Sunny & Meeta
Craft Activists and Designers
June 07th, 2008
The essay on the Varanasi weavers by Jaya Jaitly was very comprehensive and detailed. The complexities of any craft region was well documented. How the high end will survive while the low-end and average weavers have to face competition both from power loom and Chinese imports is a real problem. Also the fact that artisans should be making skilled wages raises the cost of the item, putting it beyond the reach of lower economic classes in their traditional catchments.
What is the solution to this? Does the government subsidize by including low level weaving e.g. gamchas in NREGA and then distributing it in regions where they are used? Cotton gamchas are any day better than polyester. Its like farmers get Minimum support price for Rice and Wheat and Ration shops sell it to poor people at lower prices. Can gamchas be sold through Ration shops? This all needs political mobilization and campaigning.
Does design intervention help such mass product lines? Low cost production can only be bought by low income customers, and at that level price is paramount.
This issue boggles the mind. What else can low end weavers make? Towels?
Or will they all become unskilled labor for NREGA and/or migrate to cities as rickshaw pullers?
Maybe its time to create a national program of low skilled crafts of function being made part of national employment schemes like NREGA, and use Ration shops to sell the items at subsidized rates. I cannot see another option, at least in the short to medium term.
