It has become a power loom zone and forced weavers to buy modern looms through loans, subsidies and initiatives. “The Government opened a textile park 3 years ago (Dodhballapur Apparel Park, Bangalore). Umesh BN, a Powerloom Production Preparatory Manager at Himatsingka Seide Ltd was born in Dodhballapur and not from a weaving family, he entered into this profession after his father, a retired Canara Bank employee, began to manage looms. ![]() Production affected due to power fluctuations remain a large concern, as weavers will not receive their earnings. Plagued by high power tariffs and power fluctuations, powerloom weavers produce by meters/day. Powerloom Comprising of machine made textile, this decentralized sector has scaled quickly, playing a vital role in the Indian textile Industry, accounting for ~60% of the countries total textile production. Even stores which exclusively stocked our hand-woven products say they will go out of business if they don’t stock the power loom dhotis and saris.”1 The power loom cloth making companies unleashed an advertising blitz on TV channels using popular Malayalam film actors in the last three to four years and they have completely captured the market. You can see this is more than the sale price of the power loom dhoti. A woman earns Rs.150 per day from this one dhoti and she takes a whole day to weave it. Satheesh Kumar, a handloom weaver from Balaramapuram, Kerala, says “A mundu (dhoti) that a handloom weaver makes costs Rs.400, while that from a power loom costs Rs.144. ![]() Handloom is not against mechanization, but the USP of the loom is the hand.” “Technology is required in the sector to lift the hand of the worker… not destroy it. Ashoke Chatterjee, Honorary Advisor to the Crafts Council of India and Ex-Director of the National Institute of Design (NID) states: Acknowledging technology is the way to the future, both digital and mechanized. Accounting for 95% of global production, the sector remains shrouded in the pre-digital age and yet, contrary to popular belief, the sector is not resistant to change. Handloom Synonymous with Indian tradition and culture, with the power to denote societal hierarchy, occasion and nationalism handloom is considered, literally, the fabric of India. Why does the majority of India’s 2nd largest employment sector fall into the low income segment? Why are there few numbers to reference these claims? Are we valuing craft correctly? What does this mean for the Modern Karigar?Īs we begin our KARIGAR pursuit, it is becoming clearer that craft can only be truly covetable once a sustainable livelihood for the Karigar is ensured. Understanding how they both co-exist as large players in India’s US$ 90 Billion textile industry is essential to moving forward. It is not the starting point for debate, as is often the case. As we wrestle with the immediacy of these issues, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that time is of the essence and a broader awareness will help in our individual goals.Ĭhampioning hand VS power itself is a personal choice, to be made after an awareness of what each entails. As members of both, we realize there is rarely going to be a right time to pause and (re)familiarize ourselves with macro level information. Often addressed academically with no room for the dilettante the general public and even the design community can feel removed from the ongoing handloom/powerloom debate. Delving into this subject requires an understanding of many ground realities, and one of our primary intentions with this account is to cover basic context. ![]() ![]() The hand and power loom dynamic: a daunting ecosystem for a modern karigar to negotiate in order to survive.
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