VANTAGE 2015

VANTAGE A UoH Publication

April 2015, Vol 6, Issue 1

For Internal Circulation

LOOMS & LORE

Handloom: India’s Next Sunset Industry

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“The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.�

James Joyce

Editorial Team Chief Editors Harika Vankadara Joyel K. Pious Copy Desk Saumya Painuli (Chief ) Aalekhya Tadepalli Anupama Evani Ashutosh Prasad Divya K. Meghna Neogi Sanjana K. K. Design Team K. Keerthi Kiran (Chief ) Avnish Kumar Nidhi Gupta Priyanka Manikandan Photography and Infographics Team Aalekhya Tadepalli (Chief ) Ashutosh Prasad Priyanka Manikandan Features Editor Sanjana K. K. Production Manager Nidhi Gupta Cover Photos Tejasvi Dantuluri Facilitating Editors Anjali Lal Gupta Usha Raman Sadhana Ramchander *** Vol 6, Issue 1, Pages 72 Printed and published by the Department of Communication Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication University of Hyderabad Gachibowli, Hyderabad Telangana 500046

Understanding Survival Dilemmas

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huge statue of a weaver sitting at his loom adorns the town square of Siricilla in Karimnagar district of Telangana. This freshly-painted statue seems to represent the future of the handloom sector in the age of computerised textile production. Once a village of handloom weavers, Siricilla has moved on to the mass production of machine-made cloth, leaving behind its long history of hand weaving.

Even though the picture is not as bleak in many other parts of the country, the handloom industry in the state is going through a period of turbulence. Recent years have seen a lot of new initiatives from both government and private sectors to bring handloom products into the shopping carts of the young, but they are yet to make any difference in the lives of weavers themselves.

Weaving communities are facing a generational crisis – a young generation aspires to defy boundaries and explore territories, and yet desires to keep its traditions intact. The biggest challenge and hope for handloom is to establish its identity and space in the wish list of a tech-savvy generation spoilt for choice.

There is absolutely no point in romanticising an occupation that doesn’t ensure the well-being of its producers. In the words of a young weaver in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, “We are proud of our skills. But if it doesn’t pay, what should we do?”

It is in the midst of such a discourse that Vantage 2015 explores the handloom sector in the country. Our cover story focuses on the process of street-sizing, a crucial step in the process of cotton weaving in East Godavari district, and takes a look at the environment in which the handloom industry in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana works.

Our articles will take you through the lives of weavers at East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh, and of weavers in Pochampally and Siricilla in Telangana. Our interactions with government officials and office bearers of weavers’ cooperative societies in the regions provide further insight.

We also attempt to acknowledge the efforts of those who struggled to and succeeded in creating hope for weaving communities.

The next time you cross paths with handloom products, we would like you to look beyond the price tag on it. In your hands is not just a cloth, but a legacy woven by the hands and souls of weavers who are probably the last bearers of a torch that has been alight for generations.

Weavers: Dreams, Hopes, Lives A Tale of Two Generations 6 Joyel K. Pious Building Bridges to the Present 9 Anupama Evani Weavers Walk Out of Cooperatives 12 Saumya Painuli The Fading Art of Manual Dyeing 16 Avnish Kumar Legends Have It 20 K. Keerthi Kiran Daughters of the Loom 23 Priyanka Manikandan Threads of a Legacy 27 Divya K. In Need of Helping Hands 29 Venkatesh Mamidi A Looming Presence 31 Divya K. Exploring Identities 34 Aalekhya Tadepalli Looms at Loggerheads 37 Rashad K. Keeping Faith in Handlooms 40 Samyuktha Gagga Handloom: India's Next Sunset Industry 43

P 43 Cover Story

Handloom: India’s Next Sunset Industry

Politics and Policies Bifurcation Blues 50 Ashutosh Prasad Caught Between Hope and Despair 52 Nidhi Gupta Chasing Healthcare 56 Basha P. Deskilling: A Livelihood Strategy 59 Tejasvi Dantuluri

Consumer Culture Capturing the Cybermarket 64 Sanjana K. K. Woven From a Dream 67 Meghna Neogi Why Handlooms Matter 69 Harika Vankadara

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Suraiya Hasan Bose

Woven From a Dream "Handlooms require single-minded focus and passion."

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WEAVERS: DREAMS, HOPES, LIVES...

Threads dance over each other, teased into place by the steady, rhythmic moves of the handloom. This is the music to which weavers work, creating fabrics of multiple hues and designs to make ends meet.

Read on to learn more about the people by the loom, the silhouettes in our imagination‌

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A Tale of Two Generations

Joyel K. Pious Straddling tradition and modernity, the handloom sector awaits its future course. With an educated young generation increasingly turning away from an age-old practice, handloom is struggling to survive in the hands of skilled yet underpaid weavers.

Joyel K. Pious

The skilled hands of a weaver stiffened by decades of work

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rom the farthest end of a narrow street comes a clacking sound, breaking the silence of its surroundings. It emerged from a small tileroofed house painted light blue. While the outside world bathed in bright daylight, there is darkness inside the house. It is in this darkness that Andra Sathiraju has been moving the pedals and shuttles of his handloom for the last 70 years.

“This is the only thing I know,” says Sathiraju in a feeble, trembling voice when asked about

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his life as a weaver. A resident of Rayavaram, a village of around 200 weaving families in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, Sathiraju, 86, entered the world of threads and looms at the age of 15.

Starting his day at around seven every morning, his hands continue to work till six in the evening, with an hour’s lunch break providing the only relief.

“This work doesn’t give sufficient money and powerloom has made things worse,” says Sathiraju

about the decline of handloom. Ten days of hard labour can produce only 60 metres of cotton sarees that fetch him just Rs. 1,500.

“Young generation is going to chit business and other kinds of work,” he says with a hint of remorse.

The records of The Third National Handloom Census (2009-10) show that there has been a decline in the number of handloom weavers across the country. The number has dropped from 33.26 lakh in 1995 to 29.09 lakh in 2010.

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Joyel K. Pious

Sathiraju working on his loom, his only companion for over 60 years

Sathiraju lost his wife 60 years ago and has no children. He lives with his brother’s family. Relatives and neighbours affectionately call him thatha (grandfather).

“Thatha works with the loom and we all help him,” says Lakshmi, Sathiraju’s sister-in-law. Lakshmi grew up in a family of cloth merchants, and learnt spinning and weaving after moving to Rayavaram after her marriage. Sitting in a small room with a television and a refrigerator, Lakshmi spins spools for Sathiraju’s loom.

“Weaving is not profitable and we don’t want our children doing this,” she says, claiming that her son Sreenu is earning more money from the tailoring shop he set up after he quit weaving.

Even selling the cotton sarees he weaves is becoming difficult for Sathiraju. His old age and deteriorating eyesight have forced him to work on thick threads of 40-count, which are inferior in smoothness and quality as against the fine threads of 60-count that are in greater demand. “I used to work with thin threads, but I can’t work with them anymore,” he says.

He now weaves Madhu Parakam (a white saree with a red border), which is mainly used in marriage functions. “Those who are part of the weavers’ society are getting better prices. But society doesn’t take the kind of clothes I weave and I am unable to weave the kind of clothes the society needs,” laments Sathiraju.

The number of handloom weavers in the country has declined from 33.26 lakh in 1995 to 29.09 lakh in 2010.

While most of the weavers in Rayavaram village are part of the weavers’ cooperative society there, a few weavers like Sathiraju choose to work for master weavers.

“Once, he was also part of the weavers’ society. But few years back the society closed down due to some problems and many weavers went to master

weavers. Most of them came back when the society restarted operations, but he is still weaving for a master weaver,” says Kamu Somasekhara Rao, President, Rayavaram Weavers’ Co-operative Society. “Other than Sathiraju, only two or three weavers are working with threads of 40-count. Clothes made with such threads sell very less. We usually work with thread of 60-count for its smoothness,” he adds.

Years of physical labour have left their marks on Sathiraju. Back pain has become his constant companion, thanks to long hours of continuously sitting at the loom. Due to the peculiar way of handling the pedals and shuttles of the loom, his fingers have become very stiff and are bent at the joints. “I never went to any hospital,” he asserts, saying that he never faced any serious health issues.

After setting the threads for his afternoon work, Sathiraju came out of the shadow of his loom. Standing straight and stretching his limbs, Sathiraju walked towards the narrow street in front of his house to feel the

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sunshine. Finished Madhu Parakam sarees hanging on a rope in front of his house formed the backdrop for his tired body. “I know nothing other than this,” he says with a sad smile playing on his lips.

New Age Aspirations While Sathiraju prepared his loom for his afternoon work, a young weaver in Pasalapudi village, located a few kilometres from Rayavaram, took out a pen and note book.

Durga Prasad, 23, belongs to the Devanga weaving community.

He returned to his village after successfully completing Bachelors in Chemistry and Bachelors in Education with only one goal.

“I wish to enter government service, preferably teaching. I don’t want to continue weaving,” he says in fluent English while arranging his books in a shelf. Having finished high school in a local government school, Durga Prasad moved to Rajahmundry, the nearest city to Pasalapudi and the district headquarter, to pursue higher studies.

“I learned weaving from my parents at the age 14 or 15. But they

Joyel K. Pious

Durga Prasad at his home

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also encouraged me to study. Even now when I come home during vacations, I work on the loom,” says Durga Prasad, adding that he will stop weaving once he lands in a job.

Along with his preparation for a job, Durga Prasad weaves one and a half saree each day. “It fetches me around Rs. 200, much less than the

With increasing levels of education and opportunities, it is no wonder that the younger generation is abandoning handloom weaving for better prospects. daily wages from many other works (sic),” he says, looking at the loom in his house. He complains that powerlooms are selling mass-produced clothes with fake handloom logos and eating into the market of handlooms. “The government should intervene if it wants the handloom to survive,” he adds.

It was his elder brother Raju who showed him a new path. After

completing Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, Raju got a job in the Indian Railways as a loco-pilot.

He used to weave earlier, but has now left it completely. His younger brother is studying Bachelors in Analytical Chemistry at Vizag.

“Income from weaving alone is insufficient. Other fields including agricultural labour are giving higher income than this. Then why should we stick on to this?” asks Durga Prasad.

His neighbour Puchala Veera Sathya Ganesh also agrees with him.

“I work part-time with a powerloom, apart from handloom weaving. I am able to manage my household expenses with this arrangement,” he says. He opines that higher education is the path of development for the next generation.

The third handloom census report shows that among the handloom workers aged above 18, over 29.4 percent of the workers have never received any kind of schooling while 22.9 percent attended middle school.

Only 4.7 percent of the work force enrolled for higher secondary school and just 1.7 percent are graduates. There is a growing awareness among parents about the importance of education.

With increasing levels of education and opportunities, it is no wonder that the younger generation is abandoning the traditional skill of handloom weaving for better prospects.

Skilled and experienced craftspeople like Sathiraju who carried the torch of weaving tradition are on the brink of extinction. The wind of technology and modernity is blowing across the families of weavers. There is a new generation aspiring to move towards hitherto untouched territories. As they openly express their disinterest in continuing the tradition, the book of hand weaving seems to be entering its final chapters.

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Building Bridges to the Present Anupama Evani

Joyel K. Pious

The current situation of the handloom industry necessitates a substantial change in policies concerning the creation of awareness and training of weavers to equip them in weaving contemporary designs.

Asu Machine: a milestone innovation in tie-dye process

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hintakindi Mallesham was born in a traditional weaver’s family in a small village called Sharjipet in Telangana. His parents, Laxminarayan and Laxmi began training him in weaving when he was 10. His family has been weaving Pochampally sarees for several generations.

Pochampally silk sarees involve the exquisite tradition of double ikat, a specific dyeing process that allows the creation of the intricate geometric designs that have become characteristic of this tradition.

Before weaving these patterns on a loom, hand winding process of yarn

has to be pursued. This is called "asu".

This process involves moving one’s hand, over a space of one metre, up and down around semi-circularly arranged pegs. Around 9,000 moves of the hand make enough yarn for one saree, demanding high concentration and accuracy.

Mallesham decided to come to Hyderabad to find a livelihood. He started working in a machine shop in Balanagar, Hyderabad. It was here that he made a device to mechanise the asu process, relieving women (who generally do this task) from the drudgery involved. This has been

a path-breaking innovation for the weavers of Pochampally.

“My mother used to work very hard for the asu process. My innovation has made her life, and many others’, much easier. I am very happy with the outcome of my innovation,” says Mallesham. Each machine costs Rs. 20,000, and 750 machines have been sold so far.

“There are many households which cannot afford to pay this amount. Weaving households in Pochampally without this machine are finding it difficult to carry on with their work. There have been donations by 150 NRIs in this direction (the purchase of asu machines).

Government intervention will also definitely help,” he adds.

Looking Back According to available resources, the earliest traces of handloom weaving in India were found during the times of Mohenjadaro and Harappan civilisations of ancient India where fragments of woven cotton and bone needles were discovered.

Three types of designs were found: the rural, the classical and the tribal. The rural represented familiar and constant images of rural life

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NC SU Librar y

Jacquard loom in the 1920s

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like the figures of plants, animals and humans. The classical had designs of rulers. Tribal designs were usually bold geometric patterns in primary colours, woven on bamboo looms.

The coming of the Mughals to India brought about a drastic change in the designs used. Symbols and designs full of life and joy were replaced by abstract features. This was when Persian motifs became a part of Indian tradition. Indian and Persian colours combined to give birth to a new culture of colour.

Government Steps in Fashion trends and the needs of the people have been changing from time to time. The weavers, who are the makers of handloom fabrics, are unaware of new designs.

“The government held training workshops in design a few years back.

The main issue is that weavers do not benefit from these training workshops as they happen for a brief period,” says Venkata Ramana, Secretary of Pasalapudi Weavers’ Cooperative Society, East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh.

Handicrafts & Handloom Exports Corporation of India Limited (HHEC) had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) at a national level on February 2, 2015.

As per the terms of this MoU, NIFT will work on new designs and product development techniques and supply them to HHEC. These two institutions will in turn prepare sample products. HHEC will then place these samples in its showrooms. Depending on the demand for the sample, production orders will be given to different clusters.

At the grass-root level, handloom weavers and cooperative societies are unaware of any such MoU. “Weavers are creative. They use their imagi-

nation to create new designs as per changing needs,” says Pedda Veerraju, Secretary of Rayavaram Weavers' Coperative Society in East Godavari.

Talking about the history of the Arasada design, which is typical of a region by the same name in Srikakulam district, Venkata Ramana said that historically innovators are reluctant about sharing design techniques.

be inundated with water, damaging the looms and making it difficult for weavers to work. There was also the problem of rats making homes in the pits, biting into the fabric. Hence, pitlooms were replaced by standlooms that are placed at surface level, and the pedals are suspended above the ground. The position of the person weaving is above the ground level.

No Awareness of Innovations

Problems with Street Sizing

Deepak Bharali, a businessman from Assam received an award from the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) for his efforts in modifying the Jacquard loom – an apparatus with perforated cards fitted to a loom to facilitate the weaving of figured and brocaded fabrics.

His innovation allowed for extra weft (the crosswise threads on a loom) insertion. This reduced the time of making designs to one-third of that required in the traditional weaving method.

P. L. Banumurthi from Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, received an award from NIF for automatic saree border weft insertion. This helped in reducing the effort involved in the making of intricate border designs.

Though such innovations take place, the benefits of these advancements do not percolate to grass-root levels. Weavers are still stuck with traditional weaving methods, which are laborious. “The government should nurture weavers as a child.

Only then will the weaving industry survive,” says Pedda Veerraju.

Street sizing is an essential part of cotton handloom weaving wherein natural adhesives are applied to yarn and it is further treated to increase its strength so that it can withstand the rigours of weaving. The process is long and tiring, and requires more than four people on a yarn spread. The wages, however, are very low. Working at construction sites or in agricultural fields pays twice as much.

“It will be helpful if we have a machine where the yarn is converted to usable form by which street sizing need not be done”, says Pedda Veerraju, The handloom industry currently presents a bleak picture.

Cotton weavers are shifting to silk weaving as it does not require the street sizing process. The present generation of weavers is disinterested in carrying on the profession and is migrating to cities for work.

The meagre wages being given to them in return for the tedious process involved in weaving is the cause of this shift.

Innovations are an integral part of the handloom industry. They increase efficiency and feasibility of handloom weaving. Only if the government takes enough measures to see that the innovations reach weavers at the grass-root level, will there be a significant change in the course of the handloom industry.

Minor Changes in Technique Villagers in Hasanbada, East Godavari, faced many problems with pitlooms. A pitloom is set up in a hole in the ground, and a weaver sits on the edge of the pit with his/her legs on foot pedals dangling in the pit. During monsoons, the pits would

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Weavers Walk Out of Cooperatives Saumya Painuli Cooperative societies are presented as the life-savers of an ailing handloom industry.

Reality, however, questions this claim, with weavers opting out of societies to survive adverse market conditions.

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ooperative societies, it is said, have been formed to give employment to weavers, protect their interests and to promote the handloom industry. However, the state of affairs in some villages of East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh tells a different story altogether.

The cooperatives have evidently failed to address the needs of the weavers, and the latter thereby choose to work either for master weavers or directly for retailers.

Master weavers, or middlemen as they are labelled, provide raw material to the weavers and then sell the finished products to retailers. A master weaver thus has control over the wages of the weavers who work for him/her. Working for a retailer, on the other hand, does not involve master weavers. The weavers are in direct touch with the owners of retail outlets.

Parvati Nagar, a small area tucked away on the edge of Mandapeta town in East Godavari district, has around seven weaving families that work independently.

These families are not part of any cooperative society. They work for master weavers or for retailers.

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Leaving Cooperatives Puthala Sreenivas, 28, is a resident of Parvati Nagar who walked out of the Mandapeta Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society a year ago. “I used to work with the society, but the production was low. I used to weave cotton but the demand came down. There was a time when there was no production at all. So, I opted out of the society,” he says. Sreenivas now weaves silk sarees for a retailer and sporadically finds work at construction sites to support his family.

Talking about the particulars of his life as a weaver, he says, “When I was working with the society, I used to make Rs. 1,500 per month which was not sufficient to meet the needs of my family. My father and my sister-in-law weave, but my brother and I seek work outside. Weaving gives us Rs. 200 per saree on which two or three people work, whereas farming and construction work pay Rs. 250 per person.”

Life Outside Cooperatives Nagaratnam, 69, used to weave till her eyesight failed her nine years ago. Currently, she spins silk yarn into

spools for her family and for other weavers in the area. She is paid Rs. 25 for the whole load of spools needed to weave a saree.

While incessantly spinning spools, she talks about herself, “In my family, there are four members who weave. It takes 20 days to weave a silk saree. We make differently designed sarees, and we need at least three people at the loom whenever we weave.”

The family gets Rs. 7,000 for each silk saree woven, which is much higher than what the other weavers in the area earn. The wages are high because the family incorporates different designs in the sarees, as per the instructions given by their retailer. While the wages may seem higher in comparison to other weavers, it is worth noting that the market price of these sarees ranges between Rs. 15,000 and 20,000.

In contrast to other households in Parvati Nagar, this family seems to be the only one that earns as much for a silk saree. Other households get an average of Rs. 500 per saree. More than one person is required at the loom for working on

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Aalekhya Tadepalli

Nagaratnam spinning spools at her house in Parvati Nagar

silk sarees with complex designs, and not all families have as many hands contributing at the loom.

Neighbours of Nagaratnam prefer to eke out a living by working on farms or at construction sites.

The retailers for whom the weavers here work visit them every week, collect finished products and pay them their wages. Two regular retailers and a couple of irregular ones are the providers of livelihood here, paying the weavers well and on-time.

Padmashree–awardee master weaver A. G. Goverdhan says, “The cooperative societies do provide employment opportunities to weavers but because the societies are dependent on government schemes, they sometimes fail.”

He explains that weavers opt to work with master weavers as it fetches them more wages. Goverdhan explains that though there is a negative image around master weavers, they are actually the ones providing work and help to independent weavers.

Supply – Demand Gaps The condition of weavers here draws attention to the efficiency, or lack thereof, of cooperative societies.

They seem to have failed in meeting market demands, primarily because

Apart from non-payment

by APCO, lack of innovation and limited designs are other reasons behind defunct societies.

The societies do not invest on innovating new designs or techniques, which limits the scope for weavers to experiment. the supply-demand gap in terms of designs is not being bridged.

There is little scope for adaptation to new designs in these societies where the Andhra Pradesh State Handloom

Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. (APCO) is the primary buyer, with the societies' own retail outlets being the other revenue generator.

Lack of new designs in step with current trends limits the sales of cotton sarees, explains A. Srinivas Rao, a weaver at Rayavaram village, East Godavari. The situation in Rayavaram is similar - there are quite a few weaving families that have opted for silk production outside the village’s cooperative society – Rayavaram Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society.

Weavers of this village state that the demand for silk is higher than cotton.

Cooperatives rely on “conventional” designs whose sale is limited. In contrast, master weavers and retailers work in tandem with market demands and instruct weavers to produce relevant textiles. The retailers are thus able to pay them better as the retail value of such textiles is higher.

The President of the Pandalapaka Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society in East Godavari, Pichika Surya

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

A. Srinivasa Rao of Rayavaram village, weaving a silk saree

Rao, 79, resonates with this view. He says, “The handloom industry is witnessing a downfall as it is stuck with traditional methods.”

Stumbling Blocks Srinivasa Rao works for a master weaver who is based in a nearby town. Rao left the Rayavaram cooperative society six years ago and shifted to silk production. He says, “The cooperative allows only cotton weaving. The demand for cotton is going down. Moreover, street sizing is a big constraint for cotton production. The society pays Rs. 200 for a cotton saree whereas the master weaver pays Rs. 500 for a silk saree.”

Besides street sizing, share capital is another obstacle for the weavers. Share capital is the amount that is collected by the cooperative soci-

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ety from every weaver at the time of registration. The amount varies from society to society but is generally between Rs. 2,000 and 3,000. The secretary of the Rayavaram weavers’ society explains that this onetime payment is taken by societies as insurance, as raw material worth much more is given to the weavers to make the end product.

The members of cooperative societies admit that share capital is a drawback as not all weavers can afford the payment and such weavers are forced to work independently. In Rayavaram, of the 60 looms in the village, 20 belong to members of the society whereas the rest belong to weavers working outside the cooperative.

Left with no alternative, the weavers divert their services towards master weavers as they provide them with

opportunities to play with design and are able to pay them better. There is no concept of shared capital involved which makes it viable for the weavers to work for master weavers.

However, D. Virupaksham, President of Hasanbada Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society, says, “Cooperative societies are the best channels to remove middlemen. This society pays Rs. 3,200 for 10 sarees, whereas master weavers pay Rs. 2,000 for the same. It is true that some weavers have diverted to silk production but the society does not take silk. However, the middlemen exploit the weavers.”

In the midst of this debate, the Mandapeta Cooperative Society has found middle ground by undertaking both cotton and silk production.

In conversation with Vantage, Secretary of Mandapeta Handloom

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Aalekhya Tadepalli

Weavers' Cooperative Society V. Ganapathi says that the society, unlike most other cooperatives in the district, is able to invest more and thus undertakes both silk and cotton fabric production.

APCO Troubles The failure of APCO to provide good rates for the society’s products (at most 5–10 percent profit margin is given) and its inability to make timely payments is costing the society dearly.

Non-payment by APCO has resulted in the piling up of stocks in storehouses. For Mandapeta Society, the last payment by APCO was made in June 2014. Other societies of the East Godavari district too face the same problem — payments have not been made for many months.

Apart from non-payment by APCO, the lack of innovation and limited design options are some of the prominent reasons behind defunct societies. The societies suffer from shortage of resources which limits the scope for weavers to be able to experiment.

The Report of the Steering Committee on Handlooms and Handicrafts constituted for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–2017) states that about 85 percent of the weavers in the country are outside the cooperative fold, as they work either for master weavers, traders or independently.

There is an urgent need for cooperatives to invest in innovating techniques to bridge the supplydemand gap. Evidently, the ability of master weavers to straddle changing market demands have helped them fulfill the needs of weavers to some extent. If cooperatives continue to lag behind, more weavers will opt out of the cooperative fold to work independently and survive.

Street sizing work in progress in Pasalapudi village

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The Fading Art of Manual Dyeing Avnish Kumar

Workers in the manual dyeing industry are in a fix as it is on a path of rapid decline. The inability of cooperatives to create demand for handloom products and thus engage dyers is placing the latter in jeopardy.

Joyel K. Pious

Daily wage workers Ganesh and Sreenu dyeing hank yarn at Pulugurtha Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society

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arcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and philosopher, once said, “The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.� Colour is something that produces different sensations in a person. A skilled dye worker masters the art of creating such impressions via the fabric with which s/he works.

Colouring is a crucial pre-loom activity. Both natural and synthetic 16 VANTAGE 2015

colourants are used to dye hank yarn. Dyeing units work independently as well as with cooperative societies in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

According to the 2010 Third National Handloom Census of Weavers and Allied Workers, 45,668 households employed in the handloom sector in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh state ac-

quired dyes and chemicals from both government outlets and private firms. The people of the two states have perfected the art of cloth dyeing. A dyeing unit is typically situated close to a weaving community.

The Making of Colours In the manual dyeing process, husk or wood shavings are used to boil hank UoH

Data as provided by The Third National Handloom Census (2009–10)

yarn - a roll of spun cotton of differing qualities - in a solution of water, HCl and caustic soda. The hank is then bleached if light shades are to be achieved. A shade is obtained by mixing two or more colours.

These colours are of two types – napthol and vat. Napthol colours are characterised by the presence of soluble 2-napthol compounds, while vat colors, originally water-insoluble, are made soluble to dye the yarn. First, napthol is mixed with hydrochloric acid (HCl) and caustic soda, and the yarn is dipped in this solution. The yarn is then boiled twice, allowed to dry for a day, and then dipped in vat colours that are boiled in HCl and caustic soda.

“If the yarn is boiled in an open space, it doesn’t affect our health,” says Sudhakar Satyanarayana, Secretary

of Pulugurtha Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society, East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, when asked about the health hazards of dyeing.

Dyeing units need to have a proper ventilation system to allow fumes and pungent odours to escape, and to ensure that workers don’t face respiratory problems.

Dark colours are mixed to make other colours. The most popular suppliers of dye colours in East Godavari are Ahemdabad-based Atul Industries and Mumbai- based Indokem.

Vat colours are generally costlier than napthol colours.

Each dyeing unit usually has its own record of what measurements of which ingredients make a particular shade. This is the holy book the unit

adheres to. New shades, when created, are also added to the records.

Cooperative Societies The dyeing industry, even though it has a lot of scope for employment, is at the moment unable to provide a decent means of living for those engaged in it.

Also, the workers engaged in dyeing have to resort to other means of earning because the process of dyeing does not engage them for a whole month.

Sreenu, a dye worker who is from Someswaram village, A.P., takes up a laundry job when there is no dyeing work. He lives hand-to-mouth, with no fixed monthly income as his is a very demand-specific job.

Another worker named Ganesh is a daily-wage worker engaged in dyeing at the

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Alaekhya Tadepalli

Napthol and vat colours at the Mandapeta dyeing unit in East Godavari district

Pulugurtha Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society Ltd., East Godavari. “I travel six kms to the dyeing unit to earn a meagre Rs. 320 per day for 20 days a month,” he says. For the remaining 10 days of the month, he is forced to take up an alternative means of earning.

Independent Dyers Being with a cooperative gives a dyeing unit a sense of security as cooperatives avail of government subsidies. Plus, apex bodies of weavers’ societies often place orders with the cooperatives.

However, a few unaided dye workers in East Godavari district don’t have it easy as they work outside the relatively protective folds of cooperatives.

For instance, in Mandapeta village, Dora Trimurtulu is the only one who hires independent dye workers.

“I pay each of my workers Rs. 9,000 per month, and I have to give them

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their salaries whether or not there is work that month,” he says.

The process is very tedious as they dye 20 bundles of yarn, with each bundle weighing 4.52 kgs. Each bag of wood shavings used to boil yarn costs Rs. 100, which is relatively higher when compared to the rice husk used by other cooperatives’ dyeing units.

“I spent a lakh to establish my dyeing unit but my returns have never been able to match my investment due to the lack of subsidies and the harsh working conditions of independent workers,” says Trimurthulu.

Natural Colours Organic colours are usually extracted from roots, nuts and flowers of different flora. These chemical-free pigments are popularly extracted from Indigofera, ratan jot, onion skin, pomegranate and various flowers. The colours are influenced by the age of the plant, climate, soil conditions, nature of water used, etc.

“The labour cost of producing natural colours is almost equal to the cost of the entire dyeing process using synthetic colours,” says Sudhakar Satyanarayana, Secretary of Pulugurtha Weavers’ Cooperative Society.

Tie-Dye Method Siva’s silk dyeing unit is situated near Shantiniketan School in Bhoodan Pochampally, Nalgonda district, Telangana. The Asu machine innovated by Mallesham from A.P. came as a boon as the manual drudgery involved in the tie-dye process is reduced. It drastically eased the process of making a tiedye silk saree the Pochampally way.

The tie-dye method involves using the Asu machine. The process of preparing a proper structure for the yarn on this machine, which costs Rs. 20,000 apiece.

A rubber tube is used to tie the threads, and the untied parts

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Avnish Kumar

Worker engaged in the tie-dye process at Pochampally, Telangana

of the yarn are dyed by dipping it in colours. Graph paper is used as a reference to put pencil marks over the thread—the marked areas do not absorb dye colors—and thus the signature Pochampally ikat design is created. This method is known as chitki among the local dyers in the region.

Mechanised Method Yarn dyeing machines are efficient and resistant to corrosion. The soft flow dyeing mechanism makes it a hassle-free process and needs little labour. A single dye operator can take care of the task of creating particular hues, and seeing the dyeing process through to its completion.

Health issues among workers who operate the machines are fewer when compared to those working in manual

dyeing units as the fumes are controlled in the case of the former.

Colourants are injected with a press of a button. The ease and efficiency of mechanised dyeing challenges the very practice of manual dyeing across the country.

A Bleak Future The manual dyeing industry is losing its demand and the future of the workers associated with this craft has become uncertain, much like the handloom industry of which it is a part. With the introduction of mechanised dyeing units, the future of manual dyeing is bleak.

Reactive colours used in dyeing yarn often result in allergies and skin rashes among workers. The fumes inhaled while boiling HCl in the process could result in lung cancer.

Considering the insufficient remuneration and limited benefits received by those working in dyeing units, it is not surprising that there are few takers for this job. A major change in terms of consistent pay and improved working conditions are required to enable the survival of manual dyeing.

For a photo gallery of the manual dyeing process, please scan the code below.

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Legends Have It...

K. Keerthi Kiran From demons that bleed yellow to looms that burn down when touched on certain days, the weaving communities of East Godavari have some interesting stories to share.

Tejasvi Dantuluri

Tying lemons to the loom is believed to absorb negetive energies in the surroundings

M

yths are the lifeblood of every human civilisation. They come as part and parcel of the anthropological narrative of any society. When it comes to myths in India, it becomes essential to also talk about castes. Each caste and community has stories that are specific to it.

It is not just the progress of the art of weaving that gives the Indian handloom industry a glorious past. The culture, traditions and festivals of weavers also add to the colourful narratives. Seventeen weaving castes have been documented by those studying weaving communities in the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh. Most of these castes are exclusive — they each have a distinct identity and they don’t intermarry.

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Myths and Festivals Among these castes, most of the weavers in East Godavari district belong to Devanga and Padmashali castes. They follow all festivals like other Hindus, but when it comes to Diwali, they have a slightly different way of practising it.

The day after Diwali, the weavers of the Devanga caste are not allowed to either weave or touch the loom. A weaver in the village of Rayavaram said that when a weaver dared to touch a loom on the day after Diwali, a loom (not necessarily his) would burn down somewhere in the village.

According to the Telugu calendar, the night of a new moon is called Amavasya. Common superstitions hold that Amavasya is a time

when evil is dominant, with devils and black magic practitioners usually thriving on this night. On this day, weavers of the Devanga caste usually don’t weave.

Weavers belonging to different castes have their own reasons for not weaving or touching their looms on specific days. Weavers of the Devanga community say that when Narakasura ruled the kingdom, he used to harass people and never allowed them to do their work. When Lord Krishna killed him, a weaver named Pankata Bhargava celebrated the victory of good over evil. To mark this day, the weavers stay away from their looms.

As the myth goes, if anyone weaves on the day after Diwali, their looms would catch fire and be reduced to ashes. The impact of this myth on

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the weavers is such that they follow the tradition till date without fail.

Narrating a story about their way of celebrating the Sankranti festival, Srinivasulu of Mandapeta town, who belongs to Padmashali caste, says,

“There was a person named Pentadu who belonged to a caste that is considered to be lower than the Padmashali caste. But because of his love for weaving, he worked for the Padmashalis. In those days, many robbers used to rob

the weavers, especially on Amavasya nights when they could take advantage of the lack of light. “On one particular night of Amavasya, at the time of Sankranti festival, when robbers were trying to rob a vil-

An object to ward off the evil eye, hanging outside the house of a weaver Joyel K. Pious

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Source: chowdeshwaridevi.blogspot.in

Goddess Chowdeshwari Devi

lage, Pentadu protected the weavers by attacking and killing the robbers.

In that brawl, he too got killed.”

It is to pay tribute to Pentadu and to remember his sacrifice that the weavers of the Padmashali community don’t weave for 10 days after the Sankranti festival, explains Srinivasulu.

Chowdeshwari Jatara Another popular myth among the weavers in the district is related to the tribal goddess Chowdeshwari, a form of Kali (or Durga), worshiped by the Devanga community.

Weavers of this community consider their weaving threads to be very auspicious. They believe that even the colours of threads have a mythological story. Venkatesh Prasad, a

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weaver of Pulugurtha village says, “Red, yellow, white, black and green colours came from the blood of five asuras (demons) killed by Goddess Chowdeshwari. Devalan, a devout follower of Goddess Chowdeshwari, is believed to have dyed bundles of thread by dipping them into these five colours of blood.”

Sri Chowdeshwari Jatara is an important festival celebrated by the Devanga community either at home or at the Sri Chowdeshwari Temple located in the village of Nandavaram in Kurnool district.

The panchaloha (alloy of five metals) idol in the temple is believed to reply to the questions asked by supplicants. Most of the weavers from East Godavari district visit this temple to attend the auspicious jatara.

Chowdeshwari Jatara is celebrated in the honour of the Goddess in the month of March-April. On the day of this festival, sheep or goats are sacrificed, and jaggery water and coconuts are offered to the Goddess in return for her blessings. This Jatara lasts for three days. Around 10 to 12 thousand Hindus, including weavers, attend this Jatara every year.

The weaving community is the repository of not just the skill of the craft, but also of a set of myths and cultures that is unique to it.

The weaving sector in East Godavari is quickly fading with younger generations moving on to other forms of employment. And with this, it is possible that the culture and lore unique to this community may also cease to exist.

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Daughters of the Loom Priyanka Manikandan

The handloom sector in India is unique in terms of the number of women involved in it. 29.08 lakh women are employed in handloom weaving across the country, working either full-time or part-time. Education, marriage, traditions, government policies...the challenges they face are many.

Photo: Tejasvi Dantuluri

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S

eparating the tangled threads in the half-woven blue silk saree, Saraswathi was lost in concentration. The rhythmic sound of the bobbin moving right and left in the loom broke the silence in the house.

Lakshmi, her sister, sat on the floor with her arms resting on her polioaffected right leg. An old Telugu song playing on the small screen of a television set caught her attention.

Her mother Aachiyamma was preparing the yarn for winding.

When asked about her family, she looked up and gave a mechanical smile. Abandoned by her husband two years after marriage with two children, all that Saraswathi had was the loom. “He was a drunkard and the wage from weaving was not even sufficient for our sustenance.

He left me and my children and ran away from the village.”

Saraswathi takes care of the family and has brought up her two children with what she earns from weav-

ing. Her elder son, Surya Prakash, is working in a pharmaceutical company in Anakapalli, Andhra Pradesh, after completing his graduation in chemistry. Her younger son, Udaya Bhaskar, is in the final year of his B. Sc. in Chemistry.

“Saraswathi struggled a lot initially, now their family is in a better position,” says M. Satyanarayana, an accountant in the Veeravaram Weavers’ Cooperative Society and a neighbour of Saraswathi. “Marriages are mostly between the members of the community. Here, drinking is a big problem. It spoils marital relations and families,” he adds.

While marriage is a major lifechanger for many women, the change in the marriage patterns in the village is something to be noted.

Changing Marriage Algorithms Katta Lakshmi can’t remember much about her marriage since she

was only seven years old then.

“They brought me to my husband’s home after I started menstruating, when I was 13 or 14. Back then, this kind of marriage was a very common practice.”

She is a testimony of the practice of child marriages in her community. But now, marriage algorithms are changing. The age at which a girl enters a marriage has undergone a major change. Like many rural communities in the country, the age of marriage for girls was 14-17 five decades ago. It seems to have changed drastically, increasing to around 21, especially over the last two decades.

“We don’t want our daughter to get married at a very early age and end her life by the loom. Twenty three is a preferable age for marriages,” says Hema, a weaver in Pandalapaka village, East Godavari district.

Profession is also a determinant in today’s marriages. “Grooms in

School Children at Pasalapudi Priyanaka Manikandan

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the weaving profession have lesser demand when compared to grooms in some other professions today. We have two sons. We’ll provide them better education and let them find some other job, which is stable and can afford a livelihood,” say Nagamani and her husband Subramanyam.

Education – The Future The weaving communities in the East Godavari district have a collective dream of a future without sorrows and money lenders. And education seems to be accepted as the way to reach that future. Many children in the locality are sent to English-medium schools, with the hopes of their elders resting on their little backs.

Anji Kumari, a weaver in Veeravaram village sounded determined when talking about the education of girls.

“I have two daughters and both of them are going to college. My elder daughter is doing her M. Sc. and the

While men are free to move away from the profession, women in the community become the natural custodians of culture and tradition. younger one is doing her B. Com. I’ll let them study and get a better job and life,” she said.

Some members in the community are open to sending their girls out to study or to work. “I have no problem sending them out if they get jobs in a metropolitan city like Hyderabad.

Weaving has no future. At least they’ll secure their future with education,” says Anji Kumari.

Female education is given the same importance as male education.

“We have a daughter and a son, we’ll let both of them study and get good jobs. My daughter wants to do engineering, she’s in her inter now,” says Sreenivas father of Divya Pavni and Sai Bhaskar from Pandalapaka village.

Females in many families are more educated than their male counterparts. “Both my daughters-in-law are inter (12thstd)-passed but my sons have studied only till class 10,” says Lakshmi, a weaver from the same village. Both her daughters-inlaw help her weave — one of them learnt to weave only after marrying into the family. But her sons are no longer in this profession.

There are many instances where men have left the profession to seek other sources of income, but the women continue to weave as they are unable to find other occupations.

Married to the loom While men are free to move away from the profession, women in the community become the natural custodians of culture and tradition.

“My sons left the profession but their wives are still weaving and it’s a great help for me. I can’t leave this

profession. I am engaged in this from my childhood and I can’t do anything else. If not weaving, what will we do?” asks Lakshmi.

It’s not just tradition that keeps women weavers bound to the loom.

Being engaged in weaving from childhood kept them away from all other professions or activities in a rural setup, like agriculture or cattle rearing. That makes many women dependent purely on the loom for their livelihood.

“I do not know any other work apart from weaving. Bedsheet weaving hardly fetches us sufficient money to fill our stomachs,” says Papayamma, a standloom weaver from Hasanbada village. Papayamma is a widow who lost her son a few years ago. Currently, she lives with her daughter-in-law.

Ganga Bhavani, who lives in Pandalapaka village, now feels that she should have learned some other skills in order to survive. “My husband and I are very old. It’s difficult for us to put ourselves into some other profession. I wish I knew farming. Many of my young neighbours are agricultural labourers,” says the 65-year-old in a hopeless voice.

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Shadow weavers D. Narasimha Reddy, Project Coordinator of the Centre for Handloom Information and Policy Advocacy (CHIP), Chirala, Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh, points out how gender limits economic independence.

In his essay “Women Handloom weavers: Facing the Brunt”, he points out that no recognition is given to women’s work as weavers, even though women play a major role in all pre-loom operations and take on labour-intensive activities.

Women don’t have access to government identity cards unless they are widowed, or are members of cooperatives societies. Women lack direct access to wages since weaving is a household enterprise and the men typically take the final product to master weavers for sale.

Weavers depend on master weavers for credit, raw material and market support.

Even in instances where women are hired for small, piece-meal activities like yarn-winding, sizing etc., their wages range from Rs. 10 to 15 per day. Single and older women suffer more since they can’t take on labour-intensive activities and lack family support.

The Third National Handloom Census of Weavers and Allied Workers (2009–2010) reports that 77.94 percent of the total adult workers in the country are women, among which 40.38 percent are engaged full time in the profession. In the pre-bifurcated state of Andhra Pradesh, 51.08 percent of the handloom workers were women, among which only 19.38 percent were trained and 80.62 percent of male workers are trained under different government initiatives like Integrated Handloom Development Scheme.

“Mostly, women are engaged in preloom activities like sizing, weft winding and bobbin winding for the warp and

attaching the warp to the loom. These are either performed as part of the work for the loom at home or in some cases as job work. These are poorly paid and can only support the woman, if it is a secondary income,” says Dr. B Syama Sundari who is associated with Dastkar Andhra, an NGO working to promote handloom weaving.

Women weavers, though equally involved in the profession as men, remain behind the curtains of recognition. But that doesn’t stop them from weaving. Regarded as tradition or livelihood, for weavers like Saraswathi, a loom is theonly weapon with which one can fight hunger, and fight for life.

“If you work hard and have no extra expenditures, you can survive on what you earn from weaving. I would never blame weaving,” says Saraswathi with a smile of satisfaction on her lips.

Saraswathi with a woven silk saree Priyanaka Manikandan

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

Threads of a Legacy Divya K. Hank yarn is the building block of handloom fabric. A study of weaving villages in East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, shows that securing this yarn has been getting very difficult.

A

s one walks through the narrow streets of the weaving villages of East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh, the eye meets occasional bursts of colours. Vibrant reds, magenta, shades of blue, pale yellow and a spectrum of colours peep from the porticos of small weaving houses. It is as though a rainbow has descended from the sky. Hanging on ropes in front of small houses, the coloured yarn gently swings in the breeze.

The handloom sector plays a vital role in the Indian economy, not only in terms of contribution to the country’s GDP but also in providing employment to rural families. However, overshadowed by the big digits of employment and economy is a small hero who carries the burden of

the entire sector on its thin fibrous shoulders — the yarn.

Often, while thinking about handlooms we restrict our imagination

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibers that is used in weaving. Most handlooms today use mill-spun yarn.

Variation in fabric is the result of using differing qualities of yarn. to the fabric alone. But to appreciate the product fully, it is important to understand the building blocks that combine to make the handloom fabric. One of the crucial raw materials

of the handloom sector is the yarn.

Yarn is a long, continuous length of interlocked fibers that is used in weaving. It can be hand-spun or mill-spun. Most handlooms today use mill-spun yarn. However, khadi is woven using hand-spun yarn.

In East Godavari district, towering floor-to-ceiling bundles of yarn sit in cooperative societies, ready to undergo the rigours of weaving and emerge as finished products.

Sarees, dhotis, towels, bedsheets and other fabrics are woven here. A casual inspection reveals that these fabrics vary in quality and price. This variation is the result of using differing qualities of yarn - it may be coarse or fine. The thickness of yarn is determined by the staple length of cotton.

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The quality of the fabric depends on the ‘count’ (decided by the number of metres per kilogram) or the finesse of the yarn. Yarn comes in a variety of counts: from a coarse count of two to a fine count of 120.

Higher the count, thinner the thread and better the quality. Fabrics made from a higher count yarn are shinier and lighter in weight. However, fabrics made with lower count yarn are durable and can withstand rough use.

Weavers tend to use higher counts of yarn ranging from 60 to 120 for sarees, and counts of 60 to 100 for dhotis. Towels and bedsheets are often woven using coarse yarn of lower count.

“The famous Uppada silk sarees are made with 120-count yarn. These sarees are as fine as an onion peel,” says D. V. V. Satyanarayana, Secretary, Pulugurtha Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society. Sarees with higher count yarn are popular as they are soft to touch and easy to carry. However, they tend to be pricier.

For coloured fabrics, dyeing is done at the yarn stage. Vibrant colours, dark and light, are used while dyeing. The fineness or coarseness of the yarn also affects the shade of colour it achieves.

“Higher the count of the yarn, more the colour required to dye it.

If say a 20-count yarn requires 60 grams of colour, a 120-count yarn will need 120 grams to produce the same shade of the colour,” explains Satyanarayana. The thickness of the thread also decides the shine of the coloured fabric.

While the demand for fabrics made from higher count yarn is always higher, working with the fine threads poses challenges. Weakening eyesight due to continuous weaving is common among weavers.

This affects their ability to work with yarn of high counts.

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Where 60 percent of the production costs in weaving is accounted for by yarn, this hero is crucial for the industry. Therefore, it is imperative to take necessary steps to ensure its supply.

Tangles in Procurement Even though yarn is a vital element in handloom weaving, there are several problems related to its procurement. The handloom industry uses hank yarn whereas powerlooms use cone yarn. Due to its potential for export and higher demand, a number of mills prefer producing cone yarn and overlook hank yarn, further ag-

Due to its potential for export and higher demand, a number of mills prefer producing cone yarn and overlook hank yarn gravating the troubles of the handloom industry.

To ensure that there is a steady supply of raw material, the government introduced a number of schemes. The Mill Gate Price Scheme, the Hank Yarn Obligation on spinning mills and Yarn Subsidy were introduced to relieve the weavers. However, cooperative societies complain that the supply of yarn under the Mill Gate Price Scheme in Andhra Pradesh is insufficient. Also, the government has no control over the prices fixed by the mills. The Hank Yarn Obligation is not strictly followed and mills are accused of blotching their records to validate underproduction of hank yarn. Subsidy is available only on yarn procured from National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC)and Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. (APCO).

“The hank yarn requirement for Andhra Pradesh is 600 crore, however the yarn supplied under the Mill Gate Price Scheme is just 150 crore. We are often forced to buy the balance amount from private markets or are forced to keep the looms idle for some time,” says D. Virupaksham, President of Hasanbada Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society. NHDC, spinning mills and cooperative societies including APCO are collectively responsible for this gap, he reflects.

However, NHDC denies any gap in supply, “Any type, any variety of yarn is supplied by us to whoever is eligible. No request has been denied by us till now. The question of not coping with the demand does not arise,” says Eshwar V. Patil, Regional In-Charge, NHDC. Also, increase in the price of yarn has severely affected weavers. “The price of yarn has been increasing since 2008. There has been a 100 percent increase in the prices. A 60-count yarn which cost Rs. 750 in 2008 now costs Rs. 1,500. The prices have almost doubled,” informs Virupaksham.

The handloom industry is battling an uncertain future and is in need of appropriate attention and support. “Initiatives have been taken but they are not enough. The government should take time to think about this industry. It has to nurture it like a baby. Only then will the industry survive,” says Pedda Veeraraju, Secretary, Rayavaram Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society.

As the fortunes of the handloom industry dwindle, there is fear that the delicate fibers that tie the industry to its survival will break loose. The story of handlooms has reached a threshold where the right step forward could preserve it from dying, and a wrong step could throw it into oblivion.

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In Need of Helping Hands Venkatesh Mamidi Unable to earn a decent living, weavers are increasingly turning to other professions with better wages. But the affection they harbour towards their traditions keeps them dissatisfied with these new ventures.

Joyel K. Pious

Sambaiah, a Pochampally weaver, with his loom

“

I do not have work satisfaction in this paper mill even though I get good wages because this is not my work to do. My profession is weaving but I had to leave it to give financial assistance to my family,� says Satya Narayana who works in a paper mill, rolling paper as a daily wage labourer for Rs. 300 per day.

A resident of Veeravaram village in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, Satya Narayana started weaving as a 15-year-old. A deeper look into the village shows that this is not an isolated case, many weavers who have inherited this profession

are leaving it for various reasons.

However, they seem to lack satisfaction when they are occupied in tasks unrelated to weaving.

The weavers are attached to their profession but are forced to look for other sources of income.

This is due to lack of solutions to many problems that come with this profession such as the unavailability of financial assistance, the helplessness of cooperatives, and the lack of health relief, which has left them in a state of despair.

The Third National Handloom Census (2009–10) records that 64

percent of all handloom workers work full-time whereas 36 percent work part-time. A comparison of the weavers enumerated in the second and third census shows a 12.53 percent decline in the number of weavers from 1995 to 2010.

The lives of weavers in Rayavaram village, East Godavari district, suggests that even after putting in a lot of hard work, they are hardly able to cut corners. There is a cooperative society in the village, but a conversation with a weaver named Srinivasa Rao suggests there is little help coming from that end.

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

“The society is not in a position to help us. The society itself is not doing well economically and they themselves are looking at the government to help them in many ways.

So now, I am working under a master weaver,” says Srinivasa Rao. Secretary Pedda Veerraju of Rayavaram Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society says, “The government funds are only laid on paper to show, but are never released on time. The government needs to come down to the weaving villages to help, to look at the ground reality.”

Absence of financial assistance is not only leaving weavers with a sense of dissatisfaction over the amount of hard work they put in, but is also crippling their health.

Katta Subbalakshmi, 61, and Katta Subbarao, 70, are a couple in a village called Pulugurtha in East Godavari.

Subbalakshmi is now the only one working on the loom to weave cotton sarees. Her husband suffers from several health problems like high blood pressure, knee-joint pains and receding eyesight, and is no longer capable of weaving.

When asked about her daily work, she says, “I need to work alone for 12 hours a day to finish one warp, which contains seven sarees. It takes 12 to 15 days for me to finish a warp.” They don’t have any children and there is no one to take care of the old couple.

Their family income consists of her husband’s pension of Rs. 1,500 and her weaving income of about Rs. 1,400–2,800, depending on the work received that month. This is not sufficient to meet her husband’s health expenditure and their household expenses. Because of their age and health problems, seeking other work is not even an option.

Eemidi Krishna Murthi, who belongs to Veeravaram, has left the weaving profession due to eyesight problems. He is now working in a

Katta Subhalakshmi at work

nursery farm to earn for his family.

“I regret having to leave the loom.

If I had good eyesight, I would not have to come to this nursery farm to work,” says Krishna Murthi.

The weavers who are healthy are looking into other sources of work, such as working in paddy fields, nurseries or rice mills. Other weavers strongly believe that educating their kids is the only solution to all their problems.

In Veeravaram village, there is a woman called D. Anji Kumari who has worked relentlessly to educate her daughter, a not-so-common scenario in these weaving villages. “I knew very clearly my weaving profession is not going to give anything but tears, and I don'tt want my daughter to stay in this hopeless profession, so I decided to educate her,” she says.

Her daughter is now an MBA holder and is looking for a job. Anji Kumari clearly pointed out that there is not much scope in the weaving sector, and that education is the only way out.

Sambaiah, from Pochampally in Telangana, is a weaver working on his handloom even at the age of 72. He has three sons and they are all working in different fields. One works in a medical store, one works as a security guard in Hyderabad and the other takes on miscellaneous jobs in Maharashtra.

“My sons did not want to take up this weaving profession because they have seen from their childhood the struggle I faced to run my house.

I am still struggling with weaving, so they looked into other professions to settle well,” says Sambaiah.

It appears that some weaving families are not really willing to leave their profession. They would stick to weaving if it could facilitate good living conditions for them and their families.

While the weavers love their looms, they have no choice but to quit the profession. They need a helping hand that can support them economically and psychologically, and pull them out of their hard times. Without such help theirs would be the last generation to work on the looms.

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A Looming Presence Divya K.

The loom has immense significance in a weaver’s life. While the use of looms is on a definite decline, many still consider it an important part of their lives.

Tejasvi Dantuluri

A handloom at Veeravaram

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n a hot afternoon in a small village called Veeravaram in Andhra Pradesh, 62-year-old Veeramali weaves patiently on his loom.

He began weaving at the age of 15, learning the skill from his parents.

For him, weaving is kulavriti — an occupation carried out in the family through generations, specific to his caste. Sitting behind his loom and hidden by a complicated web

of threads attached to it, Veeramali quietly speaks about the loom that belonged to his forefathers and is at least 40 years old.

For many weaving families in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, the loom is a family heritage.

Families sometimes own looms that are five generations old. A maggam (loom) is an apparatus used for weaving fabrics. Handlooms are operated

manually and do not use electricity.

They are made of teak wood which is strong, light weight and comparatively less termite prone. The use of any other type of wood makes a loom vulnerable.

Official reports by the government of India record the prevalence of four types of handlooms in the country — frame, pit, loin and pedal.

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are populated by pit- and stand-

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

looms. A pitloom is set up in a hole in the ground, and a weaver sits on the edge of the pit with his/her legs on foot pedals that are dangling in the pit. A standloom is set up on ground level, with a seating arrangement that is fixed to the apparatus that allows weavers to use the foot pedals fixed above the ground. Stand looms are generally used for weaving bedsheets and are considered easier to use by some.

No New Looms?

With a number of weavers migrating to other higher paying occupations, the weaving industry is on a decline in our country. Mori, a village which once housed 2,000 looms now makes use of a mere 250 looms. Unused looms are either sold to someone seeking a replacement for their own looms, or are left idle and eventually give in to termites or time. There is a surplus of looms and there is thus no further need to make new ones. Earlier, looms were made in a number of villages in the state. Today, Chirala in Prakasham district remains the only significant manufacturer of looms and its spare parts.

Although, families use looms passed on through generations, the government has supplied looms and other weaving-related equipment under the Cluster Development Program in the past. Looms, dobby (an attachment on a loom that is used to weave small patterns), jacquard (a loom for producing elaborate designs in an intricate weave), and charkhas (domestic spinning wheels) were distributed under the scheme in certain villages of the East Godavari district.

“Forty one standlooms were distributed under the scheme by us around three years ago. Charkhas with upgraded technology were also given,” says D. Virupaksham, President of Hasanbada Handloom

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Koppushetty Venkata Ramana, a carpenter at Veeravaram

Weavers’ Cooperative Society and Chairman of the Hasanbada cluster. However, he says that there are several deficiencies in the way the scheme is implemented often hampering its effectiveness.

A charkha costs around Rs. 2,000 today. A new loom made by a carpenter costs as much as Rs. 5,000 Maintenance Costs With rising prices, the cost of equipment has also shot up. A charkha costs around Rs. 2,000 today and a warping drum costs about Rs. 30,000. Transportation and fixture costs are charged separately. A new loom made by a carpenter costs as much as Rs. 5,000.

While the manufacturing of new looms is conspicuous by its absence, ageold looms used by families need small and big repairs. For a weaver, frequent visits to a carpenter are commonplace.

Although minor repairs are often carried out by the weavers themselves, bigger issues are handled by carpenters.

Repair of shaky looms or broken parts, or the replacement of old parts, requires the skillful hand of a carpenter. “Someone or the other comes to me with loom-related repairs on a daily basis. Everyone doesn’t have the understanding of repairing looms. I learnt this skill over time when people came to me with their problems. I learnt it by seeing. No one taught me how to repair,” says Koppushetty Venkata Ramana, a carpenter at Veeravaram.

Weavers from nearby villages flock his small work-shed. For them, Venkata Ramana is the saviour they seek when work stops due to prob-

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lems with the loom. The carpenters also play an important role in making charkhas and fixing warping drums.

Significance of Looms The loom has immense significance in a weaver’s household as it is their source of livelihood. During the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, weavers in East Godavari district clean their loom and other equipment, decorate them with sacred vermilion and keep them near the family shrine to worship.

In many villages including in and around the census town of Bandarulanka, weavers follow a daily ritual of taking a bath and praying before settling down to weave.

The festival of Sankranti too brings celebration and leisure into the lives of weavers. During this festival, weavers stop weaving. Each year, an auspicious day is fixed during or after the festive period, a specific puja is performed and a new season of weaving

then begins. This time is optimal for repairing looms as there is no work and carpenters often receive a number of loom-related work around this period.

With the deterioration of the weaving industry, the younger generations from weaving families are opting out of the profession due to the lack of sufficient remuneration.

Most parents prefer educating their children so that they can take up jobs elsewhere, consciously putting an end to a centuries-old profession.

Yet, the significance of the loom and the love for weaving remains in the hearts of many elders. They cherish fond memories from childhood when they learnt how to weave from their parents. “When my mother weaved, I would wind the threads. As my parents weaved, I would sit next to them and see. When they rested or were away from the loom, I would sit and weave instead. That

is how I learnt weaving,” says Anji Kumari, a 40-year-old weaver from Veeravaram.

Today, both her daughters are educated and are unlikely to take up weaving. She wants them to flourish and earn better. She complains about lack of personal growth in the occupation and says, “Neta anavasaram anipistondi. Deentlo edagalemu. Ekkada unte akkade undipotamu. Ekkada vesina gongali akade unnatu (Weaving seems unnecessary now. You cannot grow in this. You remain where you are.)”

As the future of handloom weaving remains in doldrums, one could wonder about the fate of the looms.

It appears that the loom will continue to play a significant role in the lives of weavers, if not as a source of livelihood then as a symbol of cherished memories, of a passing era. As Anji Kumari says, “After we stop weaving, we won’t sell the loom. It will remain with us like a memory forever.”

An East Godavari weaver working at his pitloom Ashutosh Prasad

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

Exploring Identities Aalekhya Tadepalli A walk back into the myriad paths that lead to the legacy of handlooms in Andhra Pradesh.

T

here was a time when handloom weavers were seen as the primary means of clothing the nation. The idea of a craftsperson immediately brings words such as craft, skill and tradition to one’s mind. Handloom as a craft began several hundred years ago, but its exact date of origin still remains a mystery. This craft is accompanied by many rich stories from a wide range of disciplines including mythology and economics, resulting in a complex history.

The weaving community of Andhra Pradesh, placed in the midst of lush-green farms, is now in dire need of reforms. But this wasn’t always the scenario. There was a time when handloom weavers were bestowed with all sorts of riches and enjoyed a state of prosperity.

“Our kings knew the importance of crafts and supported them. Be it potters, gold smiths or weavers, they

34 VANTAGE 2015

were highly encouraged, and where there is encouragement there is prosperity,” says Balla Venkataramana, Secretary of Pasalapudi Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society.

Most of the weavers take immense pride in the fact that they are the only community with the craftsmanship and the skill to weave The era of kings and dynastiesplays a prominent role in the lives of weavers and the entire handloom community. Linga, a septuagenarian who has been weaving since he was 15, talks about kings and their role dictation.

He says that hundreds of years ago, kings segregated people into

groups/castes and were given a profession, and till date this rule of caste dictating profession is followed.

The entirety of the weavers in Andhra Pradesh falls under 17 castes with a prominent presence of two castes in the East Godavari district. These castes are Devanga, Padmashalis, Kanika Battu and others, with Devangas and Padmashalis being the most populous communities in the district.

They have a folktale that talks about the evolution of the weavers’ community. The Devangas believe that they are the descendants of Devanga Maharishi, who they believe first invented the craft of spinning thread from cotton. Padmashalis believe that they are the descendents of Brighu Maharshi.

In ancient times, both these castes were believed to follow Vaishnavism but the Devangas later split owing to

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community. Gangaraju says that the loom in his house was given to him by the MP. In the adjacent village of Pandalapaka another Congress-turned-CPImember commands similar notes of reverence and admiration for his contribution to the weaving community. Puttala Satyanarayana led a revolution against the government for the betterment of weavers.

Most weavers in Pandalapaka believe that this revolution was the saving grace that led to the com-

munity’s survival. Pichika Surya Rao, in whose office a portrait of the man is framed on a wall right beside a portrait of Indira Gandhi, says that Satyanarayana mobilised the weavers and led a movement that resulted in the formation of a collective identity as weavers.

During times of glory, Dwarapudi market was a testament to the weavers’ prosperity. It was one place where all things handloom were sold. Most of the weaving villages’ cooperatives speak of the good old days of market

Statue of Undavili Satyanarayana in East Godavari Source: Creative Commons

differences, explains Pichika Surya Rao, the President of Pandalapaka Weavers’ Cooperative Society.

People from these caste sets are only ones allowed to weave, acquiring it as their family tradition.

Most of the weavers take immense pride in the fact that they are the only community with the craftsmanship to weave. But there are some instances where the identity of a weaver goes beyond the caste system.

Srinivasa Rao and Hema, who live in Rayavaram village, are one such couple. They acquired the profession of weaving as everybody else — through family legacy. “We used to belong to the caste of Devanga.

We later converted to Christianity and that does not change anything for us. We are still weavers first, our religion comes next,” says Hema.

The couple says that that there have never been any kind of differences between them and the people of the caste they belonged to.

The weaving community places not just its mythology on the pedestal of its legacy. There are other instances where a hero-like figure emerged from within the people, to which the stories of Rayavaram and Pandalapaka villages are a testament.

Outside the cooperative society office of Rayavaram village, there is a life-size statue of the late Congress Member of Parliament Undavali Satyanarayana. The story behind this statue strikes a strong note in this province.

“This man helped the industry that was about to perish and he is the reason behind many weavers even being able to earn their livelihood and food,” says Gangaraju, a weaver from Rayavaram. The weavers in the region say that 30 years ago the congress MP sold over 500 acres of farm land and invested it in handlooms and enabled the betterment of the

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Sketch: P. Rajesh Kumar

An illustration of Dwarapudi market during its days of glory

glory and how the market was a prominent prescence in t he s aga of t heir de velopment.

“Dwarapudi market was the place to go to, be it to look for local trends or to sell all of the cloth in a single go, this market was the display center for all the latest fashion trends,” says D. Virupaksham, who leads the Hasanbada Handlooms Weavers’ Cooperative Society. The market was the epicenter of competition, bursting with life, where traders looked at each other not just as competitors but also as a source of new designs.

This market was the most important place for business in the state of Andhra Pradesh before the emergence of middlemen and societies such as Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society Ltd. (APCO).

Nagaratnam, a 69-year-old woman who lives in Mandapeta, gives an account of the time when

36 VANTAGE 2015

her father-in-law went to the Dwarapudi market every Sunday and sold handloom clothes for Rs. 1–3.

“My husband and his father used to weave for the whole week and go to the market on weekends. They used to sell all of them in one trip. In those days, Rs. 3 was a lot of money. But today they don’t pay us more than Rs. 300 for a cotton saree. Times are really bad,” she says.

Even though this market lost its old-time charm, it still remains one of the most important markets for the handloom society, and as a marker of change in an industry that was once in the center of our cultural heritage.

But a chat with weavers about their heritage takes you back to the rule of the kings and then brings you directly to the recent past — it appears as though colonization has been erased from their collective memories. Enquiry into these times is only replied with a shrug and a mention of the well-known fact that

weaving is their family legacy.

But the perspective of art and craft historians adds another layer that plays a major role in the formation of identity of weavers.

Santosh Sakinala, an art historian from Baroda, says that the weavers talk about family and tradition because that is what they know. The romantic narrative of handlooms and craft was due to an entirely different discourse.

The identity of the weaver associated with tradition and craft emerged among the urban community. It is the consumer of this cloth who associates this romanticised image with the weaver, not the weaver himself/herself. Not only East Godavari, be it Kanchi or Dharmavaram, the place where crafts are produced acquire the value of the crafts, and integrate themselves in its legacy. The identity of the place is intertwined with the identity of the craft itself.

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Joyel K. Pious

Looms at Loggerheads Rashad K. Handloom is fast losing its space to the more efficient forms of mechanised weaving. For many years, markets have been flooded with powerloom fabrics that imitate handloom designs, and are just as good a bet for the average consumer.

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M

ass production of commodities with the help of machines is considered to be a turning point in history. Industrial revolution drastically changed the way traditional professions are practised.

The arrival of powerlooms and jetlooms, where electric motors do the work of humans, has altered the course of the handloom industry.

The first powerloom was invented by Edmund Cartwright in 1785. Since then, the industrial demand for faster production has resulted in several innovations that are replacing traditional looms and weavers with computer-controlled machines.

Mallesh Arupala from Siricilla village in Telangana learned handloom weaving at the age of 13, and after working for six years on a handloom, he moved to Bhiwandi in Maharashtra to work in the powerloom industry where the pay was better.

After working in Bhiwandi for 20 years, he came back to Siricilla when powerlooms took over at the latter.

“The quality of handloom products is better when compared to machine-made products, but wages in handloom sector are low,” says Mallesh, who is now working at Jai Ambe Textiles in Siricilla Textile Park, Karimnagar district, the powerloom hub of Telangana.

A range of powerlooms that cost between a lakh and 20 lakh are available in the market. Highly advanced powerlooms like air jet looms and water jet looms, which produce more than 200 metres of cloth in a day, are allowed to run day and night.

“Powerloom has affected the handloom industry. In Siricilla, most of the weavers have shifted from handloom to powerloom,” says Mallesh.

He earns Rs. 410 a day for taking care of four air jet looms.

The powerloom sector is largely decentralized in India. The 2013–14 annual report by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, says that it is one of the most important segments of the textile industry in terms

of fabric production and employment generation. The powerloom sector in India employs 59.2 lakh people and accounts for 62 percent of the total textile production in the country.

Also, more than 60 percent of the fabric exported from India is sourced from the powerloom sector.

The annual report says that there are approximately 5.3 lakh powerloom factories with a total of 23.68 lakh powerlooms in the country, as of February 2014.

While the machines are mass producing textiles and filling the markets, many handloom weavers are unaware of the power of the technology and how it is directly affecting their livelihoods.

People like Tatachalera, a 70-yearold weaver from Veeravaram village in Andhra Pradesh, around 300 kilometres from Siricilla, who weaves five metres of saree fabric in a day, don’t have any idea that advanced machine looms in Siricilla can produce more than 200 metres of cloth a day.

The last weavers of Thangallapalli Joyel K. Pious

38 VANTAGE 2015

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working in small-scale units.

“Those running powerlooms at home are getting Rs. 200 to 250 per day, while People working in the Sircilla Textile Park are getting more than Rs. 400. The government is not supporting us,” says Ananda Das Chandra Mouli, a worker in a small scale powerloom unit.

Highly advanced jetlooms use computer program to control the whole weaving process. Unlike humans, these machines can work

continuously for hours without any rest. Two or three people can manage a unit of eight or ten jetlooms.

New technologies attract a new kind of labour force, and this now mostly includes technicians and helpers. Using computer programs eliminates the need of highly skilled labour and reduces the risks of human error involved in handlooms.

“New generation is smart. They just want to press a button and get things done,” says Narasayya.

Electronic warping machine (above); airjet looms(below) Joyel K. Pious

The Reservation of Articles for Production Act, 1985, restricts the powerloom industry from producing certain handloom items, but this restriction is not being implemented.

Adapting new technologies is not new to human cultures. Tangallapalli, near Siricilla, has witnessed this shift more acutely than anywhere else. In a small building near the outskirts of this village, there are 12 weavers who are the last handloom weavers in the village.

They are working for Malkha, a Hyderabad-based NGO, working in the handloom sector.

“I couldn’t move to powerloom because I am old and can’t work night shifts. I don’t know how to work with the new machines. Hand weaving is easy for us, but we work hard and earn less. No one in the new generation is learning this skill and there is no hope. This skill will disappear,” says Narasayya Bhandari, a 57-year-old weaver who works with a handloom because he just can’t give up on his traditional occupation of weaving.

Powerloom owners, who run small scale powerloom units, which are less efficient than jetlooms, also face their share of issues. “Government is helping only big players. We are not getting any loans from banks, so we have to depend on private money lenders. Big textile park owners get huge amounts from the banks,” says Gajla Uma Shankar who runs 28 small-scale powerlooms in Thangallapalli village, just outside Siricilla Park. He says that money lenders charge huge interest rates, as high as 25 percent per year.

Siricilla made news with suicide reports of powerloom owners pouring in during 1998, 2001 and 2008. “Interrupted power supply and high interest rates made many small-scale powerloom owners go bankrupt. This is one of the reasons for the suicides,” says Uma Shankar.

Those who work in big textile parks are paid better than those

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Keeping Faith in Handlooms Samyuktha Gagga

Uzramma, a Hyderabadi, is a renowned figure in the Indian cotton handloom industry.

She is the founder of Dastkar Andhra, a non-profit organization that works for the development of the handloom sector. She has been associated with the handloom industry since 1990. She is also the director of Malkha Marketing Trust and the founder of Decentralized Cotton Yarn Trust. Excerpts from a conversation with Vantage...

How did your journey in this industry begin?

Initially, I did not know much about the working of the handloom sector. I went to Chinnur, a town located in Adilabad district, Telangana, and learnt about handloom weaving from the weavers there.

And then…

Later, I moved from working with the handloom textiles to development and production of yarn.

When you start looking at cotton handloom textiles industry in depth, then you understand the importance of yarn.

Unfortunately, the weavers today are dependent on yarn produced from the cotton mills. All the power is in the hands of these cotton mills. In order to have democracy in society, you need to have equality in relationships.

So, my ambition has always been to get these equalized business relationships and this is also what we are doing today at Malkha and Decentralized Cotton Yarn Trust Organization. We are looking into ways of

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making yarn which will equalize the relationships between yarn making and handloom weaving and eventually between market and producers. (sic) Is this inequality the only major barrier in this field?

Of course there are other small barriers, but today if you see all the sarees, the designs are a copy of handloom which is made on powerloom. So, I can’t think of anything which is more damaging than this.

You see, government will uphold a corporate company’s copyrights but it is not doing much to ensure that the designs of handloom weavers are not copied. Powerloom is a copy of handloom. You are weaving it on powerloom and allowing handlooms to die? It is the worst thing that is being done to the handloom industry. (sic) Why are handloom textiles so expensive?

Today, the outstanding bank loan of mainstream textile industry is something around two lakh

crores. Which handloom industry has access to even one crore? The kind of facilities which are granted to mainstream textiles makes unviable process viable and makes handloom which is a totally viable process, difficult to survive.

The handloom sector does not use scarce resources, does not create pollution, so why this kind of business is not valued? They just need the similar kind of support given to unviable industries. These mainstream industries can get loans but it is not easy for handlooms. (sic) You have also worked as a member of policy groups constituted by the Government of India for the handloom industry…what has your experience here been?

See I have spent lot of time in the highest policy making bodies like the Planning Commission, with the PMO and so on…but nothing worked. I would say it was the most ineffective role I have been into i.e., trying to influence the policy.

So, now we have formed an organization called Friends of Hand-

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Photo courtesy: Salarjung Museum

Uzramma, the founder of Dastkar Andhra

loom, through which we are trying to gather people to work on the policies.

We are trying to reach people other than handloom weavers and other artisans saying that it is not just a matter of culture but it’s also matter of our whole identity. (sic) So, how can we bring awareness about this sector among people?

Start wearing handlooms and promoting it. You look into it, if you are convinced and believe in the sector, then talk about it. I make children’s clothes, baby clothes for my nephew’s and niece’s babies out of handloom. They get stopped on streets and asked where they buy these clothes. So, there is demand for handloom clothes but lack of proper marketing and support from those who are supposed to promote this sector. (sic)

In most of your interviews you say, “We are going to rule the world of cotton textiles.” Can you elaborate your view on this?

It is straight forward reality. Cotton textile production is the most important industry of this country. We have thousand-year record of making cotton textiles and how is it that there is not much research on it?

Even foreign scholars like Christopher Bayly, have mentioned that it’s amazing to see why more research is not done in this field. Nobody can touch us in handloom, 90% of world’s handloom is in India and the other 10% are in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

You look at the viability of the handloom industry. We just need certain things from the government.

We need support to develop our own spinning industry. We need deep research to research the kind of spinning which is necessary to de-

velop from our traditional spinning industry for a modern, viable spinning industry.

You know, to invent chemical colours, the people of Germany invested 20 million Marks and it took them 20 years. If the government is prepared to spend even a fraction of that in India, we could rule the world. But, you know small organizations like Malkha, Dastkar Andhra cannot do it. The state needs to believe in it.

The handloom sector needs to be regarded not just as past and culture but as future. Economics is a matter of faith and belief. Gold is expensive because I value it. Weavers want life of honor, nobody values the handloom weaver. They have got no status in the society. There is a great need to value this sector. I strongly believe that if proper research and funding is done then nobody can beat us. (sic)

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r e v o C y r o t S

Photo: Tejasvi Dantuluri 42 VANTAGE 2015

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Handloom: India’s Next Sunset Industry The handloom sector in India is walking toward an uncertain future, facing a range of challenges from lack of infrastructure to innovation gaps. Lack of initiatives that can reduce the costs and labour involved in many pre-loom activities like street-sizing is jeopardising the very survival of the industry.

I

f one were to assess India’s handloom industry by the numbers presented by various official records, one would contest the tag of “sunset industry” associated with it.

Handloom weaving is the country’s second largest employer, with the Third National Handloom Census of Weavers and Allied Workers (2010) recording 43.32 lakh people as working in the sector. In 2013–14, India exported handloom products worth $372.18 million (Rs. 2233.11 crores) across the world. There are 21.46 lakh functional handlooms across the country. The erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh accounted for 1.2 lakh of these looms.

So, is the industry in as healthy a condition as the numbers indicate?

The Vantage team's trip to six weaving villages in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, and to Pochampally and Siricilla in Telangana suggests otherwise. Cooperative societies with overflowing shelves of unsold

products, weavers struggling to make ends meet and a collective, certain prediction that the handloom sector

The condition of street sizing workers and the status of the process is reflective of the broader context in which the handloom sector is placed.

country. Apart from framelooms, there are pitlooms, loinlooms and pedallooms, apart from other lesser used varieties.

East Godavari has a prevalence of pitlooms, with some cooperative societies and NGOs like Dastkar Andhra promoting the use of standlooms. These looms enable weavers to cope with the vagaries of weather and avoid the risks arising from pits serving as breeding grounds for mosquitoes and rats.

Street Sizing would cease to exist in a few years, put forth a different argument.

Handlooms are used to weave fabrics of various materials – cotton, silk, wool and a range of mixed raw materials. The process of handloom weaving itself varies from region to region and fibre to fibre. Handlooms are of various types, with framelooms being the most popular across the

In the process of hand weaving cotton fabrics in the East Godavari villages, there is a crucial step called “street sizing” that is now acting as a bottleneck for the handloom sector in the area.

Sizing is the term given to the process of starching and applying adhesives to yarn, and treating the yarn to increase the strength of and reduce the hairiness of yarn. Since the process is completed by stretch-

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Sizing Crises It is essential for at least four persons to be present per warp when street sizing is done as it is a laborious process. The average wage paid per family is Rs. 250– 300, with each person engaged in the process earning Rs. 80–100 for four hours of hard work. These wages are taken from the overall price paid to a weaver for the finished product. A weaver’s earnings are what s/he saves after paying for street sizing and other details.

In contrast, a construction worker or an agricultural labourer is paid about Rs. 400 for a day’s work, which encourages street sizing workers to choose these occupations instead for survival.

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Ashutosh Prasad

ing out yarn on streets, it is called street sizing.

Without the process of streetsizing, single yarn (one-ply yarn with singular threads) is too brittle and rough to be woven on a loom.

The warp (length of the yarn) is stretched out and sizing material is applied to add strength to it, and to lubricate it to withstand the rigours of weaving. In most handloom centers rice starch / gruel is mixed with coconut / groundnut oil and applied as sizing material.

The starch applied here can only be removed after two rounds of washing the finished product.

Typically, depending on the warp length, three or four persons are required to carry out sizing. After application of the sizing paste onto the stretched yarn, special brushes are used to spread and dry the starch on the yarn. The warp is double-layered and each layer is separated by strategically placed sticks in between.

The workers then go about separating any threads sticking together and fixing breakages.

Starch is sprayed on the yarn to make it stiff

“In the future, people will come as tourists and visit handloom centres. It will be like tourist coming and looking at a giraffe in the zoo.”

Handloom production in these villages is slowing down or coming to a halt due to lack of human capital in street sizing. Mandapeta Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society has its street sizing needs met in a neighbouring village as there are no workers for the process in the village.

Venkata Ramana, Secretary of Pasalapudi Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society, says that the future of handloom industry is bleak due to the crisis in the street sizing process. “In the future, people will come as tourists and visit handloom centres.

It will be like tourist coming and looking at a giraffe in the zoo,” he says.

Street sizing workers in Pulugurtha say that there is a technology gap that must be bridged — there is a need to innovate a way

to make the street sizing process less laborious and faster.

The members of the Pulugurtha cooperative say that to bridge the street sizing gap is probably to embrace the powerloom, which does not require this process, but insist that there must be a way to ease the street sizing process so that handloom can survive.

On the Other Side M. Nageshwara Rao, Deputy Director, Department of Handlooms and Textiles, Andhra Pradesh, says that street sizing is a skill that one inherently learns from the family, and the workers require no further training. Rao informs that there are no policies addressing the needs of street sizing workers, but training workshops are conducted for dyeing, weaving and designing.

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Street sizing workers who engage in warping and sizing, are categorised as auxiliary workers and are given access to welfare schemes like Mahatma Gandhi Bunker Bima

Street sizing is a process that adds strength to the single-ply yarn used by East Godavari weavers. But twisted yarn is too strong in itself that it doesn't need street sizing.

Yojna and Health Insurance (soon to be Rashtriya Swayam Bima Yojana), say officials of the AP handlooms and textiles department.

Randhir Singh, Director of the same Department of Handlooms and Textiles, says that the department in-

tends to provide sheds over street sizing areas so that the damage wrought by humidity or rain can be reduced, and to provide relief to the workers.

The department is waiting for Dastkar Andhra to submit a proposal for the same so that it can be implemented.

Singh, too, is of the opinion that weavers and street sizing workers need no further training as they are skilled enough. He says there is a design gap to be bridged, which the department is working on through its tie-up with National Institute of Fashion Technology.

Alternatives to Street Sizing Cooperatives in most parts of Andhra Pradesh are unaware of the existence of alternative means of preparing yarn for weaving.

Government officials seem to be unaware of the needs of weavers, and there is no knowledge management system to bridge research and

development gap to help weavers.

For instance, there is the process of beaming that prepares yarn for the loom, but the type of yarn used in East Godavari needs to be changed for the process to be adopted.

Beaming is a mechanised process that can quickly create as much yarn as is needed by weavers, as against the 48 metres that one round of street sizing produces. Unlike Andhra Pradesh, beaming is widely practiced by weavers of Telangana who use twisted yarn for weaving.

Street sizing is a process that adds strength to the single-ply yarn used by East Godavari weavers. Since twisted yarn is strong in itself, beaming doesn’t need to add strength to the yarn and only needs to prepare it for a loom by smoothening it.

While street sizing is a process that a weaver must get done every week to continue weaving, one beam-

Street sizing workers spraying starch on the yarn Tejasvi Dantuluri

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

After starch is sprayed, a long brush is used to separate the threads and spread the starch

Sticks are used to separate each layer of yarn Joyel K. Pious

46 VANTAGE 2015

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

Rolling the yarn into a warp

ing session gives a weaver enough yarn to work on for a month. However, beaming foregoes the starching process which takes away from the woven product the stiffness associated with handloom products in the region.

Malkha, an NGO that is involved in the weaving process from procuring cotton to marketing finished products, says that weavers in Pulugurtha and Murumanda who use twisted yarn have expressed an interest in learning about beaming.

The weavers here use street sizing for twisted yarn due to lack of awareness about the beaming process.

Malkha plans to take weavers from these societies to Sircilla, to acquaint them with the process of beaming.

Need for Intervention The condition of street sizing workers and the status of the process

is reflective of the broader context in which the handloom sector is placed.

The sector faces stiff competition from powerlooms and mechanisation of various other stages (dyeing, yarn sizing, design) which result in easy bulk production of textiles. The economics of such production allow for such fabrics to flood markets and be sold at very low prices, making handloom products unpopular among the average consumer.

The Director of Department of Handlooms and Textiles, Telangana, declares handlooms to be a lost cause wherein the weavers will not be able to stand up to the competition of powerlooms. Having newly taken up office, the director is yet to take stock of the handloom sector in her young state.

At the grass-root level, cooperative societies that are to provide weavers with a sense of direction,

are in the dark of advancements in the sector in other parts of the country. Governments satisfy themselves with the provision of workshops that weavers say are unhelpful as the “training� is provided in what the weavers have already perfected.

There is a knowledge gap in supply and demand. Cooperatives and weavers say that they are in need of a method of knowing market demands so that they can weave accordingly and get better prices for their products, but there is no such system in place.

Representatives of governments and cooperatives, in conversation with Vantage, place the ball in the court of the other. Help, each says, has to come from the other. While this endless blame game goes on, what remains to be seen is how initiatives that will surface anyway go on to shape the sector.

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Photo: Joyel K. Pious

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POLITICS AND

POLICIES The dust-gathering official files that are the quintessence of every government office seem to be reflective of the lives lives of weavers being similarly suspended in the consciousness of those in power.

While numerous welfare initiatives are bestowed on paper, benefits fall short of having an impact on weavers.

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Bifurcation Blues Ashutosh Prasad The recent division of Andhra Pradesh churned out new fears and hopes among handloom weavers too. A brief look at what is happening on both sides of the border.

Joyel K. Pious

A bag of hopes

I

n June 2014 united Andhra Pradesh was divided into the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana amid furor and chaotic consultations. While the bifurcation brought jubilation for some, it created disappointment for others. Various people from all walks of life on both sides of the border pinned their hopes on their respective governments and speculated about the future of their states.

The post-bifurcation period has seen some hopes survive while some others have simply become meaningless. The handloom weavers of the two states epitomize this flux between hope and hopelessness.

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Telangana Tangles Telangana, India's 29th state, was borne of demands for better industrial development and infrastructural growth.

The newly-formed Telangana government considers handloom industry to be very important for the state.

The website of the Department of Handloom and Textiles, Telangana, says that several central as well as state-sponsored schemes are being implemented for the socio-economic development of handloom weavers.

An apex society, Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. (APCO) handles the marketing of handloom products procured from weavers and cooperative

societies. There are 475 weavers’ cooperative societies in the state, working on fabrics made of cotton, silk and wool.

But the government’s claims on socio-economic development of weavers are not without dissent. “Before the bifurcation, we hoped that the new state will bring new schemes like better health schemes for weavers, but after seeing the current status, it seems that weavers and societies will have to struggle in the future too,” says R. Anjaneyulu, Accountant at the Pochampally Weavers’ Cooperative Society.

Shiva, an independent weaver working for a master weaver, says that he stopped expecting anything for weavers from the government as noth-

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ing much is happening in the rural parts of the state. “Here, we are unable to sustain our families due to low wages and we don’t have enough time to think about the bifurcation and its after effects,” he says.

Some weavers complain that not much is being done on the investment front with regard to the handloom industry in the state. “The industry badly needs government support to advertise Pochampally handloom products and attract buyers. Apart from this, it needs support for the implementation of market, budget investment, housing and health schemes for the weavers,” says K. Sreenivas, Manager, Pochampally Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society.

However, the distribution of officials between the two states is still in progress and many officers have joined Department of Handlooms and Textiles of Telangana only recently. As a result, the newly-posted officials are completely clueless on the current status and the future of the handloom sector in the state.

Dr. Preeti Meena, Director of the department, says that only central government schemes are currently active, which is in contradiction with the claims made on their website.

“The promises made by the ministers before the separation seem unlikely to be fulfilled in coming months too,” sighs Sreenivas. There is a growing discontent among weavers about the lack of attention being paid to the sector in the newly-formed state.

Andhra Concerns For Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, the challenge is much bigger as he shoulders the responsibility of leading a state formed amid extreme resentment among its people. The Chief Minister’s focus on building Singapore-like capital and urban development raises concerns about whether rural development issues will get their fair share of attention.

There are 1,282 weavers’ cooperative societies in the state producing fabrics of cotton, silk and wool. Here too, the marketing of handloom products is taken care of by APCO. The website of Department of Handloom and Textiles, Andhra Pradesh, says that the government is concerned with handlooms and powerlooms in the cooperative and decentralized sectors.

A report by Press Trust of India, dated February 2, 2015, outlines various measures being taken up by the state to promote handlooms. Chandrababu Naidu has promised that loans of all the handloom units in the state would be waived.

Andhra Pradesh handloom industry will benefit from good sale, and that their cooperative will do its best to outdo the Telangana handloom industries.

Even though some societies like that in Hasanbada are making profits, others like those in Veeravaram have accumulated financial liabilities over the past few years.

Nevertheless, bifurcation is not being pinpointed as the reason for any fresh trouble in the handloom sector.

K. Sreenivas Rao, a weaver from Rayavaram village of East Godavari, says, “We don’t have any grudge or personal enmity with weavers of Telangana though the bifurcation may affect AP handloom industry in future. We need to think about our daily chores as the wages from weaving are not enough.”

Other voices

Naidu further promised Rs. 10 crore to APCO to purchase stocks from cooperatives to be sold at concessional rates, and a 20 percent subsidy on the purchase of yarn.

But the cooperative societies have their own list of issues. “Before the election, every political candidate gives assurance that they will work for the cooperative but later on no one turns towards the society and its members,” says D. Virupaksham, President of Hasanbada Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society, East Godavari.

He adds that they are not getting any benefit or funds from the government but their cooperative is able to raise enough profit to run the society, one of the few societies to be able to do so in the East Godavari district.

He is optimistic that in the future too

Private enterprises and NGOs working in the handloom sector also have their own concerns. “There is a confusion regarding the division of assets — for example, APCO, the apex marketing cooperative supporting all cooperatives in Andhra and Telangana is in a dilemma,” says Dr. B. Syama Sundari from Dastkar Andhra, a public charitable trust that promotes artisan industries.

The NGOs are concerned about the procurement of stocks from different cooperatives. “If stocks are not regularly purchased from the cooperatives, it directly impacts the livelihood of the weaver. Also, the meagre amount of production from Telangana will affect the product variety in APCO shops if they stop procurement from cooperatives in Andhra,” she adds.

Assets like retail infrastructure, especially those in Hyderabad, have become a sticking point for sharing after bifurcation. Even though the 11-month-old separation hasn’t brought any new signs of difficulty in the sector, one will have to wait to see its long-term effects.

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Caught Between Hope and Despair

Nidhi Gupta As the handloom industry faces an uncertain future, it seeks a helping hand from central and state governments in terms of policies and schemes for its promotion. Governments continue to assure support, but the weavers rue that benefits are not reaching them.

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andloom is one of the most prominent cottage industries in India. The traditional craft of handloom weaving is an art that reflects the cultural heritage of the country.

Records show that handloom is one of the largest economic activities providing direct or indirect employment to about 2.5 crore people in India, second only to agriculture. “Eighty nine societies and 7,738 weavers are engaged in handloom production in Andhra Pradesh alone,” says Randhir Singh, Director, Full Additional Chair (FAC) of the Andhra Pradesh Department of Handlooms and Textiles.

Going by official press releases, government intervention in the handloom sector has taken place via financial assistance, and development and welfare schemes. As a result, the industry has been able to withstand competition from the powerloom and mill sectors.

According to the Ministry of Textiles Annual Report for 201314, handloom sector accounts for 15 percent of the total cloth production in the country. However, if one tries to see through the eyes of the weavers and the cooperative societies, this picture of development is not as rosy.

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Design Workshops Handloom designs are classics that have a unique appeal among people of different age groups and from varied socio-economic backgrounds.

However, rapidly changing market demands also require the weavers to innovate new designs that appeal to niche consumer groups. This ability

Weavers wish cooperative societies and governments could intervene, providing them with insight on market demand so that they can design accordingly and increase revenue generation. to adopt new designs is problematic for weavers working with cooperative societies. This is where weavers wish cooperative societies and governments could intervene, providing them with insight on market demand so that they can design accordingly and increase revenue generation.

No design workshop has taken place here in the last five years, say the weavers’ cooperative societies in

Rayavaram and Veeravaram. Randhir Singh, on the other hand, places the onus of effective workshops on the response of weavers and cooperative societies. “We have conducted some workshops under the Cluster Development Program a year ago. We also encourage the societies and the weavers to propose their interests. If a group of weavers show an interest in a particular training, we would conduct a workshop,” says Singh.

He says that the department plans to conduct workshops in collaboration with NGOs like Dastkar Andhra and with National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT).

Availability of Welfare Schemes Weavers seem to be unaware of the existence of any government schemes that are supposed to reach them via cooperatives or otherwise.

“Government is not concentrating on handloom industry, but a lot of attention is given to agriculture. Government schemes exist only on papers.

They never reach us,” says Lakshmi Devi, a weaver from a village named Veeravaram in East Godavari district.

In September and March every year, cooperatives host General Body Meetings chaired by a Field Officer,

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FUNDS AND SCHEMES

where schemes are listed out and discussed with weavers. A quorum of 20 percent of weavers is required to conduct the meeting. Veeravaram weavers' cooperative society faces the problem of being unable to hold meetings because of the quorum requirement — disillusioned, weavers in the villages are increasingly working for master weavers and don’t attend such meetings.

Randhir Singh pointed out that the fault lies with societies and weavers themselves. He says, “Unless weavers will not turn up at meetings, they will not know about schemes and their implementation.”

Delayed Payments Endanger Societies

Schemes launched sessions running till date.

Funds released in 13 districts, Andhra Pradesh.

Source: Handlooms and Textiles Department , Andhra Pradesh

“Our society was able to make profits of Rs. 6 -7 lakh every year.

Fifteen years ago, during a cyclone relief camp, we produced materials in bulk. But because of non-payment

by Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. (APCO), we suffered a loss of Rs. 1.3 crore,” says Venkat Rao, the Manager of Veeravaram Weavers’ Cooperative Society. Since then, the society is in a debt pit that it can't climb out of.

The society needs to sell its products to make a profit. But delayed payments mean that the limited profit margin that APCO grants them (5 – 12 percent) is not sufficient to pay off the loans that have accumulated over this time.

This debt cycle causes a reduction in the rate of production, leaving weavers without work and forcing them to work with master weavers. Some societies have been unable to sustain production, resulting in their closure.

G. Gouri Shankar, Managing Director of APCO, says, “We are also a society which depends on the government for the payments which

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most of the times are delayed (sic).

If we are not getting advance then how are we supposed to meet the weavers’ demands?”

He says that a sum of Rs. 150 crore from the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana is on hold.

Even after the completion of the orders, the government has not released funds to APCO for six months.

Venkat Rao and his team tried to represent this fund crunch issue to the state government of the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh. With despair, he says, “With the help of Virupaksham garu (President of Hasanbada Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society regarded as a leader by weavers in and around his village) and other societies, our society tried representing the heavy loss to the then Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, but no help was given to us.”

“The government has always actively tried to solve the problems of the weavers and societies. In case of misuse of the funds also, immediate inquiries and inspection had been ordered,” says Randhir Singh.

Funds – Fact or Fable When quizzed about the status of various schemes proposed by the government for the betterment of the weavers, Randhir Singh says, “All the unreleased funds have been sorted out and will be sanctioned by the end of March 2015.” When asked about the funds after the end of Financial Year 2014–15, an official with the department revealed that the unreleased funds remain unreleased.

D. Virupaksham, the President of Hasanbada Weavers’ Cooperative Society says, “No schemes currently, state or central, are functioning. Some in fact have remained unreleased.”

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Budget allocated in the last five years by the State Government.

Source: Handlooms and Textiles Department, Andhra Pradesh.

Drawing from his 25 years of experience in the weaving industry, he says, “Back then, capital was the biggest challenge. During the 80s, cooperative banks were controlled by the land lords who were not approachable.

You have to request them, praise them, plead them. (sic)” Later National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development intervened and the introduction of the Cash Revolving Credit System came as a relief. This system allows the societies to withdraw, repay and redraw credit loans any number of times until the credit period expires.

The government provides a number of marketing avenues to handloom weavers’ cooperative societies to clear out their piles of finished products. Venkata Rao says that exhibitions are held two or three times a year during which stocks are disposed of.

He says that with the roll back of the 20 percent rebate scheme, sales at these exhibitions have dropped, and the society is finding it increasingly difficult to sell their wares to earn and re-invest in the production process.

Protective Schemes The 1985 Reservation of Articles for Production Act states that 23 items

are not to be produced by powerlooms. Now the number has come down to 11 articles. The Enforcement Department’s jurisdiction is limited to the production phase — they are to ensure that power mills don’t produce these articles.

However, the department does not have the authority to do anything about powerloom products once they are in the market. Powerloom lobbying groups are able to exert enough pressure to ensure that the act is not strictly implemented.

D. Virupaksham says, “Our governments perceive the handloom industry to be pitiable, and define it as a sunset industry unable to deliver large orders.

But I strongly believe that going against the odds the industry will rise and will never end.”

Where handloom in India should be unparalleled in its flexibility and versatility, permitting experimentation and encouraging innovations, the weavers keep waiting for schemes to be implemented. What happens to the funds that go unreleaseds? Policies are documented in the records but how much have they been utilised? The governments owe an answer to weavers.

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"We are always weavers first,

everything comes next."

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Chasing Healthcare Basha P.

Health problems among weaving communities are a cause of worry. While there are government health schemes, they are not reducing the health woes of weavers.

Tejasvi Dantuluri

Weakening eyesight is a matter of concern among weavers

H

andloom weaving is a labourintensive industry that plays a major role in generating a large number of employment opportunities.

The Third National Handloom Census of Weavers and Allied Workers (2009–2010) reports that there are 23.77 lakh handlooms in the country, providing employment to 43.32 lakh handloom households and ancillary workers. Being a sector that demands extensive involvement of physical labour, the workers have many health issues that need to be studied.

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The handloom weaving process consists of the production of yarn, its dyeing and finally weaving the dyed yarn into seamless handloom fabric.

At every stage of this process, workers face a variety of health issues. This is either due to exposure to harmful material, or due to the conditions they work in, or both.

Yarn Troubles Production of yarn is an important activity in the textile industry where raw cotton is converted into industry-suitable

yarn. Yarn production units are often mechanised and employ a good number of people as supervisors, technicians and helpers. These workers are not free from work-related health issues.

“Breathing problems are very common in yarn production units.

Small fibres come out from the raw cotton, which enters the nose and creates respiratory problems,” says Prabhakar, who works as a supervisor in a yarn production unit in Pulugurtha village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

Left: process of mill spinning ; Right: process of dyeing

“Machines in the yarn production units create a lot of noise and this can create hearing problems in long term,” he adds.

Apart from Prabhakar, there are three workers, two of whom are women. “We have to stand for long hours. This leads to knee problems and joint pains,” says Lakshmi, another worker in the unit.

Health Hazards with Dye Dyeing is another important process that can cause serious health issues. Workers often do not take precautionary measures while handling chemicals. In their struggle for livelihood, workers usually neglect minor health problems.

“Sometimes these chemicals cause slight itching or skin prob-

lems,” says Sreenu, who works in a dyeing unit in Pulugurtha. There is a lack of information among the workers on any long-term effects of working continuously with chemicals.

“Tuberculosis is the most common disease among the weavers. This is because people work in the shade and do not have much exposure to sunlight" Office bearers of the weavers’ cooperative societies are also unaware of any serious health issues related to chemical dyeing. In many dyeing units, there is no proper treatment of

dyeing effluents and they are allowed to freely flow into drainage systems.

Weaving Issues Weaving is a laborious process and it requires constant attention of the weaver. The entire process cannot be done by a single person. Family members collaborate in the weaving process.

There are certain health issues specific to handloom weaving.

The average weaver works for 10 to 12 hours per day on his/her loom and the looms are often situated in covered sections of the house. “Tuberculosis is the most common disease among the weavers. This is because people work in the shade and do not have much exposure to sunlight,” says Pichika Surya Rao, President, Pandalapaka Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society.

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

Health card issued to a weaver

Eyesight problems are also common among weavers. “The need to observe threads keenly while weaving is the main reason for this. This strains the eye and affects vision,” adds Surya Rao. When working with threads of higher counts (higher the count, thinner the thread), the strain is higher and with increasing age, eyesight problems increase. Aged weavers are unable to work with thin threads.

“I used to weave with thinner threads. Now I am able to weave only with thick threads. Clothes made with thick threads don’t give good money in the market,” says Andra Sathiraju, an 86-year-old weaver in Rayavaram village of East Godavari district.

He explains that while fabrics of thin threads are smooth and are in demand, they must be handled with care. However, fabrics of thin threads are hard and unappealing though it can withstand rough use.

If a thread breaks while weaving and the weavers don’t notice it immediately, they will have to redo the process. This further lengthens the time taken to produce the fabric and makes their work harder.

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Continuously working on the loom causes joint pains and sometimes the fingers of the weavers become very stiff and inflexible.

Pitlooms cause another, often unnoticed problem. “Because of unhygienic conditions, mosquitoes grow in pitlooms, and the probability of getting elephantiasis is very high in the weaving community,” says Dr. P. Devanandam, a private medical practitioner in Veeravaram village, East Godavari.

Handloom Weavers’ Comprehensive Welfare Scheme Government of India runs the Health Insurance Scheme (HIS) and Mahatma Gandhi Bunkar Bima Yojana (MGBBY) scheme under the Handloom Weavers’ Comprehensive Welfare Scheme for the betterment of community of handloom weavers. The HIS is being implemented through ICICI Lombard and MGBBY through Life Insurance Corporation Ltd. (LIC).

But this is also not free from issues. “All the weavers can enroll for health insurance by paying Rs. 80.

But the process of claiming insurance is very difficult for them,” says, Kamu Somasekhara Rao, President of Rayavaram Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society.

Under the Health Insurance Scheme, four people from each family can claim total benefits worth Rs. 15,000. Out of that, a 50 percent provision, that is, Rs. 7,500, is for Out Patient Dispensary (OPD).

“Rs. 15,000 is not sufficient for four members for one year. Some families have more than four members. Also, the cost of treatment is increasing every year but government is not increasing the claim amount,” adds Somasekhara Rao. A premium of Rs. 470 has to be paid for weavers to be enrolled for this scheme. Out of the total premium amount for each beneficiary, the central government pays Rs. 290 and LIC pays Rs. 100 while

Aged weavers are unable to work with thin threads. receivers themselves pay the remaining Rs. 80.

Weavers between the ages of 18 and 59 are eligible for this scheme.

“As people are getting older, the government has to provide better assistance. But government is not providing this scheme for weavers aged above 60. It is at this age that they need more help,” says Somasekhara Rao. Despite the existing schemes, the health woes of the weavers continue. There are weavers who have died of tuberculosis. There are many weavers who are suffering from various ailments due to their work. The solution lies in providing better facilities and more proactive schemes by the government.

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Deskilling: A Livelihood Strategy Tejasvi Dantuluri There is an increasing tension between earning a living and keeping alive the tradition of weaving, and the notions of skill and livelihood are changing. Government interventions are giving assured employment to less skilled weavers while highly skilled weavers are being left out.

Cartoon: Praveen Varma

W

eaving has become much easier now as we work with polyester thread,� says Mittapelli Lakshmaiah, a handloom weaver from Karimnagar, Telangana, who was once engaged in pure cotton weaving.

He has now moved to the production of polycotton fabric for uniforms of government schools, which does not demand high weaving skill.

Handloom products are deeply embedded in the perception of Indian culture and tradition. Renowned for their quality and design, they are valued across the globe. However, this household-based industry has gone through some significant changes, in terms of both design and technique, in an attempt to cope with the livelihood crisis. To understand the broader

theme of crisis and conflicts that envelope this classical rural industry, it becomes crucial for one to examine the smaller pictures.

The Janata Cloth Scheme was introduced in 1976, during the sixth Five-Year Plan, during the Indira Gandhi regime. The aim of this scheme was to provide sustained minimum wages to handloom weavers, and to

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weavers and to provide cheap cloth to the weaker sections of the society.

The scheme was phased out during the eighth five year plan as it led to the deskilling of weavers.

National Commission for Enterprises published a report on ‘Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganized Sector’ in 2007. The report says that the dissolution of the Janata Cloth Scheme in 1996 led to the stoppage of procurement of produce from primary cooperative production units by apex cooperative societies. It also worsened the already suffering standards of living of the workers and their families, perhaps adding momentum to the decline of the industry.

In the spirit of promoting and sustaining the handloom industry, Andhra Pradesh government in 2013 made it mandatory for all the welfare departments and school education departments in the state to procure cloth from Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. (APCO), Hyderabad.

This GO is still in effect and includes the procurement of livery

cloth (here, cloth for uniforms) for class four employees of all government departments.

D. Virupaksham, the President of Hasanbada Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society in East Godavari says, “The (Janatha cloth) scheme gave an assured employment and incurred no marketing cost and effort.” The AP government’s order to procure the cloth from APCO benefited the society which was facing difficulties after the withdrawal of the Janata cloth scheme as it was already producing livery clothes for government hostels.

Randhir Singh, Director (Full Additional Chair), Department of Handloom and Textiles, Government of Andhra Pradesh, says that such interventions benefit semi-skilled weavers as it gives an assured employment.

Similarly, weavers from Karimnagar who were once engaged in the manufacture of Janata cloth are now engaged in the production of uniform fabrics and other kinds of cloth for government institutions.

“Our lives were better when the Janata Cloth Scheme was implemented

which not only assured us employment, but it also promised us with work that demanded higher skills as compared to the current production of government cloth,” says Dakari Ramulu, Manager of Venkateshwara Handloom Weavers’ Cooperative Society in a village named Kanukula in Karimnagar.

The uniform fabrics are plain and can be woven with ease even by old or less skilled weavers. “Weaving fabric for uniforms and other products as directed by the government has given us employment. But our lives haven’t changed. We are selling our products at the same prices as 20 years ago when yarn prices were much lower than today,” says Ramulu.

According to APCO, around 16,000 weavers are engaged in the production of fabric for the government institutions. This accounts for only about five per cent of the total number of weavers across the two states. The weavers employed by APCO for these purposes are typically semi-skilled weavers who volunteer to take up such plain weaving projects. Thus, not all cooperatives are engaged with this initiative, as highly skilled weavers are being excluded from participation.

Students dressed in colourful handloom uniforms Tejasvi Dantuluri

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According to Sarva Shikshya Abhyan, 21,54,126 students are to be supplied with two pairs of uniforms each in the academic year 2015–16.

The Government of India, through the Rajiv Vidya Mission, grants Rs. 200 per uniform, including stitching charges. This is not sufficient to procure pure handloom cotton. A blend of polyester and cotton (polycotton) is used to make school uniform fabrics. These polycotton fabrics are believed to be both cost effective and user-friendly and thus more appropriate for children, as against pure cotton that requires a lot of maintenance and loses colour quickly.

Deskilling – The Price of Employment

also as a skill that the school aspires to teach its young, growing minds. Hemangi, the crafts teacher of the school who also underwent training in handloom weaving, wishes to introduce the practice in the school curriculum. “When students go through it (the process of weaving), I’m sure they will grow to become better individuals who can respect labour, art and skill,” she says.

If government interventions supporting mass production of handloom products are brightening up a few lives, for many high-skilled weavers such interventions come across as unaccommodating of their skill. While on the other hand, many non-governmental organizations and schools that value the skill involved are trying to promote handloom the best way they can.

What’s the use of a skill that can’t earn us a living, ask weavers.

Students at Abhaya Waldorf school being introduced to a handloom Tejasvi Dantuluri

Uzramma, Founder of Dastkar Andhra (a public charitable trust with the objective of promoting artisan industries), treats the idea of mass production of handloom uniforms with skepticism.

“It is good in one way but it deskills weavers just as the Janata Cloth Scheme did,” she says.

For Amar Sivaji Pendyala, former CEO of an NGO named Cheneta Color Weaves, mass, uniform production is characteristic of a machine, not a human.

He considers it to be one of the advantages of powerloom over the handloom.

However, experiments by private schools like Abhaya Waldorf, Hyderabad, are aimed at changing this notion of uniformity in mass production. “The idea was to have a uniform which is not so uniform,” says Principal Shailaja Latchi Reddy.

The school sources handloom fabric directly from a group of weavers in Koyalagudem village near Pochampally. Each weaver is given a particular colour to work on because they have different colours and patterns for each class. “There are constraints like shrinkage and quicker fading of colours, but when we see our children breathing in them much

better than the factory woven stuff, we feel it’s all worth it,” adds Shailaja.

These uniforms, unlike government uniforms, involve complex weaving and harness the skill of the weavers.

However, such initiatives are only viable for schools like Abhaya, who have a limited number of students to clothe and sufficient finances as these fabrics costs around Rs. 250 per metre.

Srinath, a weaver from Pochampally who supplies uniforms to Abhaya Waldorf school, says that initiatives by such private organizations are insufficient. The production happens in small quantities and engages them for a short period of time. “If government can take up a similar initiative, it will help us,” says Srinath, who spends the rest of the year looking for other sources of income.

Abhaya befriended handloom not merely as a uniform for its students but

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Photo: Tejasvi Dantuluri 62 VANTAGE 2015

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CONSUMER CULTURE All said and done, any product in an economy has value only if the end user believes it to be valuable. Bridging the producerconsumer divide in an industry as niche as handlooms requires more than a little imagination and effort.

Have handlooms grabbed their space in the consumption cycle of an over-supplied populace?

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Capturing the Cybermarket Sanjana K. K.

Handloom products have caught the imagination of buyers online, surpassing all geographical and cultural boundaries. However, what remains to be seen is if this platform can create a beneficiary channel that actually reaches the weavers creating these fabrics.

H

andloom products have always been considered as a symbol of Indian tradition. When Indian handloom is introduced in an online space, it is a case of tradition meeting modernity. The very idea of selling and buying has changed drastically with the coming of age of e-commerce. This has worked in favour of products as niche and indigenous handloom articles. Consumers across the world can now purchase hand-woven clothes with a click of the mouse, rather than spending

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their time in going to a market and buying the product.

In the past few years, there have been initiatives from private as well as government participants in the handloom sector to market these products through online platforms. Pochampally.com, dacottonhandlooms.in, indianhandloom.com, shop.apcofabrics.com are a few such websites.

The Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society (APCO) launched its e-commerce website shop.apcofabrics.

com in the year 2013. “The e-commerce website was launched keeping overseas customers in mind, as most of the customers from US, UK and other countries found it difficult to buy traditional products coming to India. The other reason was a business strategy of expanding the market,� says an official from the marketing wing of APCO who wishes to be unnamed. Though sales were dull in the initial months of the website going live, they have now picked up.

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The Ministry of Textiles has been making efforts to infuse some strength and vibrancy into the handloom sector and to provide sustainable employment to handloom weavers. The recent tie-up of the Modi government with e-commerce giant Flipkart is a milestone in the promotion of the handloom sector.

On August 25, 2015, the Ministry of Textiles signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Flipkart, launching “ABHIYAAN Flipkart — Kaarigar Ke Dwar”. This initiative is aimed at providing “online marketing platform to handloom weavers to boost the handloom sector, empower the weavers and boost manufacturing in the country.” This platform seeks to bridge the gap between the remote villages in which handloom production takes place, and the space of the discerning buyer.

Active Handloom e-market “Online marketing has added to the sales of handloom. In fact, I must say that it has added to the sales in the retail markets as well. So far, we are doing good business and I feel fortunate and privileged to own this website,” says Sreedhar Kadaveru, owner of the pochampally.com.

APCO’s online portal receives most of its overseas orders from UK, US, Canada, Singapore, Germany and France. “The customer value has crossed approximately 200 orders (since the launch of the portal in 2013). The costing of the products depends completely upon the yarn and the weaving cost. They sell the product at the same rate as that of the retail shops,” says an official from APCO. Dastkar Andhra, an NGO that sources handloom products from weavers and markets them via Daram retail outlets and dacottonhandlooms.

com. “We work directly with the producer(s) and have our own stockroom for both wholesale and retail.

Products from our stockroom are uploaded from time to time on our online website. There are no special rates for online, our rates from the stockroom and retail store are the rates for our online products,” says Dr. B. Syama Sundari of Dastkar Andhra Marketing Association (DAMA).

Launched in January 2015, WeaveSmart is a website that works differently from an e-retailer. “I take the photographs of various clothes and send it to the head office by email. They upload it on their website.

If any client is interested in buying, I purchase it from here and send it to the head office by courier for delivery to the customer,” says Ravi Vanam, a WeaveSmart employee who collaborates with weavers from Pochampally.

Online platforms seek to bridge the gap between the remote villages in which handloom production takes place, and the space of the discerning buyer.

Weavesmart also does the same for weavers from Mangalgiri and Uppada. Since the launch of their website, they have received about 35 orders for Pochampally sarees.

If an average price of a Pochampally saree on Weavesmart is Rs. 8,000 - 9,000, the same saree could be bought for Rs. 7,000 from retail shops in Pochampally.

Though marketing strategies of handloom products have been changing, the weavers are mostly unaware of the way their products are sold.

Cooperatives Yet to go Online Secretaries from cooperative societies of villages in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh – Rayavaram, Pandalapaka, Pasalapudi and Veeravaram – are completely unaware about the online marketing strategies. “I didn’t know anything about selling products online. I came to know about online marketing only when I read an article about it in the newspaper. Most of the products from this cooperative society go to retail shops,” says Kamu Somasekhara Rao, President of Rayavaram Handlooms Weavers' Cooperative Society.

Dr. B. Syama Sundari of DAMA explains that not all weavers are aware of the addition of a new marketing channel created by the collaboration of Dastkar Andhra with cooperative societies. Many weavers are yet to engage with the process, and this is necessary because when there is more participation, more revenue is quickly generated by online sales as there is no delay in transaction processes. Cooperatives can then act on behalf of the weavers and rotate working capital more effectively.

Challenges with e-retail “The touch and feel of the fabric is essential for the handloom customer.

Hence, direct retail always scores over online. But with the increasing mobility of people, maintaining an online presence is helpful as customers moving out of Hyderabad are happy to continue with the help of online,” says Dr. B. Syama Sundari.

While "ABHIYAAN Flipkart – Kaarigar ke Dwaar" has roused excitement among urban consumers and e-commerce enthusiasts, there are practical challenges that must be bridged before the initiative can perform optimally. “Many weavers have

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Source: Internet websites

Various products displayed on e-commerce sites

not yet registered under Flipkart as there is very less awareness among the weavers. It is also important to understand that it will take a lot of time to implement these policies as it is very difficult to teach how to use computer and internet to a society who have very less literacy rate,” says Dr. Preeti Meena, Director of Department of Handlooms and Textiles, Government of Telangana.

She says that weavers would not benefit out of this marketing strategy. The consumers in cyber markets prefer new designs to go with changing trends.

Handloom weavers, however, are unaware of and unable to keep up with ever-shifting market demands, and continue to weave timeless, traditional designs instead.

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“Few weavers have registered with Flipkart to be part of this program. There is already a proposal that every cooperative should have a computer in the office but still most of the cooperatives have no computer systems,” says K. Rama Gopala Rao, Deputy Director, Department of Handlooms and Textiles, Government of Telangana.

In a normal setup, handloom weavers are exploited by middle men and money lenders. When it comes to e-commerce platforms these elements are removed.

"ABHIYAAN Flipkart — Kaarigar ke Dwar" promises to “bridge the missing linkages of market intelligence, market access and logistics and help the Indian weavers in getting remunerative prices for their products.”

Considering the undeniable vibrancy of e-commerce, from a consumer’s perspective it makes sound sense to harness new media to retail handloom products. Allowing one to purchase products of their choice from the comfort of their homes is definitely a driver of increased sales.

However, the other end of the line — the weavers themselves — continues to be untouched. For weavers to be benefitted from this system, as promised by Modi’s initiative, digital and literacy divides need to be bridged. Such initiatives, therefore, need to be complemented by a range of other support systems for weavers to benefit from it.

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Woven From a Dream

Joyel K. Pious

Meghna Neogi Suraiya Hasan Bose, a renowned figure known to have breathed fresh life into the declining handloom industry, shares her experiences and her take on the future of the handloom industry in India.

Suraiya Hasan Bose at her handloom retail store in Hyderabad

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A loom in every home was my dream that I shared with Gandhi.

But in today’s time, it seems like I need to have another dream, something more achievable and realistic

than that one,” says Suraiya Hasan Bose, an octogenarian.

Suraiya Hasan wanted to become a doctor but her family’s involvement in textiles resulted in her discarding

her dream to take up the mantle of her family’s work. Her father, the late Abid Hasan, started the first cottage industry in Andhra Pradesh and the first khadi unit in Karimnagar.

“It was only fair that I should carry on the family legacy since I lost my father at the age of four,” says Suraiya. Following her father’s footsteps, Suraiya revived a lot of dying handloom units.

For instance, a cluster of weavers in Kanchanpally, close to Warangal, had given up on the handloom industry but Suraiya encouraged them to restart their work and today most of the durees stocked at her store come from the Kanchanpally production unit.

She hails from a family with generations of Gandhians who were active participants in the Indian national movement. Gandhi held the Swadeshi Movement in Hyderabad in front of Suraiya’s house when she was five years old, an experience that had a lasting impact on her. She grew up immensely valuing traditional and indigenous hand-spun fabrics.

Suraiya started working with Cottage Industry, a government sponsored retail outlet for handlooms and handicrafts, in Andhra

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Joyel K. Pious

The stocks on display at Suraiya’s Traditional Weaves & Crafts store

Pradesh as an 18-year-old. After putting in a couple of years there, she was introduced to Mary May, a Professor of Textiles who advised her to work with the central government and approach Pupul Jayakar, the then head of textiles in Delhi.

“I was acquainted with the weaving of Andhra Pradesh, but when working in Delhi, I got the chance to interact with weavers from all over India.”

It was in the 1960s, during her work with the Delhi State Trading Corporation, that she rubbed shoulders with French fashion designer Pierre Cardin, Italian fashion designer Roberto Capucci, and Japanese designer Hanae Mori. She worked closely with them to supply handloom fabric abroad, to high-end furnishing retailer chains like Habitat and Conran.

Having spent her life in textiles, she decided to open her own showroom after moving back to Hyderabad in the early 1970s on the insistence of her uncle, Abid Hasan Safrani. The land on which the Safrani Memorial School and Suraiya’s weaving studio stand today, was then a barren land.

She had to move out of her comfort zone and resort to agriculture — growing fruits and vegetables.

The money she earned from sell-

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ing those was the initial capital that she put into Deccan Exports, her first venture.

However, due to fluxes in policies regarding exports, she shifted her focus to retail and began her second venture which is now known as Safrani Exports Private Ltd. She also runs the Safrani Memorial School which she had founded on noticing the absence of English medium schools in the vicinity. The school caters to children from lower middle classes.

“Persian brocades like Himroo, Jamawar, Paithani and Mushroo brought in by the Nizams were no more used, so I decided to revive them,” says Suraiya. She got two master weavers with whom she worked in the cottage industry. With them, she began training women, especially widows from downtrodden classes.

Suraiya hires widows whose children study in Safrani Memorial School. Since men choose to work in more lucrative industries today, Suraiya decided to train widowed women so that they could raise their children independently.

As of today, Suraiya has 16 women working for her and her master weaver. “My showroom houses durees, floor carpets and garments, and

my loyal customers have ensured that my business does well,” she says.

Himroo sherwanis and Kalamkari wall hangings are the fastest selling items in her store.

Although there is a huge demand for handloom garments in Hyderabad, the weaving community is short on weavers willing to work with handlooms. The industry is on a downward spiral and Suraiya thinks that the changing aspirations and lifestyles of people are what led to it.

“Handlooms require single-minded focus and passion. Earlier a family of weavers would have everybody weaving, but now except for the father or the mother, the children of the household are busy studying to make a career for themselves,” explains Suraiya.

Education has rendered the art of handloom obsolete and people from all walks of life wish for upward social mobility. “The handloom industry has met its life span. However, it will always find its place in the wardrobes of those who appreciate the human touch of hand woven fabric, which cannot be replaced by its mechanical counterpart,” says Suriaya with characteristic optimism.

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Why Handlooms Matter

Harika Vankadara The value of handloom fabric is a dynamic concept – a dingy room that houses a loom, a retail outlet of a struggling cooperative society, a showroom that sings of a glorious handloom tradition, an online shopping portal where handloom is one of the torrent of fabrics; all shine different lights on handloom products.

“

Handloom cotton is a symbol of pride, prestige, honour, royalty, health and wealth,” says Pedda Veerraju, the septuagenarian secretary of Rayavaram Handloom Weavers' Cooperative Society.

Claiming, with a puffed chest, that he wore nothing but handloom cotton all his life, he explains that the scientific health benefits derived from wearing breathable handloom cotton that acts as a natural climatecontroller for the wearer give further reason to revive this ailing industry.

Pedda Veerraju describes the role of handloom fabric in creating an “Indian image”. A woman in a hand-woven cotton saree reflects the tradition and culture of India, he says.

Nationalistic Identity Handloom fabrics are, in the urban collective consciousness, first and foremost linked to Gandhi’s khadi movement during the freedom struggle.

Hand-woven fabrics are thus considered a symbol of nationalism, something that’s undeniably “Indian”.

“Handlooms are our heritage which needs to be preserved, otherwise the craft

becomes extinct,” says Vamshika Chennur, UGC Officer for South East Regional Office, headquartered in Hyderabad.

“Handloom products available in the market are sourced from (weavers in) different parts of India so they are Indian in nature. They are deeply embedded in our life. I preferably wear handloom clothes and do feel very comfortable in them. Also, I strongly like to promote handlooms by purchasing either from the weavers or the retail outlets of Dastkar Andhra. (sic)” Such a view on the handloom industry is the fundamental message being communicated by governmental and non-governmental retailers for local and foreign audiences. However, this colourful and romantic notion loses its sheen the moment one steps into a weaver’s home.

Global Appeal Handloom products also have a global appeal and the records of Handloom Exports Council of India show that a wide range of handloom products are exported all over the world. The diverse products produced and exported include carpets,

curtains, bed sheets, cushion covers, table cloths, napkins, and an array of silk and wool products.

Dr. B. Syama Sundari of Dastkar Andhra explains that the global appeal of handlooms is partly because of rising environment-consciousness among people. Handloom is a green choice that does not produce pollutants or affect the environment, and is mostly natural.

For a weaver who spends about ten hours a day with a loom, day after day, the glorious concepts of nationalistic identity and pride have no meaning. For weavers, the fabric produced is what enables them to live. They certainly take pride in their work, but not for the art or craft of handloom weaving. The pride lay in their caste identity that binds them together and creates their personal identity.

Elusive Promises The generation currently at the loom is most probably the last one to look at this industry as its primary source of income. Younger generations are looking for other means of

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

Traditionally designed sarees up for sale at a cooperative society

survival. A news report published in Indian Express in 2002 laments the condition of the handloom industry in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. Lack of infrastructure support and design innovation, and competition from powerloom had created a demand slump which threw weavers out of work. Andhra Pradesh State Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. (APCO), the primary governmental marketing agency had failed in purchasing sufficient stock from societies and weavers were in financial trouble.

In 2015, we find that the crises remain unchanged. If anything, competition from imitation powerloom products has only become stronger, and APCO continues to pay societies once in several

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months, with negligible profit margins that do not benefit societies.

“When I think of handloom, I think of bedsheets and curtains.

In terms of clothing, I don’t prefer handloom as choice is limited. The minimal designs available don’t suit everyone and have a different effect on each person’s appearance.

Handloom cotton is stiff and it’s not a fabric I prefer using. Even in retail outlets like Fab India, choice is limited, and there is only the element of brand being added to handloom garments here,” says Monika Ganesh, 21, a student of Masters in Administrative Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver, Canada.

Marketing Scenario When asked about the marketing strategies employed by Dastkar Andhra to cater to the needs of various demographics, Dr. B. Syama Sundari said, “Handloom products straight from the loom without any value addition are sarees, dupattas and yardages. There is no special strategy with demographic divide in mind. But as our marketing strategies are multiple, we do receive information from people across the age divide. We included stoles in our product range due to to break this myth of stagnation in design or a repetition of designs of one kind.”

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Tejasvi Dantuluri

The strong components of a handloom fabric lend it personality and integrity

There is a dearth of marketing and advertising efforts on the part of the government or cooperative societies that rely on government schemes for their efficient functioning. The Report of the Steering Committee on Handlooms and Handicrafts Constituted for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–17) says that there is a dearth of innovation and limited dynamism associated with the handloom sector, particularly in the field of marketing.

“One major factor impeding the expansion and growth of this sector is lack of adequate investment, participation and stake-holding by the private sector, mainly in marketing and supply chain,” says the report.

The report stresses on the need to promote awareness about latest de-

signs, preserving and promoting traditional skills and designs, fostering brand identity and technological developments among weavers. The major

A brighter colour palette has been added in our range of sarees to counter the myth that handloom sarees are only for the middle–aged and the old challenge was to ensure that such initiatives, when implemented, permeate at a grass-root level, among weavers.

However, more than 85 percent of weavers in India are independent and

are not part of cooperatives, which are the cluster channels through which the government implements its schemes and initiatives. Organization of melas and exhibitions at local, national and international levels are the extent of marketing activities undertaken by the government.

Given these challenges, it is no wonder that private players dominate the marketing and branding arena of handloom products. The consumers of such efforts have come to associate the typically pricey handloom products with elitist elegance and the exhibition of wealth. Such branding must be countered by the fact that handloom products are grounded in terms of pricing and availability, and are accessible to all.

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From left to right : (standing) Tejasvi Dantuluri, Ashutosh Prasad, Anupama Evani, Priyanka Manikandan, Nidhi Gupta, Harika Vankadara, Aalekhya Tadepalli, Divya K., Rajesh Dupta, Anjali Lal Gupta (Faculty Member). (sitting): Joyel K. Pious, Sanjana K. K., Avnish Kumar, Rashad K., Basha P., K. Keerthi Kiran, Venkatesh Mamidi, Saumya Painuli.

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Department of Communication Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication University of Hyderabad, Gachibowli Hyderabad, Telangana 500046