Valuing the handloom

How does society value a family that contributes to the wealth of the country through its hard work and gets less than its share of that wealth in return? The hand weaving family is one such. And our State instead of respecting and encouraging that family and its contribution proposes today to redefine the concept of 'handloom', to include a largely mechanized way of weaving. This will mean that even the meagre entitlements of the handloom industry will be appropriated by the owners of weaving machinery! Shyamasundari explains the implications of this change in her article 'Doomed by definition' in the Hindu of August 31 this year.

Loud protests have been made by weaving communities, activists, fashion designers and wearers of handloom fabrics - practically all of civil society. And yet, as of today, neither the Textile Minster nor the Textile Secretary have publicly disowned this move.

Malkha had a very successful 5 days at the Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai. The malkha team worked really hard, as most of the sales were to retail customers, which is what we like about KGF. And there were lots of new customers, which perhaps shows that awareness of 'cloth with a story', or interest in hand-made cloth is growing in Mumbai. This encourages us to participate in more exhibitions, and perhaps, eventually, to open a retail outlet.

The installations at KGF this year were spectacular, and we saw them being admired and photographed a lot. This one is a tribute to Mumbai's Dabbawalas, and you can see the giant dabba behind, made of aluminium cans.

The new thinner malkha sarees, just a few of them, will be on sale for the first time at the Kala Ghoda Festival

Hope to see some textile enthusiasts at the Textile Seminar organized by the Department of Fine Arts,
Stella Maris College, Chennai, on February 12 & 13. I will be presenting a paper, Malkha: Weaving a vision on the first day.

.... Our annual appearance at KGF coming up soon!

Research

"Indian per capita GDP declined steadily between 1600 and 1871. As British living standards increased from the mid-seventeenth century, India fell increasingly behind. Whereas in 1600, Indian per capita GDP was more than half the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.".. say Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta in their 2009 paper. What we can extrapolate from their thesis is that the making of cotton textiles played a substantial role in India's prosperity. And there are many aspects of this topic that remain to be delved into. Look forward to the research of current and future textile scholars!

Golak Khandual's block print designs for us are all botanical drawings. This one, in the smaller indigo version, is of the castor plant.

 ... here it is in red & yellow

... and here is the tridax in red/black. The reds are alizarin, a non-toxic dye derived from coal tar, all others are vegetable origin, including the indigo. These prints will be available at the Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai [first 5 days]