Promoting Handloom

India cannot shine in the vast tracks of its villages if its traditional economic enterprises are ignored. Handloom is one of the core business and livelihood activities around the country. For the past few years, the handloom weavers are suffering due to multiple problems. Mainly due to the arrival of powerloom and because of the secondary treatment of the government. For the constant growth of the the village economy it is important to promote handloom.

When crores of rupees are being spent on imparting vocational skills, how does it feel to know that lakhs of persons with well-established craft
skills are being forced to give up their precious skills and take up unskilled daily wage labour?

This is precisely what is happening in the case of lakhs of handloom weavers who had inherited and learnt intricate skills of weaving on handlooms, yet have been forced in recent times to work as construction workers, rickshaw-pullers and vendors.

In recent interviews in several urban localities (famous for weaving Banarasi saris) as well as village of Varanasi district, for instance, I was told that well over 50% of the weavers have been forced to abandon their highly skilled work in recent times.

In some places like Panipat and Bhadohi where the work of weavers was more closely related to exports, the decline of their livelihood has been related to the overall meltdown, but in the case of many other weavers the disruption of their livelihood had started well before the recent recession and the setback to exports.

The causes of this longer-term decline need to be studied carefully so that oversimplification and generalisations like the inevitable march of mechanisation and modern technology are not allowed to destroy one of the most invaluable skills.

In a review of the inherent strengths of handlooms, B K Sinha (development commissioner, handlooms) pointed out that due to manual operations several combinations are possible in handlooms with intricate designs. “The functional properties like drape, texture, strength, wrinkle resistance, dominant stability, etc., can be ingeniously manipulated through appropriate designs, exclusive types of fabrics used, counts and twists of warps and yarns, thick density, type of weave, type of fashion and process employed in printing.”

This review goes on to detail many kinds of clothes which are best woven on handlooms: “Short pieces of clothes having unique designs to meet individual tastes, which may not be economical for being produced on powerlooms/mills can be made by warp of short length with preferential colour on handlooms.

Rough clothes of very low counts such as durries, floor coverings, rugs, etc., in which the tensile strength of the yarn is too low for the powerloom, can be done only through handlooms. Handloom has monopolistic position in the manufacture of checked and striped colour fabrics with numerous design and different weft colour, colour with fanciful yarns, durries, floor coverings, tapestries, etc.



The necessity of using multiple box looms for giving more colour in the weft involves heavy cost in powerloom. Also, the insertion of multicoloured weft in different places, at comparatively short regular interval is difficult in powerlooms and mills, as it interferes in normal speed of loom. Handlooms are capable of producing most fanciful colours and designs in small quantities. Its flexibility of catering to very narrowly segmented market is
advantageous to handlooms.”

Why then are handlooms in such a crisis? Perhaps the first and foremost problem relates to the availability of yarn and other raw materials. Cotton handloom weavers have been largely made dependent on large-scale, centralised spinning mills for providing them hand yarn, but these mills have found it more profitable to divert a good share of this yarn to powerlooms and weaving mills after converting it into cone yarn. Mahatma Gandhi had foreseen this problem and warned emphatically against this.

This is why he emphasised decentralised hand spinning symbolised by charkha. His concept of handloom and khadi had in-built strengths which could protect from indiscriminate imports and imitation products. This aspect of Gandhiji’s understanding is relevant today as mechanisation and computer-aided designs are being used to prepare imitations of famous handloom products like the Banarsi sari. Machines imported from China are eating up the livelihoods of zardozi craftspersons and chikan craftspersons in places like Varanasi and Lucknow.

Yet another problem is that the internal structure of many handloom weaving centres has been unfair towards the actual weavers — the small-scale weaver with one or two looms or the weaver-worker. In this set-up the benefits of government schemes or export booms went mainly to the trading interests.

Therefore, a comprehensive approach to tackling these problems is needed. This, while providing short-term relief, will move further towards sustainable, self-reliant, long-term protection and promotion of livelihoods based on handloom weaving skills.