IASNOVA
Here is how a curious problem was solved in Meghalaya, where the climate is hot and humid most of the year, where Cherrapunji was once the wettest place on earth. They needed bridges over their little streams and rivers so that people could cross with their belongings and animals. As you know, bridges around the world are built of wood, steel and concrete. However, in Meghalaya they could not use wood because it would rot, nor could they use metal of any kind or metal nails as these would rust. The problem was how to make a strong bridge across fast-moving rivers without wood or metal? They learnt how to train the aerial roots of the Ficus Elastica tree to form a living bridge across the river that would not decay or deteriorate in the humid rainy climate. Over several years they had to train, bind and care for their bridge as it linked across the stream, then they placed flat stones on the cradle-like bridge to create an even footpath. This living bridge of roots lasts years and uses no dead wood or metal!
By the time of the Indus Valley Civilisation (3000– 1500 BCE), a developed urban culture had emerged that stretched from Afghanistan to Gujarat. Here archaeologists have found votive figures of clay as well as clay seals, beads made of semi-precious stones, garments of cotton and earthenware of all shapes, sizes and design, all of which indicate a sophisticated artisan culture. The crafts community also worked out simple solutions to take waste water out of the houses by creating clay pipes.
The Sangam classics written between 100 BCE–600 CE refer to the weaving of silk and cotton cloth. Weavers were already a recognised and established section of society with separate streets for them named karugar vidi or aruval vidi. In both the Chola and Vijayanagar empires (ninth to twelfth century) the weavers lived around the temple complex, weaving fabrics to dress the idols, drape as curtains, clothe the priests and the people of the locality, as well as to cater to trade from across the sea.
SHRENIS OR TRADE GUILDS
The Ramayana and many plays from the Gupta period and Tamil Sangam literature write in detail about the trade guilds or shrenis. These were professional bodies of jewellers, weavers, ivory carvers or even salt-makers who came together to control quality production, create a sound business ethic, maintain fair wages and prices, sometimes operated as a cooperative and controlled the entry of newcomers by laying down high standards of craftsmanship and enforcing rules regarding apprenticeship.
Occasionally, shrenis (of merchants and artisans) came together in a joint organisation, called the nigama, or the equivalent of a chamber of commerce and industry. Some nigamas also included a class of exporters, who transported the specialities of a town over long distances
THE JAJMANI SYSTEM
In many parts of India the jajmani system defined most of the transactions in the craft sector. The jajmani system is a reciprocal arrangement between craft-producing castes and the wider village community, for the supply of goods and services. The caste system did not permit the upper castes to practise certain occupations. As a result the patrons or jajman were dependent on purjans (cultivators, craftsmen, barbers, washermen, cobblers, sweepers, etc.) to provide essential goods and services for the village/urban economy. In return a fixed payment in kind was assured.
In the Sultanate and Mughal empires of North India karakhanas (factories) were maintained by the State. This practice was followed by several other Indian rulers of the same period.
The Ain-i-Akbari tells us that the Emperor Akbar maintained skilled craftsmen from all over India. Akbar personally inspected the work of his men and honoured the best with bonuses and increased salaries.
Museums
National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum (Crafts Museum), New Delhi;
Ashutosh Museum, Kolkata;
Calico Museum, Ahmedabad;
Utensils Museum, Ahmedabad;
Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad;
Dinkar Kelkar Museum, Pune; and
Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal.
Tavernier, a French traveller in Mughal India , states that the Ambassador of the Shah of Persia (CE 1628–1641), on his return from India, presented his master with a coconut shell, set with jewels, containing a muslin turban thirty yards in length, so exquisitely fine that it could scarcely be felt by the touch
During Colonial Rule- The pattern of trade from the Coromandel Coast was triangular. Arabs carried gold and silver (bullion) to the Coromandel Coast, exchanged these for textiles, and then exchanged the latter in Malaysia for spices, with which they returned to the Middle East.
Marco Polo’s (1254–1324) account of his travels to the East makes a reference to Golconda, now in Andhra Pradesh. This kingdom produces diamonds.
Marco Polo’s (1254–1324) account of his travels to the East makes a reference to Golconda, now in Andhra Pradesh. This kingdom produces diamonds.
By 1625 a revolution in taste began in England. Most imported Indian textiles were used to decorate beds, the most precious item of household furniture. People were attracted by the bright colours and new floral patterns, which did not exist in European fabrics. From the second half of the seventeenth century, the demand for Indian chintz increased in England, France and the Netherlands. Astute merchants realised they could reach an even bigger market by commissioning special designs. The East India Company therefore selected and guided the making of the palempore—the branched tree which became the famous tree-of-life design. Imitation Kashmiri shawls even began to be woven in England.
By the nineteenth century several age-old crafts began to undergo change: the traditional patua artists of Orissa and Bengal picked up the skill of woodcut, block printing and created what we now called Kalighat Art, that the rich zamindars in rural Bengal patronised—while the markets of Varanasi specialised increasingly in brocades for the noveau riche of Awadh and Bengal.
The Kashmiri Shawl
The Kashmiri shawl was the mainstay of the valley’s economy from approximately 1600 to 1860, over 250 years. It was a luxury textile, patronised by the Mughal, Afghan, Sikh and Dogra dynasties that ruled Kashmir successively. By the nineteenth century, it was popular in princely courts and commercial cities all over South Asia, leave alone Europe. As a result those in charge of the shawl manufacturing units strongly influenced the economy of this State, as the sale of shawls brought in more money than the entire land revenue of the State! At its peak in 1861 it generated an enormous revenue.
When the Civil War ended Britain resumed trade in cotton with America for two reasons:
American cotton was a superior type (due to the longer, stronger fibres of its two domesticated native American species); secondly, cotton from plantations in the United States and the Caribbean was much cheaper as it was produced by unpaid slaves. By the mid-nineteenth century, in the United States, cultivating and harvesting cotton had become the leading occupation of slaves.
Industrialisation in Britain
The advent of the Industrial Revolution in Britain transformed cotton manufacture, as textiles emerged as Britain’s leading export. In 1738 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt of Birmingham, England, patented the Roller Spinning Machine, and the flyerand-bobbin system for drawing cotton to a more even thickness using two sets of rollers. Later, the invention of the Spinning Jenny in 1764 enabled British weavers to produce cotton yarn and cloth at much faster rates. From the late eighteenth century onwards, the British city of Manchester acquired the nickname ‘cottonopolis’ due to the cotton industry’s omnipresence within the city, and Manchester’s role as the heart of the global cotton trade. Production capacity in Britain and the United States was further improved by the invention of the cotton gin by the American, Eli Whitney, in 1793.
THE MEANING OF SWARAJ
Gandhiji described this vision in many of his writings, most notably in Hind Swaraj, a treatise written in 1909 while he was aboard a ship, coming back from Britain. He wrote about the idea of a self-contained village republic inhabited by individuals whose lives were selfregulated. In Gandhiji’s philosophy, swaraj for the nation did not mean merely political independence from British rule. Swaraj, for him, was something more substantive, involving the freedom of individuals to regulate their own lives without harming one another. His swaraj was one where every individual was his or her own ruler, with the capacity to control and regulate his or her own life. This would remove inequalities of power and status in society and enable proper reciprocity.
In 1921, during a tour of South India, Gandhiji shaved his head and began wearing a khadi dhoti, rather than mill-made cloth imported from abroad, in order to identify with the poor. His new appearance also came to symbolise asceticism and abstinence—qualities he celebrated in opposition to the consumerist culture of the modern world. Gandhiji encouraged other nationalist leaders who dressed in western clothes to adopt Indian attire. He requested them all also to spend some time each day working on the charkha. He told them that the act of spinning would help them to break the boundaries that prevailed within the traditional caste system, between mental labour and manual labour.
– Young India, 13 November 1924
HANDLOOM AND HANDICRAFTS REVIVAL
All India Handicrafts Board
The All India Handicrafts Board was set up in 1952 to advise the Government on problems of handicrafts and to suggest measures for improvement and development. According to the Indian Constitution the development of handicrafts is a State subject. Therefore, the primary initiative in the handicrafts sector was to emanate from the states and the Union Territories.
The National Institute of Design (NID) at Ahmedabad was established as a result of the visionary advice of Charles Eames, who saw crafts as India’s matchless resource of problem-solving experience. Eames recommended that the Indian designers draw on the attitude, skills and knowledge available in the Indian craft traditions, and give it new relevance in the industrial age that was emerging in post-Independence India. It was critical that hand production be helped to find its place beside mass manufacture. The documentation of craft traditions begun by British scholars more than a century ago was now needed on a national scale and the NID students were trained to record and interpret India’s craft inheritance.
A rare muslin was formerly produced in Dacca, which when laid wet on the grass became invisible; and because it thus became indistinguishable from the evening dew it was named shabnam, i.e., ‘the dew of evening’. Another kind was called ab-rawan, or ‘running water’, because it became invisible in water.
For the Apatani of Arunachal Pradesh, and their tribal counterparts across the world, bamboo is everything—tools, weapon, shelter, food, vessel, pipe, music and ido.
Craft Diplomacy
Yet another role has now emerged: crafts as a vehicle for diplomacy, demonstrated through the Festivals of India in foreign countries such as Britain, France, the United States, China and others. These great expositions of craft and design activity have highlighted the strength and potential of surviving traditions as well as the complexity of merchandising craft overseas.
