PERSPECTIVES

Indias Handloom Challenge

Anatomy of a Crisis
Ashoke Chatterjee

The Indian weaver is dismissed in

high places as an embarrassing
anachronism, despite demand for
his or her skills and products.
In the new millennium,
globalisation and a mindless
acquiescence to imported notions
of a good life threaten to take
over, even as the West looks East
for better concepts of sustainable
living. Analysing todays crisis in
the handloom sector, plagued by
low-cost imitations from power
looms, this article points out that
we are caught in a meaningless
dichotomy that could damage
Indian handlooms unique
reputation of coming from a
system unmatched for delivering
genuine sustainability.

ndias transition from colonial rule

was marked by a confident belief in
the relevance of its heritage in the
move towards modernity. The capacity
to define progress in Indian terms was
epitomised by the handloom revolution.
Rooted in the freedom struggle, it was
later directed through planning for livelihood and lifestyle opportunities enriched
by inherited values. Emerging as one of the
20th centurys great design stories, Indian fabrics became symbolic of Mahatma
Gandhis injunction to keep Indian windows open to the world without being swept
away by gusts of wind from outside.
Seventy years later, the Indian weaver
is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand
for his or her skills and products. In the
new millennium, globalisation can seem
less an open window than a consumerist
culture of mimicry. A mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life
threatens to take over, even as advanced
economies look East for better concepts
of sustainable living. This is the context
for todays crisis in the handloom sector.
It deserves understanding, symptomatic
as it may be of a deeper malaise.
Past Forward

Ashoke Chatterjee (ashchat@prabhatedu.org)

is a former Director of the National Institute of
Design and former President of the Crafts
Council of India.

34

Symbolic of its civilisation, the loom in

India represents a heritage unbroken
through thousands of years. The loom became Gandhis catalyst for freedom, and
emerged through six decades of planned
development as the nations largest source
of livelihood after agriculture. Today, the
Indian loom in several incarnationshandloom, power loom and mill production
represents a huge industry, within which
handlooms provide the most jobsmore
than four million by conservative estimates and up to 20 million by others.
Media attention has been directed in
the few past months to the struggles of

handloom weavers in several states to

resist the encroachment of power looms.
Power looms dominate Indias textile
production, providing some 60% of output. Handlooms follow with 15%, although with a much larger employment
quotient. Knitwear, mills and khadi
make up the rest. The ministry of textiles has, through the Five Year Plans, set
development directions for all sectors
other than khadi. Perhaps, the most iconic
Indian textile of all, khadi is governed
by the Khadi and Village Industries
Commission (KVIC), which reports to
another ministry. Instead of each component being encouraged to flourish in
its own right, handlooms and power
looms have been locked in a wasteful
battle that thwarts the entire industry.
The current crisis reflects efforts by
power loom operators, backed by an
influential lobby, to redefine handloom
technology and revise the Handloom
Reservation Act, 1985 (HRA). Despite
their numbers, dispersed and disempowered handloom weavers cannot match
the power loom operators political clout.
The consequence is a hugely unequal
battle, with implications well beyond the
economic. What many consider the fabric
of the future is undervalued in a policy
approach that limits it to a restricted
niche of export markets, high-end boutiques, and museum collections. A crisis
of lost opportunity thus threatens Indias
unique advantage as the worlds only
major source of handwoven fabrics,
which are strongly demanded in expanding markets, both home and overseas.
A Crisis of Definition
Some 30 years ago Shyam Benegals film
Susman portrayed the pressures that
were already affecting one of Indias renowned centres of weaving, Pochampally
village, a short drive from Hyderabad.
Weaver Ramalu (Om Puri) and his wife
Gouramma (Shabana Azmi) are challenged by traders, cooperative societies, touts
and other market forces over which they
have little control. The clatter of encroaching power looms can be clearly heard.
In May 2015, an NDTV crew visited
Pochampally to report on the current crisis.

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Little had changed for the Ramalus and

Gourammas of today. This despite growing demand and a new symbol of globalised statusa Geographical Indicator
intended to protect the exclusive identity
of Pochampallys famous ikat sarees.
Two years before Susman was released, the HRA listed 22 items to be reserved for weavers in the face of rising
competition from power looms. This faade was intended to protect a range of
handwoven products, including sarees,
dhotis, and lungis identified for excellence in a particular craft. At the time,
Indias handloom heritage was proving a
diplomatic advantage, celebrated at festivals of India taken around the world by
the late Pupul Jayakar. Meanwhile, power
looms invaded not just Pochampally but
every centre of the weaving craft, from
Maharashtra to Madhya Pradesh, Varanasi to Phulia. The threat to weavers was
not just cheaper cloth but power loom
rip-offs of handloom designs, which
flooded the market with cheap fakes.
Within a decade, the power loom lobbys
growing clout reduced items reserved
under the HRA from 22 to 11, and its
enforcement to almost zero.
Surprisingly, the HRA originated in
colonial times to protect the skills of
Indian weavers. Its future in the 21st century market was to be the focus of a seminar arranged in New Delhi by Dastkar
Andhra and the Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies (CSDS) in March
2015. Despite an invitation, no one from
the ministry of textiles attended. Power
loom lobby influences were suspected to
be at work. The empty chairs were reminders of an upheaval two years earlier.
In 2013, taking advantage of the election
fever, power loom interests lobbied hard
for a change in the definition of the handloom to legitimise their production as
handmade. This was to be speeded
through ministry intervention to encourage the attachment of 0.5 horsepower
(hp) motors to handlooms, transforming
handlooms instantly to power looms.
Months of turbulent opposition followed
to defend the heritage loom, led by weavers and craft activists. Morchas, satyagrahas and conclaves built pressure. By
January 2014, the ministry as well as the
Prime Ministers Office (PMO) offered
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assurances that there would be no change

in either the handloom definition or
technology. Yet just a year later, the sector
seemed to be heading back to a division.
In a free-market era that acknowledges
the consumer as queen and is hostile to
restrictions, the HRA may appear an
anachronistic anchor for an industry that
regards itself as futuristic. Yet, it is the
clarity of its definition of handloom that
gives it powera handloom is defined as
any loom other than a power loom, and a
power loom as a loom worked by power,
as defined under the Factories Act 1948.
Shyama Sundari of Dastakar Andhra
knows what she is up against.
I can understand the mixed responses to our
insistence on reservations. But the field reality cannot be ignored. The existence of the
HRA is a deterrent to the proliferation of power
loom imitations. It is the sole remaining
instrument that defines handloom. It is ironic
that we need to hold on to a definition of handloom to ensure its survival, just as definition
still protects an adivasis rights to exist.

Civilisational aspects, compounding

the irony of a legal straw to which a
priceless Indian asset must cling, are
reminders of Gandhis open window.
A Sector Seeks Definition
Current controversies have early roots.
Weaver suicides in Andhra Pradesh (AP)
alone were 1,000 between 2002 and
2012. In 2011, the Planning Commission
recommended a review of the handloom
definition to improve sector viability.
By August 2012, a committee had introduced the concept of a hybrid loom.
Entirely new to global experience, in
coming years this attempted innovation
bedevilled handloom weavers and stimulated power loom ambitions. A handloom redefined as a hybrid would require
just one process of weaving to be done by
manual intervention or human energy.
Modernisation to reduce drudgery and
improve productivity was put out as the
noble objective of such reform. Weavers
identified it as a conspiracy to kill their
tradition at one stroke by removing Indias
global unique selling proposition (USP)
that distinguishes handcrafted textiles
from others. By December 2012, hundreds
of strikes by weavers were reported.
Yet, in May 2013, an official subcommittee (with power loom and state
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representatives) again suggested the need

to relax the HRA definition of a handloom.
By August and September 2013 reports
continued on guidelines for modernisation and mechanisation so as to
upgrade/improve production processes
and reduce drudgery. These sparked
another wave of weaver protests in
Madhya Pradesh (MP), Odisha, AP, Karnataka and West Bengal. Responding to
these alarms, the Planning Commission
organised a stakeholder meeting in October 2013 to reassess Indias handloom
status. It quickly rejected the notion of a
hybrid loom and of power looms encouraged at the cost of handlooms, underlining that the Ministry of Textiles own
national network of weavers service
centres have not been consulted for such
a fundamental change. Experts Devaki
Jain and Ritu Sethi pointed to the absurdity of mechanisation when energy
failures were affecting power loom production. The critical constraint on handloom production was shortage of yarn,
not power or demand.
A delegation carried these concerns to
the PMO in January 2014. It was assured
of no change in the handloom definition.
Instead, a new textile policy would be
formulated, which would subsume the
handloom sector policy. A further response from the Office of the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) arrived on 14 January 2014the handloom
definition would remain in the purest
form, accepting the recommendation of
a subcommittee of the 2013 advisory
committee. This decision, the statement
added, overturned earlier recommendations that had been supported by a parliamentary standing committee on labour.
In May 2014, Varanasi, the new prime
ministers constituency, brought the
handloom sector unprecedented political attention. Yet, protests were erupting
elsewhere. In Kashmir, mechanisation
was threatening 5,00,000 Pashmina
weavers and spinners. A fast in Karnataka
in November ended after the chief ministers intervention. The planning commission, not yet the Niti Ayog, invited
comments on a handloom policy paper
in December 2014. Of unknown authorship, the article suggested a paradigm
shift in the sector with little indication of
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PERSPECTIVES

what such a shift might constitute. In

Badanavalu in Karnataka, hundreds of
weavers gathered to protest against
power loom incursions, recalling Gandhis
1932 visit to what was once a thriving
handloom centre.
Modernity Demands
Early in this new year (2015), raids were
reported on some southern power loom
units. A senior member of the union cabinet was believed to have intervened on
their behalf. Affected by falling production
and irritated by occasional inspections
and seizures (although conviction figures
were as low as nine in 201011), power
loom interests were now seeking another
opportunity to exploit the rising demand
for the handmade with machine-made
look-alikes. A delegation urged the ministry of textiles to remove sarees and lungis
from HRA protection. In April in New Delhi
and in May in Tamil Nadu, officials told
activists that mechanisation of handlooms remained a good idea. Reports
followed that the HRA might indeed be
amended, with yet another attempt at
making just one symbolic hand operation
sufficient to qualify power loom fabric as
handmade, and thus be eligible for
handloom concessions. News spread of
meetings dominated by power loom interests arranged within the ministry of textiles and the Office of Development Commissioner (Handlooms). A toothless HRA,
its slender penalties seldom enforced by
state-level inspectors, was now to be rendered hopelessly irrelevant.
M Mohan Rao, President, Handloom
Weavers Association of AP, complained
that across the country from Varanasi
to Ludhiana to Karnataka and Andhra,
power loom weavers are making imitations of the sarees we make, and they
sell them to consumers as handloom
products. President of the Mysore Power
loom Manufacturers Cooperative Society
was unapologeticThere is barely any
handloom sector left in India, so we have
to make the traditional sarees and lungis
that used to be made on handlooms. At
one New Delhi meeting, a lone handloom
representative was mocked with these
words. We have progressed from the
firewood chulha to the gas and electric
stove. If we hang on to the technologies
36

of our grandparents our children will

laugh at us. The core of the crisis was
revealed with unexpected clarity
modernity, demanding a contempt for
the burden of heritage.
Alarm bells rang as assurances received
from no less than the PMO in January
2014 appeared to unravel. The Twelfth
Five Year Plan (201217) recommendations were being threatened again by the
prospect of revised definitions and a removal of the iconic handloom saree from
protection. Weavers and their allies mobilised, their suspicions deepening of intentions within the ministry entrusted
with handlooms future. In the Rajya
Sabha, Member of Parliament (MP) Kirron
Kher made a spirited intervention on
behalf of weavers, concluding that none
of the ministers seem to have heard
what I have said. Another rescue operation began. An online petition organised
by Laila Tyabji of Dastkar, New Delhi,
soon gathered 17,000 signatures. The
pink pages, seldom interested in Indias
second largest industry, were reporting
that the worlds only major source of
handwoven fabric seemed determined
to wreck its own Make in India advantage. Television crews were in Pochampally, and elsewhere. Their reports were
not all bad news.
Global demand for handloom quality
was at an unprecedented high, fashion
leaders reminded the media. Markets
were clamouring for green, ethical products that offered individual identity
through a touch of skilled hand. In locations such as Maheshwar in MP weavers
flush with orders were struggling to
keep pace with demand. Their numbers
had increased from 200 in 1978 to over
2,000. A handloom school established
by pioneer Sally Holkar was attracting
young weavers from within and outside
the tradition. Dastkar pointed to the
growth in handloom demand over the
last five years, covering a range that
extended from Benares sarees and brocades to Kanchipuram silk, Bagru prints,
Bomkkai sarees, Baluchari, and dozens
of exquisite products as well as functionally perfect gamchhas and jharans. These
claims were backed with sales statistics
from top design firms and retail outlets,
of which just one (Fabindia) consumed

more than 11 million metres of handloom

fabric a year valued at Rs 112 crore. Then,
on 6 May 2015, the Ministry of Textiles
issued an unusual release.
No change in items reserved for production
by handlooms
Myth: The Government of India is going to
amend the provisions under the Handlooms
(Reservation of Articles for Production) Act,
1985, in order to give advantages to power
looms.
Reality: Some requests were received for review of items reserved for production by
handlooms. After a due examination of the
matter, the Government of India has decided
not to make any change in the Reservation
Order issued under the 1985 Act, thereby
protecting the interests of handloom weavers.

Two weeks later, a major thrust was

announced in the prime ministers constituency of Varanasi. There, a handful of
great names in the fashion industry were
to create collections that would restore
the glory of Banarasi silks and brocades
in world markets. Had the crisis moved
at last towards resolution? Or were myth
and reality alive and well on the banks of
a river so accommodating to both?
A Plan Perspective
The Twelfth Five Year Plans recommendations provide the most comprehensive
backdrop available for understanding
the handloom sector, strengthened by
the endorsement of states on whom
implementation depends. Innovation
and marketing dynamism are balanced
in the plan with greater security not
only for weavers but also for those (primarily women) who comprise the sectors invisible workforce. Significantly,
plan recommendations have seldom been
cited in recent months of argument.
In contrast to the division in 2015, the
Twelfth Plan emerged from a remarkably
collegial and participatory process led by
the Ministry of Textiles and involving all
stakeholders. Observing the need to develop a strong, competitive and vibrant
sector that can provide sustainable employment and reflect the infinite variety
and diversity that distinguishes Indian
textiles from the rest of the world, the
plan calls for shifts in policy, strategy, and
implementation, and detailed what these
shifts should be. It notes the potential for
providing low-cost and green livelihood
opportunities to lakhs of families, besides

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supplementing incomes in times of agrarian distress, checking migration and preserving the traditional economic relationships between different sections of the
society. Indian handlooms are recognised as meeting needs ranging from
exquisite fabrics that can take months to
weave to popular items mass produced
for daily use. The need for aggressive
marketing strategies is placed at the top
of the plans list of key interventions,
including a campaign to build and sustain handloom demand along the lines of
the Incredible India effort.
The plan also calls for an overhaul of
sector schemes, underlining that constraints are clearly not of falling demand,
penury, insecurity, or drudgeryso frequently trotted out as symptoms of a
sunset industry. That each of these challenges exists is acknowledged, and their
solution is seen as demanding marketing
savvy and a revival of respect for the
weavers know-how. With dignity, the
prime need of weavers is stressed as location-specific solutions rather than onesize-fits-all approaches. With the collapse
of the Planning Commission, there is no
assurance now that plan recommendations remain the sectors way forward.
Challenge of Data
Current uncertainties are compounded
by unreliable data for the sector, even in
the Twelfth Plan. This may improve once
the outcome of the Economic Census 2012
offers broad indications. The Ministry of
Statistics and Programme Implementation, in partnership with the Ministry of
Textiles, is expected to launch a census
specific to Indias handmade industries
once data from the Economic Census
2012 has been analysed. That effort,
assisted by the Crafts Council of India
and other activists, may finally reveal
the actual dimensions of sector employment and its contribution to the gross national product (GNP). Whatever number
emerges, it will be huge compared to the
3 million jobs in the information technology (IT) sector that captures such levels
of national attention.
Current statistics are drawn largely
from a handloom census conducted in
200910. It suggested that the sector
then employed more than 4 million
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weavers and allied workers, against 6.5

million in 199596. This reduction has
been regularly used to feed the gloom
and doom scenario fostered in high
places, suggesting the inevitability of a
sunset. Other estimates range from
9 million to 20 million. These include
post- and pre-loom employment, ancillary occupations, the invisible women
who are estimated to do 50% of handloom work, and huge weaving communities such as in the North East where
the loom is an inseparable part of identity
and survival.
In 1977, it was estimated that every
Indian handloom offered employment to
six persons. Subsequent loom improvements (not requiring power) have brought
the estimate to four. In contrast, a single
power loom worker may supervise no
less than four looms and possibly as
many as eight. While the power loom
sector is estimated to employ less than
1.4 million people on a three-shift basis,
hugely inflated figures are in circulation.
Handloom production has grown steadily in real terms while maintaining a
15% share of the countrys total cloth production. The power loom share has declined from more than 61% in 200809 to
less than 59% in 201314. Of total grants
and subsidies to the textile sector of more
than Rs 11,232 crore between 201011 and
201415, the handloom sectors allocation
was only Rs 2,176 crore. Major unutilised
amounts under the Revival, Reform and
Restructuring (RRR) scheme are reportedly
left with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).
Opportunities
Exporters and designers today celebrate
handloom fabrics as what designer Ritu
Kumar calls
A unique product which has a huge edge on
the domestic market and an unquantifiable
potential overseas, placing India in a
uniquely advantageous position. Its USPs include indigenous cotton as Indias bedrock
fibre, hand-spinning which is lost of the rest
of the world with its infinite variety, and the
limitless fashion statements available from
the variety of Indian hand-woven silk, cottons and wools.

Small runs of hand-spun yarn are a

delight for the fashion market, according
to Kumar, whose label is world renowned.
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She asks:
But why be obsessed with exports? The Indian
market is huge. Not a single zardozi artisan
is out of work. I have never had a problem
with price. The young generation vibes with
handloom textiles and it is design that can
connect the weaver with the user.

Her optimism is shared by Ritu Sethi

of the Craft Revival Trust:
Over 80% of handlooms are located in rural
India where little or no electricity. Yet the
handloom is operated throughout the day.
Giving employment and skilling people, it
uses the services of other village professionalscarpenters, loom-makers, calenderers,
dry cleaners, press wallahs, transporters,
makers of reeds, dyers, warping experts. Its
a complete eco-system of skilled workers
men and women Making in India and earning
an honest and sustainable living.

Stringent competition is the game in

every market segment, demanding an
ability to negotiate with and respond to
market forces with speed and quality.
That ability is entrepreneurship, a quality
for which Indias artisans were once
renowned along ancient trade routes.
Today, far too many are trapped in
oppressive systems giving them, like
Ramalu in Susman, little or no control
over their terms of trade. Frustration
has turned many young artisans away
from craft-based occupations. Yet it is
this generation that is today demanding
new skills in management, design,
e-commerce, and languagecapacities
essential to strengthening traditional
practice, to attract and hold new talent,
and to empower weavers in ways that
official schemes have so conspicuously
failed to do.
Demonstrations of what can be done
offer directions for the future. These
include institutions built by Judy Frater
and Holkar (Kala Raksha Vidyalaya and
Somaiya Kala Vidya in Kutch, and the
Handloom School in Maheshwar) working with artisan colleagues to create a
contemporary pedagogy for craft learning; the pioneering Rural University in
Jawaja in Rajasthan, innovated by local
artisans in collaboration with the National
Institute of Design and the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad); the
Indian Institute of Craft and Design in
Jaipur; and a range of efforts by design
schools and activists.
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PERSPECTIVES

Yet crafts are yet to be clearly linked

to current Skill India and Make in India
aspirations. Former Microsoft India
Chairman Ravi Venkatesan observes that
India has prematurely given up on its
artisans just as the demand for sustainably produced goods, unique designs, and
contemporary handcrafted items is growing rapidly globally. What this suggests is an urgent need to revive cooperatives and producer organisations, scaleup entrepreneurship and innovative ecosystems in which multiple stakeholders
can come out of their silos and collaborate toward sustainability and scale.
Finding a Way Forward
A key learning that emerges from the recent
anxiety and agitation is the importance
of a handloom future freed from dependence on the government and preoccupations with exports and so-called
niche markets. A more equal partnership would first require recognition that
Indias handloom, power loom, and mill
sectors all need to grow and flourish in
their own right in an unlimited domestic
market. It is not uncommon today for
more prosperous weavers to invest in
both hand and power technologies, and
to use them simultaneously. Resolving
drudgery must mean better ergonomicsbeginning perhaps with functioning light bulbs and fans at the loom
rather than promotion of imitations.
Fakes are the real issue, not the capacity of power looms to serve a wide
choice of cheap fabrics. Subsuming
one section of the industry under another can make for bad management,
particularly in an era familiar with market segmentation. The durable answers
to spurious goods are consumer awareness and weaver protection. Reservations
cannot remain the handlooms only
insurance, however critical these may be
to survival. Lasting security requires a
market in which handmade quality is
demanded and paid for, and the ingenuity of artisans respected for delivering
what mass production can never match.
Technologies will continue to evolve,
hopefully led by weavers service centres
and their deep understanding of handloom technology and artisan need. The
argument could then be less about the
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purity of non-power production and

more about using technology to enhance, rather than dilute, value added
through hand craftsmanship.
All this suggests rebuilding stakeholder collaboration of the kind that helped
draft the sectors Twelfth Plan, taking
joint action to another level with strong
private partnership. That may be difficult
if the plan has gone the way of its commission and if the All India Handloom
Board, once the space for stakeholder
representation, remains as comatose as
reports suggest. Without a functioning
plan or a board, civil society organisations, once the ministrys most reliable
partners for ground action, now find
themselves dubbed five-star pariahs. A
deficit in trust may now be an even greater threat than the power loom lobby,
and play straight into its hands. Hints of
some movement towards greater cooperation have emerged with news of a handloom mahakumbh at Varanasi. Much
may depend on whether that opportunity
is led by the market, rather than by politics. Varanasi could offer a model direction, or end as yet another brief and unsustainable explosion of Indian talent.
A Varanasi Model?
News of a design blitz in Varanasi may be
linked to the ministrys recently announced intention to encourage production
of high value, defect-free products, make
handloom market-oriented, increase
earnings of the handloom weavers and
giving handloom its glorious place. The
Handloom Mark introduced nine years
ago is now to be supplemented by an
India Handloom brand, with its own
logo for high value quality products as
per need of the niche market. E-commerce is to be central to the new strategy.
The World Trade Organization (WTO)
backed Geographical Indicator facility,
under which 65 handcrafted textiles are
already registered, is to be backed by setting up quality maintenance mechanisms
at the product and cluster specific levels.
None of these directions is new, having gone through multiple avatars over
four decades. The challenge has invariably been in implementation, seldom in
intention. The effort at Varanasi is presumably to demonstrate how the ministrys

thrust is to work, and to provide a model

for replication. Using the Make in India
inspiration, cooperating designers are
expected to set up factories in Varanasi that will deliver 1,000 jobs and create a demand for quality products showcased in national and international outlets. What is not known is how the whos
who of fashion will deal with real constraints, which are less those of demand
than problems embedded in the supply
chain. These include exploitative wages
and appalling conditions of work, inadequate supplies of yarn and low capacities
within weaver communities for entrepreneurship, and thus their inability to
attract and retain young talent.
Civilising Modernity
The hope must be that the loom can
tomorrow be a symbol of sustainable
development as the global community is
now learning to understand ithuman
well-being that reflects intelligent choices
by those who have been empowered to
make them. With vision and common
sense, the handloom can offer a set of
advantages that distinguish the Indian
craft as a system unmatched for delivering genuine sustainability. These are
green non-farm, non-seasonal livelihoods for millions located in rural hinterlands; an insurance against the miseries of migration; a low carbon footprint in an era troubled with climate
change; a political and social safety for
those still at the margins society (including women and minorities); and as a
source of cultural and even spiritual regeneration in the face of global homogenisation. Yet these futuristic qualities
still appear to some as sunset activities
to be dismissed as the technology of
our grandparents that will make our
children laugh at us.
Contempt for inherited wisdom, regarded and discarded as a defeated culture, is at the core of the handloom crisis.
It gives the crisis a significance well beyond looms and fabrics. It suggests cultural extermination to realise a cloned
modernity. It encourages classificatory
tricks in the garb of charity to artisans,
an endangered species, rather than confident strategies to craft Indias own
approach to its future.

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