right way.

I think innovation with technology is required on three levels. Just doing things at some level will not help. But we do need to take up the ways of looking structurally.

For example I am very happy to see Kiran’s work in the field of teaching. Currently we are teaching with Gonmora University, one year program of bamboo like a diploma but what I see is we also need to bring it in the main academic structure because then only the diploma or some degree will be useful, as my all crafts men from Tripura are very skilled. Even if the craftsmen are very skilled; everyone who holds an academic qualification is paid more. In spite of good payments the qualifications don’t assure a permanent income not even for the artisan with the highest skill level in the entire IDC. So, somewhere we have to change formal systems. We have to give them degrees after evaluating their skills in different ways or we need to integrate this in our education because this is another threat we are facing that our own education create a big problem for us.

Looking at the mechanized production of Bamboo, there is enough money to have Bamboo machines like the Chinese machines in the country. They are very good for making mat boards, tiles, curtains etc. but when it comes to the craft; it damages the traditional employment through agarbattis. For example, in the name of helping the people and bursary, they introduced lot of stick making machines.

So in Tripura, lot of people lost their jobs that were efficient in making sticks (agarbatti). Now this is something which we need to look at, and figure out a way 72 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

to deal with that. We imported bamboo sticks from Vietnam. The machines make all the agarbattis. It is giving good employment but now they are making the sticks.

As I see the challenge here for the designers and the technology is to generate new products from these machine-made sticks. In fact that is the direction which we should look at and may be the ways to combine it with crafts. These are the some things we should look at. So these combinations can lead to innovations.

It is required. We need to give complete education of crafts. Another thing is that schooling has been a damaging thing for the craftspersons. Moment they got schools, they think crafts is below dignity. Parents now do not want to teach crafts.

My own craftsman does not want to teach crafts to the next generation. He thinks he will become like him. I was telling him that he will have better position but it is very difficult to convince.

One thing we were already trying to do in the earlier presentation was that they learn better in the class. So this is what we are trying to do. Symmetry with bamboo, we did a workshop called “diymetry”. So we thought of symmetry with bamboo and why not can’t it go to the school. These are the directions which we need to bring in the school. So there is lot of symmetry already in view. So if you can take that into school, there will be advanced students in symmetry learning otherwise what they are learning in the schools is very little. So now I also create workshop. This is Gordan’s spiral, we create stories and you know they make mask and these things.

Students have made this using bamboo sticks. Also I use sticks in my company to make products. This is where the skills are required if you see left side some of the cane weaving and all that what is used. On the right side you see all the mat board is done, the weave is done by the crafts person but wooden frames we are using.

So this is the questioning which is happening.

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Question Answer Session Question 1 Addressed to Kiran Vaghela You mentioned about the students from Karigarshala who go out in the field and start working. They mostly work with natural materials whereas the current market trends involve a lot of man-made or artificial materials and products. How do the artisans manage this shift in practice?

Answer: In the very beginning of the carpentry, the student decided to go and work in the market. They didn’t learn how to fix sunmaica, veneer board or anything. So in the market they are considered to be lower. It has happened with two students that their wedges are low. From a batch of 10 students one student has taken a completely different stand. He didn’t come back to Aujari. He said I am interested in plywood and such materials and I will learn everything. But this was again natural wood versus processed wood. But we are focusing on the fact that the student who is coming from the economical section where he worked as a child laborer, he has now become an entrepreneur. It is a big thing in itself. I can’t dare to do that even myself. But there are possibilities. For example, as prof. Rao talked about, we can create small products which do not require any major investment. We also have plenty of waste material. Yesterday only we heard a talk from prof. B. R. Reddy on sustainability. He mentioned that India is consuming 2000 kg of construction material per capita per year. And on the other side to produce this much of material they are producing 4 times more waste. So if we use this waste, we are reducing the impact on environment. This is a discussion that is going on with the masters who have had such experiences in life. They always say that our children should learn this. We are neglecting this a bit but opening up a new avenue for them. We hope that they will work. The work at Aujari has given us a lot of confidence; work worth Rs. 20 lack in a year’s time done by 9 students in partnership is quite promising. Now Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 75

even the profession is looking for the new solution. We give credit to the market that now there is market for such things. And it is not that we produce a huge number of karigars, we just have 10 masons and 10 carpenters per year. That is our capacity, at the most by end of this year we might be able to increase the number from 20 to 40. So, we can create the market for the kind of materials we work with.  Question 2 Addressed to Divay Gupta I am a Delhi based practicing interior designer with a keen interest in crafts. There is a tradition of using traditional crafts in interiors. But the main issue we need to deal with is the access to the appropriate crafts people who can execute the task up to the desired quality. You mentioned about a craft resource library where a list of crafts people working with different materials would be available. So how could we access that information for the professional applications?

Answer: Divay Gupta I think the problems you have mentioned are also faced by us as challenges and to bridge the gap between crafts people and professionals in the form of the directory; I don’t know what will be the final form of that. It could be a web based source you could download, or it could be a published directory. We are working on it. And being in Delhi you are blessed because you have plenty of resources available. I am based in Delhi, a lot of jaali work is happening in Agakhan and other places. So there is already an informal source of resource that we have. A lot of people come to us and we guide them to the particular person. This is person to person but this directory will be more a formal system in place.

Kiran Vaghela I also want to say something related to this about Hunarshala. The idea of the school is just 3 years old. In the initial years we put up a structure for the programs 76 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions

we are running to show to the market that we can create contemporary space from this traditional scale. And somewhere on the path a lot of demands had started coming up and we were not able to deliver. That’s why we came up with the idea of the school and the entrepreneur development program. There are lots of people in the society who are unemployed, young and directionless. If we direct them into these movements, it is going to be a win-win situation. But for such trends a very long term vision is required. This is just a beginning. I would really wish to make craft university, but I don’t know if it could be realized in this life or the next. It can be solved by the next generation may be.

Person who asked the question: Haan, aap bataie kaha karna hai, kab aana hai, hum aake kar denge‌! That is where the problem lies. We really need a directory to be able to use the skills and material that are available.

Kiran Vaghela..

I think the way professionals say that my role is just to say, that is not right. I also get engaged in producing that quality and try to understand that why that desired quality is not achieved. And then accordingly you create new designs depending on the available skills. That is also another way to look at things. I am not criticizing you; this is the way the world is working. It is actually like a circular loop. Someone puts pressure on us and we pass that pressure onto others. This chain goes on and all of us live an illusion that something will just happen one fine morning. I think we should learn the working method from west. The people who give instruction to others, most of them know how to do those things by themselves.

Question 3 Addressed to Divay Gupta and Prof. Rao Is there any possibility to get the ISO certificate to remain in the international market permanently?

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Answer: Kiran Vaghela This question has come to Hunarshala because we are dealing with so many technologies and now our tangent is crossing the boundaries of the nation and growing further. What we have learnt so far is if we are passionate about bringing out the best then another certification is not required. Our team in Abudhabi went for only one work but they were given responsibility for new work consistently for other five years. And even in today’s date they are not cancelling the visas of the karigar even after our requests for the cancellation. I think this is also a kind of a certificate.

Prof. A. G. Rao We face some different kind of problems with Bamboo craft products. When we want to export them, we need to see if it is acceptable. Which are the chemicals that we use. Though these things are a bit away from Bamboo craft but we are concerned. For example, in North-East they were using Gamazene for treating bamboo. It is very dangerous and damaging, it never integrates. So now we have started the Boric acid treatment, it is accepted. They are adopting things now. So if you do this, people who were buying they will not buy. So it’s a level that we have to reach.

Question 4 We keep on hearing about the problems with crafts, but thinking about the solution side also, I fail to understand what can be done to solve these issues. The current situation of crafts is that it is deteriorating because we are using the old things as it is. Crafts should also develop. It is something which is dead and we are celebrating the dead thing. Why not give it some life? Like wherever they want change, give them change. So we should accept and celebrate the change in craft. But this is not happening. How can this be solved?

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Answer: Prof. A. G. Rao Let’s look at it like this. Somehow things are getting preserved in small quantities.

They will not vanish but they will become more valuable. But the entire problem is that when we want things in numbers then all the social systems come in. The education comes in which is actually spoiling crafts in some sense. See, earlier the children were learning from their parents. Now when they go to school, they don’t learn that. They don’t even respect it. So that damage is bigger than technology and other things. Even though we say we will preserve, then who will do it? These children, they will take it up or not? There is one person in Konkan making the chulhas and very interesting things but he has educated his sons to become engineers. So now they are not going to carry on with the craft. Now who will take over this? Parampara se kya hota tha ki, the children used to take it up. Now the children will not do it because they are engineers but there are people who require that in the village who will take over. But there is no mechanism to do that. They don’t give their secrets easily. We have to convince them, create platform for them otherwise it used to work from father to son. But now the son takes up a different job. So these are the new problems that we need to look at.

Person who asked the question: When the crafts work at the level of local challenge and local need, why should one even try and attempt for the mass production?

Prof A. G. Rao If you look at Bamboo craft, they are making baskets. Now they are not ready to pay more. In the village, they like the baskets but they don’t want to pay more. But this man’s life still has to go on. The costs of raw material increases, production costs increases, school education for children increases but people are not ready to pay more for that. So he has to go to the cities where people are willing to pay more.

Otherwise he will not survive. So they are leaving. Every day in my lab there is a Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 79

person who used to come and see the work. I asked what are you seeing. He said, sir even I used to do this. So why not now? He had come from Bengal, used to earn Rs. 40 for this work and now he gets Rs.100 for doing concrete work. So he said how will I be able to survive? This is something we don’t realize. We have to reposition crafts. Not for all may be.

Question 5 When crafts are made by hand then they have a different skill level. And the craft made from technology don’t show that skill in them. There is a quality that is seen when made from hand, does it differ from the result of technology? Many people around the world pay for the craft because they want it to be handmade instead machine made. So does that have an effect?

Answer: Prof. A. G. Rao This is an interesting question. The handmade which is crude does not have a value. But there is an inherent unevenness which is very rich. So it will have a value.

In Bamboo if it is uneven and roughly made, nobody will mind it. So it depends on the context and how we interpret that weather it is the inherent quality or the laziness or incompleteness. Incapability will not be respected or valued whereas the inherent quality does. The distinction has to be understood clearly otherwise it will have problems.

Question 6 We always talk about conservation in terms of just preserving what is there. Why don’t we see it in terms of contemporary context? Like restoring the old element in the original craft, material, just like the old time but in contemporary context. Does INTACH look at that?

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Answer: Divay Gupta There is no straight answer to this question. We follow certain principles. We also need to understand that out of the millions of the buildings the historic buildings are handful, so why only there? You can use the contemporariness and the crafts in your new designs. You can innovate but those are historic buildings. The gem of the principle is that historic buildings are the evidence of the past. If you temper with that evidence then it will lose its significance, or the character or the value associated. That’s why the concept of minimal intervention and the international charters emphasize on leaving them as evidences of past for the next generation.

Let’s say Tajmahal; if I were to temper the Pitrdura work or something. May be I am doing it in small part but it has survived for 500 years. In next 500 years all those designs will be lost if you contemporize it. The representation of the 15th century, 17th century will be lost. It’s an art value so we can’t temper with everything.

However there are certain cases where we are reusing certain buildings. We are upgrading them for a contemporary purpose. We are adding value to them.

Some historic palaces are being made into hotels or crafts which are the kind of buildings. There is a gradation of historic buildings where you can incorporate these things. There is a danger in that also. Some palaces in Rajasthan are facing it.

We just went to a heritage hotel. The original building was just four rooms but now there are forty rooms. And now they are claiming it to be traditional. An architect can understand the RCC construction and all but a normal tourist would think it is an original palace. It is actually a merchant’s house. There are lots of complicated issues but I don’t think that contemporisation of the design should be attempted in the historic building because even if it is then we should be period specific.

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Concluding Session Rishav Jain With this we come to the end of the seminar. It has been a fruitful day of thinking

Rishav Jain is an Assitant Professor at

and discussion, isn’t it. I remember when both Jay and I started conceptualizing

Faculty of Design and a Senior Researcher

this seminar, we were quite ambiguous about it, but many thanks to all our team

at DICRC, CEPT University, Ahmedabad

members who have made this event a success. I would like to thank, the entire team of Garvi Gurjari National Craft Fair and Summit for giving us this opportunity to conduct and organize this seminar. I would like to also extend my thank to Paresh ji and his team at GPE Expo for helping us with the entire seminar.

I wish to express my gratitude to our speakers for sharing their profound knowledge and experiences with us. Hearing from such experts is always inspirational. We are thankful to you, for taking out time from your hectic schedules and being here with us.

Thank you everyone for being with us today. I’m sure that we all have gained immensely from today’s sessions. Last but not the least, I thank all my team members, Jay this couldn’t have been possible if you weren’t there. Rajdeep, Mitraja you have been a constant support system. I acknowledge all our team members at DICRC, Yash , Mansi, Manushi, Tushita. Our volunteers Simran, Komal, Pramila, Akki, Pooja, Unnati, Raj, Shailja, Elizabeth. I thank all of you. We wish that this seminar marks a beginning of new thoughts and acts as an undercurrent for all of us.

Thank you once again.

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About Speakers Organisations

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All India Artisans and Craft workers Welfare Association (AIACA),New Delhi

Craft Revival Trust, New Delhi

Hunnarshala Foundation, Kutch

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Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Delhi

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

About the Speakers Anjali Bhatnagar Craft Revival Trust, Delhi A graduate of Indian Institute of Crafts & Design, Anjali Bhatnagar has contributed and consulted with Craft Revival Trust for over a decade, first as a student intern and over the years on several projects. She was associated with the Craftmark program at AIACA and the Asian Heritage Foundation where she was streamlining linkages of crafts people to markets. She currently works with CRT, Kumaon Grameen Udyog in Uttarakhand and India Inch - CRTs new venture which seeks to link crafts to consumers.

Amita Puri Executive Director, AIACA, New Delhi Amita Puri is the Executive Director of All India Artisans and Craft workers Welfare Association (AIACA), a non profit organization based in New Delhi. AIACA works towards raising the standard of living of craft workers and a favourable policy environment for the crafts sector. It does this by setting benchmarks and certifying handcrafted products through its Craftmark Initiative, provides capacity building and market linkages support to Craft Groups and undertakes research for policy advocacy linked work. Before joining AIACA, she was the Chief Executive of Charities Aid Foundation, India, which is a part of the CAF International Network. CAF India works in the philanthropy space with a mission to promote effective giving, and increase the flow of resources from individuals and institutions to the not for profit sector in India. Prior to CAF, she worked for nine years with CRY, India’s leading advocate for child rights.

She is on the India Advisory Group of the Asia Venture Philanthropy Network and serves on the Board of the Centre for Advocacy and Research.

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Divay Gupta Principal Director at Architectural Heritage, Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Delhi Divay Gupta is a Conservation Architect with postgraduate specializations in Architectural Conservation and Heritage Management from School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi and University of Birmingham, UK, respectively.

With these skills he has been involved in conservation and management of cultural heritage resources in India for the past 17 years. He has successfully completed projects related to on-site restoration, reconstruction, adaptive reuse, heritage tourism, urban conservation, regional planning, sustainable development, capacity building, building crafts, designing in context, formulations of management plans, guidelines and policies for conservation and heritage management. As an ICOMOS expert he have evaluated world heritage sites Nepal, Cambodia and Srilanka.

Kiran Vaghela Managing Director, Hunnarshala Foundation, Kutch Kiran Vaghela, managing director and a founding member of Hunnarshala,is a civil engineer by profession. He has been extensively working in Bhuj post the massive earthquake for re-habilitation of rural areas, involving various craftspeople. He taps the skills of local artisans and builders who have deep knowledge of resilient building systems and through his team at Hunnarshala delivers high-quality, sustainable, and disaster-safe housing. He uses traditional wisdom in contemporary architecture creating possibilities for architects to come forward and explore new methods of application. And also emphasises on involving traditional community and its development.

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Ananthapuram Gopinatha Rao Professor, Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT Bombay A.G. Rao (Ananthapuram Gopinatha Rao) is a Professor at the Industrial Design Centre. In the last decade, Prof Rao developed a tool-kit and small technologies for bamboo, and established Bamboo Studio at IDC giving a new direction to design in bamboo with a social cause. He has initiated 20 mini bamboo clusters in the villages of India with Design and Technology assistance. He has also started an Incubation company, ‘AG Bambu Style’. Prof. Rao was the Head of IDC from 1987-90. He has been instrumental in developing courses in Basic Design, Product Design, Creativity and Design philosophy. Prof. Rao has been very active professionally and designed more than 20 products for Indian industries, including the “Electronic Voting Machine” currently being used in India. He has been a member of the Board of Directors for Boroplast Ltd and a member of the editorial board of International Journal of Bamboo and Rattan.

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About DICRC Design Innovation and Craft Resource Centre (DICRC), CEPT University, India functions as a research centre for the development and understanding of Indian Crafts (SMC – Space Making Crafts and Surface Narrative Crafts) related to Traditional and Vernacular Buildings of India. Its one of the objective is to integrate the traditional knowledge and craft practices in current Interior-Architecture sector as well as design education. It has five major focus areas, which are Research & Documentation, Innovation and Development, Education and Training, Application and Collaboration and lastly Resource Building & Dissemination. Its main activities are to conduct dedicated research, documentation and organize programs, workshops and projects related to Craft and Traditional and Vernacular Interior Architecture. These are realized through detailed research, mapping, documentation, and analysis of Craft and Traditional and Vernacular built environment; SMC workshops and Innovation internship programs; Trainings, curriculum development for craft and providing a platform for discussion, seminar, and forum for role of craft in Interior Architecture at national and International level. DICRC is a one of the Research Centre of the CEPT University.

DICRC is supported by Industrial Extension Cottage (INDEXT-C), Government of Gujarat, India. INDEXT-C is a State Government Scheme under Cottage and Rural Industries (Commissioner of Cottage Industry).

For more information visit http://dicrc.in/

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About INDEXT C Every human being irrespective of economic situation is endowed with capabilities not only to take care of; but also has the potential to contribute to the enhancement of the quality of life of all other fellow human beings if given adequate opportunities. Therefore, it is the responsibility of every society to make sure that each member of the society gets opportunities to use his capabilities and live with human dignity. State, as one the important body engaged in governing the society must demonstrate initiatives and take necessary measures so that each human being gets an opportunity to exploit his/her capabilities.

Government of Gujarat has been wedded to the above philosophy. In order to handle the problem of unemployment effectively, priority has been given to make the development of cottage and village industries more employment oriented than today with a view to ensure employment to total rural youths because more employment opportunities are being created with less capital in cottage and rural industries. The INDEXT-C has been created to provide information and guidance & organising Cottage & Rural Industrial sector as a catalyst.

More information: www.craftofgujarat.com

About Faculty of Design, CEPT University Established in 1991 as the School of Interior Design at CEPT, the Faculty of Design at CEPT University has been the pioneer in formalizing the education of Interior Design in the country. Ever since its inception, the Faculty of Design has striven towards excellence in teaching and building theoretical grounds for the Interior Design profession. The Faculty of Design sees design as a cultural system that deals with all aspects of human evolution, the production of culture as well as unfolding of human imagination.

CEPT University focuses on understanding, designing, planning, constructing Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions | 89

and managing human habitats. Its teaching programs build thoughtful professionals and its research programs deepen understanding of human settlements. CEPT University also undertakes advocacy and advisory projects to further the goal of making habitats more livable. CEPT University takes its name from the ‘Center for Environmental Planning and Technology’ (CEPT).

CEPT and the various schools that it comprises were established by the Ahmedabad Education Society with the support of the Government of Gujarat and the Government of India.

For more information visit http://cept.ac.in/

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For more information visit www.dicrc.in

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This seminar was a part of Education and Training Activities of DICRC Design Innovation and Craft Resource Centre (DICRC).

CEPT University, Ahmedabad Contact :+079-26302470 Ext- 380, 381 email: dicrc@cept.ac.in www.dicrc.in 94 | Paramparaa : Future of Craft Traditions