A walk through the narrow winding lanes of Bari Bazaar in India’s holy city of Varanasi (popularly known as Benaras or Kashi) is captivating for several reasons. Located in one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, Bari Bazaar is a popular hub for producers and sellers of Banarasi silk sarees and brocades. The region represents an epitome of syncretism in India’s diverse cultural setting. As the river Ganges silently flows through the city, Varanasi today has emerged as a confluence of products protected by geographical indications (GIs) with five GI registrations assigned to this region alone.1
But there is also a crisis of survival. Today, one of the most important challenges facing Banarasi saree producers is that cheaper synthetic imitations are produced in the textile city of Surat, which is located in the Western Indian state of Gujarat. It has also been reported that traders frequently import Chinese silk cloth and sell them in the Indian markets as Banarasi sarees.2 This illegal trade negatively impacts Banarasi producers, since Surat-made synthetic sarees and Chinese-made sarees are regularly passed off as Banarasi products in different markets across India.3 Not only are the motifs and patterns of Banarasi sarees ripped-off, and their best weavers poached by producers in Surat; much more problematically, these ‘Surat-made Banarasi-style sarees’ are produced at a fraction of the cost (due to the use of synthetic materials and polyester) in comparison to an ‘authentic’ silk Banarasi saree.4 It is quite intriguing that Banarasi saree producers have, so far, not contemplated legal action against producers, or traders, of Surat-made or Chinese-made Banarasi-style sarees for infringing on their registered GI. Instead, several Banarasi weavers are also seeking access to cheaper raw materials for their sarees on the basis of and assumption that, by reducing their production costs, they could better fend off the competition by producing cheaper replicas of their sarees. Moreover, these producers seek to reduce costs to compete against the other legitimate producers of GI-denominated Banarasi sarees.
However, this situation begs several questions: Why are (several) Banarasi saree producers choosing to compete in a race to the bottom rather than turning to the legal enforcement of their GI and encashing the premium value of their products protected by the GI? Moreover, what implications will this strategy of lowering the quality of the authentic Banarasi sarees have on those producers who may continue to use silk fibres and not choose to compete by diluting the brand? In other words, what are the obligations of GI producers in India and does the Indian GIs system protect GI producers against those members of the GI producers’ community who decide to turn to a lesser quality relying on the historical reputation of the GI products, that is, those who become ‘free-riders from within?’
One of the most important challenges facing Banarasi saree producers is that cheaper synthetic imitations are produced in the textile city of Surat
Nawab Begum Sajida Sultan, – © Photograph by K. L. Syed & Co., c 1938-1940
Overall, the existence of a GI registration on a product is meant to enable producers within a collective group to capture a premium for their products by (also) preventing members of the group from arbitrarily changing the product quality. In this respect, a GI registration also aims at preventing members of the collective group from deciding to lower the quality of the products to compete with other GI producers, or producers of similar products outside the GI-denominated market, especially when consumers are agnostic or unaware about those distinctions. Hence, the case of Banarasi sarees reveals that (at least a considerable number of) GI holders are often not concerned about the loss of combined reputation of their GIs resulting from compromise on the distinctive quality. Unfortunately, such instances are not unique to Banarasi sarees in India.5 This sense of lack of agency among GI holders highlights the collective action problem that goes deep into the ambiguity surrounding what makes a particular GI unique and the lack of adequate quality control on the ground amongst many GI producers in India. Interestingly, some may argue that changing the composition of raw materials by a few entrepreneurial members of a GI club could be seen as innovation. Yet, when that innovation includes turning to cheaper materials and to synthetic fabrics for sarees historically woven with silk, it should more likely be regarded as a compromise of GI-product quality and a (self)dilution of the GI’s distinctiveness.6
GI holders are often not concerned about the loss of combined reputation of their GIs resulting from compromise on the distinctive quality
Essentially, this debate comes down to the quality and characteristics that GI-denominated products are supposed to possess and that GIs are supposed to purport to consumers. Presently, however, almost all of the GI awareness campaigns in India seem to be focused only on the registration component of GIs.7 Even though the branding and promotion of GI products has started receiving some attention both on the domestic and international fronts,8 the Indian government and the surrounding legal and policy discourse on Indian GIs have, at least until now, completely ignored the introduction of quality-control and maintenance measures for goods produced under the GI tag. In many ways, it could be said that the Indian GIs regime promotes a system of ‘Vanity GIs’ where the registration of GIs is seen as an end in itself and a measure for brand promotion, with little attention being paid to the deep linkages between the registration of GIs and the quality control that should follow the registration. Instead, quality control – and in turn the function of GIs as guarantors of and symbols assuring product quality – is central to the success of the Indian GIs regime, and this chapter seeks to fortify this claim by identifying how the consumer perception of quality has a sharp influence on the economics of GIs.
Costume, gold tissue, Varanasi; Textile. ©V&A Museum 
Handloom Vs Powerloom – Indian Journal of Fibre and Textile Research, Anindya Ghosh, Trideep Guha 
©antaran, tata trusts 
Textile, length of silk with gold thread, India, ca. 1855-1879. ©V&A museum
Silk Powerloom
In many ways, it could be said that the Indian GIs regime promotes a system of ‘Vanity GIs’ where the registration of GIs is seen as an end in itself and a measure for brand promotion, with little attention being paid to the deep linkages between the registration of GIs and the quality control that should follow the registration. Instead, quality control – and in turn the function of GIs as guarantors of and symbols assuring product quality – is central to the success of the Indian GIs regime, and this chapter seeks to fortify this claim by identifying how the consumer perception of quality has a sharp influence on the economics of GIs.
References
- The Promise and Problems of Geographical Indications for Local and Rural Development – Yogesh Pai, Tania Singla – Cambridge Core
Making by hand once used to be a function of the mind, body and soul that required patience, perseverance and practice to provide a transcendental joy both to the maker and to the user of the object.
But today, with fast fashion, mass consumption and next day delivery promises, we could be losing the core ingredients required to build something that could mock the money economy through its sheer resplendence.
Traditional craftsmanship in India has meant far more than skills with materials and more than manual dexterity in manipulating tools. It has meant a total operation involving emotions, the mind, the body and the vibrant rhythm that such a coordination generates. Each community lived an integrated pattern of life that responded to the joys and burdens of life, taking them in its flow. There was a natural acceptance of the human cycle like embracing the air and the sunlight, with no resort to escapism. Craftsmanship was thus conceived and nurtured in an embryo of fullness, generated by an unhurried rhythm and an unobscured imagination about life. Such products naturally had vitality and character for they were the direct expression of mans’ creativity. They had a purposeful emphasis on the functional, endowing it with beauty. Craftsmanship became an activity that involved the entire person closely relating the mind and the materials to a certain function for a specific purpose.
A sthapati (architect) should know eightfold workmanship, the draftsmanship and sketches of various kinds, and variety of carpentry, stone-masonry and gold-smithy. The engineer equipped with these merits invokes respect. One who knows the fourfold engineering with its eight constituents and who is pure in his mind commands high status in the assembly of engineers, and is endowed with a long life.
Samarangana Sutradhara
India’s tangible heritage offers a loud testimony to the excellence of workmanship skills as evident from the meticulous planning and execution of Harappan cities, wells, reservoirs, sanitation systems to the breath taking rock-cut structure of the Kailāsanātha temple at Ellora or the step-wells of Gujarat and Rajasthan or Delhi’s rust-resistant pillar. This is also apparent from several ancient scriptures/treatises such as the Natya-shashtra, the Shilpa-shastra, the Vastu-shastra and so on which lay out extraordinary details about laws governing the planning and execution of the myriad arts and crafts of India.
In these scriptures creativity in terms of craftsmanship, is understood to have two important characteristics, a purpose and an order. Purpose provided value and order provided pleasure or delight. As Natya-shastra points out, however, that in a genuine creative performance, the essential elements are neither utility by itself nor a mere pleasing appearance, nor knowledge. Art, which is the end product of a creative function, is endowed with a deeper meaning beyond the physical aspects involved in the creation. This element was “rasa“ – essence of both emotion and facts, hard to describe for it was a sort of a subjective experience, and the most significant factor that would determine the ultimate objective in artistic endeavour. The fine sensitivity endemic in every individual had to be harnessed so that the exhilaration experienced by the artist also exhilarated the beholder. This was in fact a major test of the high calibre of the ‘silpa’ or art piece created. Rasa was an element of non-physical nature, an essential inner core, imparting vitality, unity and rhythm to a physical form, be it craft, music or dance. Properties capable of evoking subjective feelings and which subserved the artistic end, that is, an ability to evoke and achieve artistic consummation was galled ‘guna’ – quality, perfection.
Whatever creation failed to achieve was called ‘dosha’ – a blemish, imperfect.
There were other factors involved in the concept of rasa. No copying, that is, reproduction from nature or any object was permissible, as this was considered a mechanical, static process, and creation had to be dynamic. In the making of an object, the ‘concept’ was basic. The art object the artist produced has to be the essence of the impressions he absorbed deep into his consciousness, not a photographic copy. It has to be created through an inner experience, a state of being and not merely through re-using previous knowledge or experience or just going through the mentally static motions of doing an action. It has to be the essence, the rasa. The emphasis on the dynamic as opposed to the static was applicable to even architecture as evident from the Samarangana Sutradhara. If in a completed form, blemishes were discernible or mistakes marred its perfection, it was understood that these errors had arisen from a lack of clarity in the concept, not in the end result. Each time an artist creates something, it should be a fresh experience. A reproduction fell short of the essential meaningfulness a new experience was expected to provide. When an artist conjures up a new experience it enriches both the artist as well as the viewer or the user of the object. Mistakes could occur from cloudy or inadequate imagination or from a lack of the close coordination between the maker, the material and the method. An aesthetic balance could be achieved only when all these parts fused together to make a harmonious whole. As such a work of art had to have a dual purpose, outwardly for utility, inwardly for delight. The function of form is to manifest the meaning of the content. We must remember that every object made by the community was for himself or herself, for their daily use and therefore an intimate part of themselves, things they lived with. The value of the object was not in terms of what it would fetch but rather how well it would serve the social purpose, above all provide the inner sense of satisfaction.
A aesthetic balance could be achieved only when the maker, the material and the method fused together to make a harmonious whole
The theory so often propagated, that in India art had its roots in religion is erroneous. On the contrary every type of creative art had its roots in the activities of everyday life. There is no doubt that art provided a pleasing and a satisfactory vehicle for devotional practices but it never applied exclusively to religious practices. All creative activities enjoyed high appreciation and prestige. It is not surprising that one of the epitomes in which this sentiment is embodied is a mention in the Manusmriti – “The hand of a craftsman engaged in his art is always ceremonially pure”. This could be where the higher concept of master-craftsmanship in India stems from. The social objective of craftsmanship and the psychological experience of creation were the only two cardinal factors in determining quality. There could be no other criterion or test. In these times, communities were essentially self-contained, whatever they produced was for themselves and not for sale. Money economy had not made its appearance yet. Prestige and honour were determined only by the high quality of workmanship.
“The hand of a craftsman engaged in his art is always ceremonially pure”
Manusmriti
These values presented themselves in all types of craftsmanship. Textile designs ranged from the most delicate and suggestive to the most elaborate manifestation of the complex techniques. The basketry was exquisite, with incredibly refined weave and in a wealth of beautiful shapes and designs. The wood carvings were startlingly alive. In fact, all products made by the community vibrated with life, as though the maker infused some of his own self into his creation. Each had to be a craftsman to be a creator, for when he shaped his object he was in a way shaping his own personality. Here there was no duality of the subjective and the objective. Creation is a self-involved experience of basic oneness of the personality that we have come to call Sadhana – a cultivated state of being. The maker did not probe or delve into himself to build up the complex analytical philosophy that others were later to contrive. For his mental exercises were simple and direct. Continuing to be an intimate child of nature, he was conditioned to follow certain natural laws, which taught techniques and guided processes, sensitivity to right proportions and balances which nature so exuberantly portrays, and sharpens sensibilities that make for economy in material and operational time.
Creation is a self-involved experience of basic oneness of the personality that we have come to call Sadhana – a cultivated state of being
Prosperity consisted in having several years’ provisions of grain in one’s granary as opposed to the money in one’s bank
The presence of the craftsmen in the midst of a simple agricultural society made possible the self-contained life of the community, so striking a feature of the Indian village. Living in a society organised on the basis of personal relations and duties which descended in each family from generation to generation. Instead of belonging to a society founded on contract and competition, their payment was provided for in various ways, of which money payment was the least important and most unusual. Barter and personal service took the place of today’s money transactions. Wealth was hoarded, if at all, rather in the form of jewellery than of money. Prosperity consisted in having several years’ provisions of grain in one’s granary as opposed to the money in one’s bank. Anything of the nature of a shop or store was unknown.
For the customary services, the craftsmen were repaid at harvest-time, receiving a fixed proportion of sheaves of grain from the crop collected on the threshing floor, or they might be given a share of the communal land. Agriculture was the staple profession of every household and everyone was directly dependent on the land they tilled. Village servants in Punjab were paid by grain fees, so many bundles of crop of wheat or barley, each bundle the size accommodated by a string of three straws in length. The blacksmith got one Kat of paddy and three Karas for every plough in the village, and was also paid two or three annas for every new phar or ploughshare; in a few villages he held half a powa of land rent free. Almost always, a share was set aside for religious and charitable purposes, before the remainder of the crop was divided between tenant and landlord.
The Indian craftsman conceives of his art, not as the accumulated skill of ages, but as originating in the divine skill of Visvakarma, the god of arts and crafts, and revealed by him. Beauty, rhythm, proportion, idea have an absolute existence on an ideal plane, where all who seek may find. The reality of things exists in the mind, not in the detail of their appearance to the eye. Their inward inspiration upon which the Indian artist is taught to rely, appearing like the still small voice of a god, that god was conceived of as Visvakarma. He may be thought of as that part of expression: or in another way, as the sum total of consciousness, the group soul of the individual craftsmen of all times and places. All this is an expression of religious conception of life, and we see the working of such ideas in actual practice. In Hindu philosophy there is no hard line drawn between the secular and the religious things in life. Religion is not so much a formula, as a way of looking at things, and so all the work of life may be a sacrament, may be done as it were for a god. Hindu craftsmen worship the implements of their labour at the Dashera festival. This Hindu custom has survived even amongst some converts to Islam. For example, the Thavais of northern India worship their tools at the Id al-gitr, making offerings of sweetmeats to them.
Circumstances have changed today. Constraints that existed in the past have been replaced by new ones. Artisan’s used to have plenty of time to work on their craft as the slow economy dictated by harvest seasons afforded the community substantial time to hone their skills that directly resulted in exquisite quality products. A barter system ensured quality and calibre were measured in abstract terms of “rasa” and not in thick wads of cash or widespread acclaim. Communities were co-dependent on each other and so played their role to the best of their abilities to remain relevant and be compensated fairly for their dedication and devotion to their work. Co-dependence on each other is brokered by money today. The link between the maker and his patron is held firmly with monetary contracts. Food security is no longer the biggest wealth, one’s bank balance is. There is little room for “rasa” in today’s age to inspire selfless devotion to your craft.
Have we really lost the opportunity to bring back the spiritual in the material?
References
- The Indian Craftsman – Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
- India’s Craft Tradition – Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
- Nārada Śilpaśāstra: Sanskrit Text on Architectural Civil Engineering – Prof R.N.Iyengar
Cashmere wool or simply cashmere is one of the most luxurious and most expensive natural fabrics.
Cashmere is made from the processing of the hair of Capra Hircus goat that lives on the Tibetan highlands, in the Himalayas and principally in Mongolia. Because the processing of the wool was first developed in the region of Kashmir, the name of the region has thus become the generic name of the fabric. The uplands of Ladakh and Tibet are the most authentic regions for cashmere wool. The Capra Hircus lives at an average altitude of 4,000 meters, an animal that, now domesticated in Mongolia, is also known as the Pashmina goat. To cope with the extreme temperatures that can reach as low as -40°C and the long winter, lasting six months, the animal is covered with a thick wool coat formed of long hairs.
The Changpa community in Ladakh is a nomadic pastoralists and herd Changthangi goats (pashmina). The wool sheared from these goats is used to produce authentic cashmere wool. According to academic accounts, the community migrated from Tibet into the Changthang region in India around 8th century AD and since then have been seasonally move around within this vast region is search of green pastures. Today, around 40 to 50 Changpa families live in this region and continue to rear the Changthangi goats for their sustenance. Besides, goats, the Changpa’s also keep sheep and yaks. In such a remote region, the good old barter system is still an important trade exchange mechanism.
The origin of pashmina dates back to ancient civilisation. In the ancient days, often, pashmina products were mostly woven for self-consumption. Eventually, the pashmina products found favour with the royal families, emperors, kings, etc. With this increase in demand and recognition, it became more popular and widespread everywhere. But the historic bond of this fabric with the region, and its cultures and traditions, continues even today
Thus, the process of manufacture of the pashmina shawl is integral to the making of a ‘pashmina’ and both the process and the pashmina product are based on the knowledge, innovations, and practices of the local community, developed from experience gained over the centuries and transmitted orally from generation to generation. Therefore, it can be definitely stated that elements of traditional knowledge are involved in the making of the pashmina, both at the ‘production process’ level and at the product level.
The dangers facing pashmina, at a product level, and traditional knowledge involved in its production, are twofold.
On the one hand, there is misappropriation of the name ‘pashmina’. Today, to meet the demands of cashmere lovers across the world, pashmina-type products are being manufactured and sold by Mongolia, China and Nepal
These machine produced shawls are competing with the hand-woven Kashmiri pashminas and driving them out of business. They are all being sold under the generic brand name of pashmina even though they do not meet the quality standards of pashmina and are not manufactured using the traditional methods practiced by the weavers in the region of Kashmir.
This has led to the loss of traditional skills of the craftsmen and an erosion of their profits as the high cost genuine (handmade) work is forced to compete with the low quality product. All this has been done in spite of the fact that the name, Pashmina, is inextricably attached to the region of Kashmir. In fact, when a product has the Pashmina tag attached to it, it signifies two things: one, that the product has been made in Kashmir, and two, that the product possesses certain characteristics which are owed to the unique method of manufacture followed by the people of that region (the hand woven shawl is distinguishable from a machine made one). Both these factors which make pashmina unique, are being misappropriated, and abused, by the use of the name in a loose sense by these other manufacturers.
The second threat to pashmina comes from the intellectual property regime in vogue today. Biopiracy is the appropriation of the knowledge and other resources of indigenous communities by individuals or institutions seeking exclusive monopoly control (usually in the form of patents) over these resources and knowledge.
The registration of Kashmir pashmina as a geographical indication is increasingly important in the current IP climate as India is arguing, along with other developing countries, for the expansion of Article 23 of TRIPS. Under the TRIPS Agreement, geographical indications are defined as ‘place names used to identify the origin and quality, reputation or other characteristics of products’. The registration of Kashmir pashmina at the national level is an essential criterion for the award of global protection. The Indian government has become more cautious in protecting geographical indications in the light of a recent decision of the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which upheld the Tea Board of India’s claim for the indication, mark and logo for Darjeeling tea.
GIs thus involve a certification of origin or reputation, based on certain natural or human factors which are specific to a region. The history, culture, reputation and characteristics of a particular product based on geographical origin is the basis behind the claim of producers that only they have the right to use a particular appellation, having satisfied the required standards. Moreover, it must be remembered that GIs, by their very nature, are communitarian forms of protection. This is why many feel that they are probably the only existing forms of protection which may be used to secure rights in traditional knowledge.
Author – Laila Tyabji
Many have spoken and written of the crushing impact of COVID-19 on the Indian craft sector. For months, craftspeople have been without markets, sales, orders or prospects. They lack the wherewithal to buy food for their families, let alone make payments for wages and raw material. The future of traditional crafts markets and bazaars is bleak. The projected global recession will mean that fewer people will have cash in their pockets to buy handicrafts. Pessimist economists say it may take years for us to get back to our pre-pandemic rate of growth. All this has made those of us in the craft sector come together and introspect. NGOs, crafts cooperatives, designers, merchandisers, entrepreneurs and artisan families – normally working in their own narrow silos – are brainstorming together in new collaborations and discussions. Zoom, WhatsApp groups, and webinars are pulsing with the word ‘crafts’ and ‘craftspeople’ in ways that haven’t happened for decades. Even the prime minister mentioned artisans in his Letter to the Nation.
What unites these many diverse partners is the seriousness of the situation and knowing how essential it is for us to all work with each other if craft and the makers of craft are to survive. For the first time, normally secretive retailers, designers, and entrepreneurs are sharing their artisan lists, naming their karigars and directing orders and donations directly to them. They realise that individually they cannot support them all, and that if their karigars go under, so will their own businesses. The realisation has also hit home that the way we market craft has to change. And for that too, we all need each other. It’s going to be a long time before the public will flock to Dilli Haat, Paramparik and the Dastkar Bazaars, and before craftspeople themselves will travel to metro cities that are hotspots for the virus. Sourcing too will have to change. Entrepreneurs and designers will have to go to the craftspeople rather than the other way round.
The channels of communication therefore have to evolve. All of us, except a few who ask “what about the touch and feel experience that is so integral to buying craft?” have realised that going online is inevitable. Here too, we need the help of each other. If craft products have to be appealing online, they need to look good, be presented with skill and style. I see another opportunity here. We all agree that half the charm of a craft object is the process, the maker and the tradition. The internet enables us to present this effectively and creatively, without physically having to transport the artisan and his equipment and tools to the spot. To have the maker tell the story, show the material, and the technique that transforms it… If we can only do this successfully, in a visually engaging way, it will make up for that lack of touch and feel.
Few entrepreneurs, let alone NGOs and artisans, have the skills of presentation, photography, content, digital knowhow, or the human resources to make this happen overnight. Here is an area where we should pull in other professionals and work in partnership. Is it idealistic to think of one wonderful craft portal, naming both makers and sellers, instead of us all competing for the same online space? An Amazon of craft, but so much better, more creative and also more caring?
If the market and the means to market has changed, the product too needs to change – at every segment of the consumer spectrum. It will be a long time before the demand for designer gowns and elaborate wedding lehengas costing lakhs will revive – social distancing means that partying is a thing of the past, at least in the short term. And with international travel on hold, cheap tourist souvenirs too will not be in demand. I don’t see people investing in expensive purely decorative pieces for their homes either for some time.
We need to go back to that golden age when every handcrafted object was functional as well as decorative.
With many of the international players and brands that supplied the world with garments, accessories, home furnishings, furniture, tableware, toys etc in distress, and China also struggling to recover, this is an opportunity to make Make in India really happen, and to take over China’s place as the ‘Maker to the World’. We used to be that! Indians too should be tempted back to ‘Buy Local, Buy Indian’ as those international brands become less easily available.
We have millions and millions of skilled hands, and not every pair of hands needs to make traditional objects. It is exciting to see folk artists, long frozen in endless replication, painting contemporary themes of life during COVID-19. All over India, women embroiderers are making ingenious versions of masks, while Kashmiri leather artisans, normally fabricating bags and totes, have turned their hand to PPE outfits and gloves. Since synthetic, stainless steel and glass surfaces have been found to carry the virus for longer, it is an opportunity for artisans working in paper, brass, fibre, wood and resin. This includes packaging – an area of huge potential growth.
Architectural crafts too need to make a comeback. People will always need homes, and those homes should be beautifully crafted – with everything from chic blinds and cane to wall finishes and woodwork. Also, if the world’s tourists have to be wooed back to India, the hotel industry will need to provide an irresistible and unique experience. Again, thanks to our millions of skilled hands, this is actually cheaper than buying container-loads of pre-fab Italian or Balinese artefacts.
For this, craftspeople will need design interventions and product development, which can be another area where collaboration works. Craft interventions need to work in partnership with crafts communities to plan proper briefs, to link up with potential clients. Craftspeople need to identify appropriate end-markets for their products rather than make things at random and then try to randomly find them a market or buyer.
The appeal of selling at a bazaar was its catch-all quality, given the diversity of its visitors – students, Bollywood stars, diplomats and foreign tourists, boutique owners, export buyers. Craftspeople therefore made and brought along a bit of everything, with differing price ranges, colours, and designs, hoping to make some sales to someone, or secure an order for something.
Artisan’s need to understand that it’s not just about surface ornamentation – form, functionality, finish, proportion are just as, if not more, important as making a pretty pattern.
This is an area where our design schools should also collaborate and plan ahead for, rather than predictably sending students to the usual well-trodden crafts pockets – Kutch, Raghurajpur, Jaipur. Each design school could take a region, with students working together in cohesion with local NGOs, developing coordinated ranges of products. If possible there should be a brief from a potential merchandiser – be it the Central and State Cottage Industries, a corporate institutional buyer, an IKEA or a FabIndia.
Part of the process should be a branding and advertising campaign: telling the story, projecting the magic and uniqueness of Indian craft. The ‘Incredible India’ campaign had Indians, along with the rest of the world, rediscover this country. We now need to make them discover the skills, range and power of Indian craftspeople.
The finance minister’s stimulus package left out this huge sector, the second largest in India, but here is now an opportunity for the government to join hands with all of us in the crafts sector and make it happen. A starting point must be knowing exactly how many million craftspeople we are talking about. Amazingly, that’s something we are still making guesses about.
Article by Priti David for PARI – @pari.network.
“See this photo of a tag on a kurta [marketed by a big brand] talking about ‘Toda embroidery’. It is a print stamped on the cloth! And they have not even bothered to get the facts right, calling the embroidery ‘pukhoor’ and other words that don’t even exist in our language,” says Vasamalli K.
The saree was delivered in a few days. “I saw it was machine embroidered, and the reverse was covered with a strip of cloth to hide the untidy threads,” Sheela says. “Yes, the embroidery was in black and red, but that was the only similarity.”
Traditional embroidery, done by women in the Toda community, has distinctive red and black (and occasionally blue) thread work in geometric designs on unbleached white cotton fabric. The traditional Toda dress is a distinctive shawl, the putukuli. Considered a grand garment, it is only worn for special occasions like visits to the temple, festivals and finally as a shroud. Around the 1940s, Toda women began to do made-to-order piece work for British buyers – tablecloths, bags and other items. For the next many decades, sale was limited to those who requisitioned the items. Only cotton thread was used in the past, though now most Toda women use wool thread, because, they say, it is less expensive and faster to work with.
It’s not just big companies, other craftspeople are also infringing. At a handicraft exhibition in Jaipur, Vasamalli found Toda designs on woollen shawls in another stall. “One customer came to fight with me saying why are your items so expensive when they are selling the same thing for the half the price?” she says. “It [the other stall’s item] was not hand embroidered, but a stamped pattern and [so] it was much cheaper.”
There is also a fear within the community of non-Todas acquiring the embroidery skills because the Toda population is small – just 2002 people in 538 households across an estimated 125 Toda hamlets in the Nilgiris (Census 2011). By their own estimates, there are around 300 women in their community who practice pohor. However, the interest among younger women is dwindling, which puts the future of the craft at risk.
In Nedimund, a Toda hamlet in Coonoor taluk, 23-year-old artisan N. Sathyasin’s predicament speaks for others like her: “The work is a lot and it takes a lot of time. As labourer in a [tea] estate I can get 300 rupees or more a day. For this work I spend two to six hours a day and get only about 2,000 rupees at the end of the month.”
Sathyasin works with Shalom, the Toda products outlet run by Sheela (who is not from the Toda community). Shalom too has been criticised by some Todas for employing non-Toda women. “They do the ancillary work such as stitching, attaching beads and tassels, but not embroidery,” Sheela counters. “I am aware that the craft will lose some of its value if just anyone takes it up. Right now it is precious because it is so little, only so many pieces a year and each piece is unique. But it’s a big challenge to get this work done and to keep it going.”
The outlet was started in 2005 and has 220 Toda women on the rolls embroidering pieces which get converted to products like sarees, shawls, bags and linen. Of each saree sold for Rs. 7,000, around Rs. 5,000 goes to the artisan, and the remaining is used for the material and marketing, Sheela says. Most of the experienced artisans earn, on average, between Rs. 4,000 and Rs. 16,000 a month, depending on the amount of work they take on. Shalom posted a turnover of Rs. 35 lakhs in 2017-2018 and many in the Nilgiris credit it with helping the market for these products grow.
“If non-Todas do it, it will lose its value. But on the other hand if enough people don’t, it will die out completely.”
Vasamalli
With a high literacy rate of 84 per cent, Todas now have jobs in banks and other services and are considered fairly well-to-do. Vasamalli too has a Masters in Sociology, is a member of the Tamil Nadu Tribal Welfare Board, and a published author with the Sahitya Akademi.
“It is the headache of us Toda females! The men are not bothered who is doing embroidery and who is copying,” she says. “Selling [of our hand embroidery] and doing business is not a traditional thing in our culture, so men are not serious about it. For us women it is both – we have to protect our cultural right and at the same time not incur economic loss.”
The Toda embroidery cause is not helped by the fact that there is no single overarching body of Toda artisans to address these issues. “We are scattered as a community,” Vasamalli says. “There are multiple bodies, it has become very political. I am a member of many organisations, but even I am unable to gather everyone around this. We need help.”
“In Toda embroidery, the ‘method of production’ refers to embroidery done by hand only. If this embroidery is done in any other way such as by machine, then it is incorrect to call it ‘Toda embroidery’. In other words, machine embroidered products sold as ‘Toda embroidery’ would amount to infringement. As part of the registration process, certain unique designs are also registered.”
Zaheda Mulla, Geographical Indication Lawyer & Activist
However, she adds, “You need muscle power to implement and propagate awareness among end consumers. GI holders and genuine producers (called ‘authorised users’ in the GI certificate) affected by counterfeit sales must seek legal remedy by filing an infringement suit [in the high court of that jurisdiction].”
The two brands marketing so-called Toda embroidery, that are referred to in this story, are Siyahi of Reliance Trends and Tjori.com. Despite repeated emails seeking clarity on the product and its description as given on the site, Tjori did not respond.
In response to an email sent by this reporter, [email protected] wrote: “Siyahi is a brand that takes inspiration from Traditional Indian crafts. We do not do original products produced by Craftsmen. Embroideries are all machine done. Embroideries are all done on computer embroidery machines in factories. Inspiration has been taken from Toda shawls.”
But Vasumalli is not placated. “Copying our designs and using our name is not correct,” she says.
Original Source – Article from the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) @pari.network. Read it here
