EVEN today, agriculture in India still offers more employment than any other sector. Second to agriculture is what is generally referred to as ‘the unorganized sector’. This includes a multitude of individuals, families and small groups of people perpetuating the arts, crafts, and traditional knowledge based activities of their forbearers. Skills range across the board, from the most basic to highly sophisticated, many no longer to be found anywhere else in the world. Certainly it would seem there can be no other nation with such a range and variety of skills and traditional knowledge still available to it. This we should see as an extraordinary resource. Yet, in our rapidly changing context, the very same resource is highly threatened.

The problems for the crafts-people are many. Most artists and craftspeople in present day India eke out a meagre and insecure living. As traditional arts and crafts are still profoundly tied into caste issues, many craftspeople live lives we would not wish on anyone we care for. Rather than considering them, as in Japan, our national treasures, we pay lip service by honouring them. Yet they are effectively bypassed by commerce and civil society, not included as individuals in structures of governance and development, and with no support to ensure basic rights or security of work. Uneducated in terms of modern learning, unable to access mainstream finance, insurance, quality health care, education or training, craftspeople and traditional artists and performers have little choice but to rely on their own resourcefulness! What this means, in effect, is that the sector gets poorer and poorer; skilled workers abandon their skills; traditional knowledge and technologies that have sustained India for centuries, are lost.

For almost 40 years I have worked directly with this sector. This has been through our family enterprise ‘Anokhi’, and in recent years, through a new foundation – Jaipur Virasat Foundation – initiated by a group of citizens in the hope of applying the principles learnt at Anokhi to a wider base.

 

Anokhi effectively started in 1970. It developed out of the creative partnership that was formed when J.P. Singh, a U.P. Rajput, and I, Faith Hardy, an English/Irish Christian brought up in the UK, married, settled in Jaipur, Rajasthan and looked for a means to support ourselves. From this partnership that reached across almost every social norm of the day, and with no experience or training in such work, we started Anokhi on a foundation of creative work I was already doing as a hobby with local traditional textile printers and tailors. Within weeks of arriving in Jaipur, I had been captivated by the pleasure and privilege of working with people of a skill, integrity and simplicity I had never encountered before to make new products that others might like to buy.

There was no model for such an enterprise at the time. Rajputs were not expected to work for their livelihood and we were, in Rajasthan, still close to feudal times. Block printing was in the hands of traditional printers, working almost entirely for traditional markets. Boutiques and stores for ready-made clothing did not exist. If you wanted a sari blouse, a salwar, a kurta, camise or shirt, you went to your tailor and spent upwards of just a few rupees to get them stitched to your personal measurements. Sales for traditional local block prints were made mostly through a weekly haat. The cloth merchant sold fabric to the block printer on a weekly basis. The printer brought his finished cloth to the haat. Whatever didn’t sell would be picked up cheap by the cloth merchant. Most of the printers were in debt to the cloth merchants, caught in a debt trap while demand for their skill was decreasing by the day.

Anokhi first addressed the problem of the printer by investing in the cloth, the raw material. This meant that the craftsman could invest his limited funds in applying his skills and develop a business. Anokhi, for its part, used creativity to develop new products and marketing expertise to sell the results.

 

Till the ’70s, Rajasthan, and Jaipur district in particular, had a wealth of traditional and wonderful textiles. What we saw at first proved to be just the tip of an iceberg. In ’71 we bought traditional prints, made clothes from them, and took them to Liberty’s of London – one of the most prestigious stores in those days. Our first Anokhi products, finely quilted cotton skirts, fitted jackets, and a theatrical evening coat in printed cotton – reproducing a traditional local angarkha – were featured on several pages of a 1971 issue of Vogue magazine. Just some 18 months later a shop was opened by a young English entrepreneur who saw the potential in the work and created a path-breaking retail outlet in one of the most exclusive London locations of the time. This was the beginnings of Monsoon, a brand that later developed to be one of the most successful high street fashion retail chains of UK.

For the first decade of Monsoon, much of its produce bore the Anokhi label. The clothing was worn by royalty and stars, and ever-changing seasonal designs, techniques, colours and shapes created an ‘Anokhi’ look. But by the late ’70s, success had bred too many copies with the result that this Indian fashion was no longer fashionable, and demand for the clothing disappeared. What did Anokhi do? It continued working with the same craftspeople, diversified, and went into hand printed, soft furnishings. Once again the quality, originality and range of product generated successful retail businesses in UK and France and the variety of product further defined and strengthened the brand. For the next decade, Anokhi supplied a range of committed home boutique buyers all over the world.

The ’80s and ’90s passed, sustaining work for our growing family of craftspeople, till once again, fashion in home décor opted for something new. Once again, export orders sank, but by now we had developed our own worldwide brand following and niche market. And to our good fortune, the Indian market was starting to develop – for clothing, fashion and home textiles. We opened shops in India – in Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai – and began to establish an Anokhi presence among the ever-expanding and well-informed local clientele. Today there are some 12 Anokhi shops in India. Anokhi products are stocked in many quality shops and boutiques abroad, some of which have carried the range for more than 20 years.

 

While brand Anokhi developed a brand following, business Anokhi in Rajasthan developed its own structure. With a consistent and sustained demand maintained year after year, independently owned printers and tailoring establishments grew as businesses. Anokhi, the creative heart of the enterprise, grew with them. For the first three decades the work was decentralised as a matter of policy. Interdependence and loyalty, each to the other, was an unwritten understanding between us. Now, in response to present conditions, links are being consolidated to ensure quality and security of design.

At its home base today in Jaipur, second generation printers, tailors and management personnel carry forward the work. The enterprise now operates from a purpose built, energy efficient and environmentally friendly, green and pleasant complex set in an organic orchard on the edge of the city.

Anokhi has recently opened a museum of handblock printing in Amber near Jaipur. The museum communicates the work of the past three decades at a new complementary level, promoting the skill and value of craftspeople and creativity, and their enduring potential, to students, the general public and craftspeople and workers alike.

 

Anokhi 35 years: the small wood block – some nominal investments – and many pairs of hands, creative minds, and hard work. How many lives have been supported! When Anokhi started, the craft was dying in the region. Since then, hundreds of such businesses have been started. Anokhi studios have served as a design resource for many of them, and the industry as a whole continues to flourish.

Crafts, handled in this way, provide an economy of scale wonderfully suited to generate small, decentralized businesses. This may be what makes the Anokhi model so relevant to the context of Rajasthan, an essentially rural culture rich in people and skills, and poor in natural resources. Anokhi has maintained a continuous demand for the skills of its craftspeople over a period of 30 years. The fact alone of that steady demand is significant, worth examining and reflecting on.

Those of us who have been with the company from the beginning have witnessed its benefits: cultural pride, revitalised traditional skills, social cohesion through reducing the need to leave home for employment; the affirmation of cultural diversity and respect for cross-community productivity; the possibility to choose continuity, or change, with respect to lifestyle. We have also been witness to a slew of economic benefits, viz. increased employment, enhanced revenue for craftspeople and artisans, increased commercial activity, and the continuing impact of local culture and skills on local inbound tourism.

 

What lessons do we, at Anokhi, draw from our experience? Anokhi’s success has been built on a fundamental policy of respect and interdependence between entrepreneur and artisan. Year after year, collections have been designed and marketed to showcase specific and varied skills and traditional practices in innovative and appealing ways to include, and sustain, diverse craftspeople with diverse skills working from their own environments. At the core of the model is the commitment to support the needs and aspirations of the craftspeople and their preferred choices for life, then use design, innovation and marketing so successfully that a steady demand for their skills is sustained from season to season.

It is our experience that stable, convivial relationships support quality. Consistent investment in creativity and innovation supports continuity. Flexibility in aspirations and planning of the parent concern supports steady demand. Variety in product range and market tides everyone through the ups and downs. But most important, we have understood, is the need for entrepreneurs to respect the aspirations of the artist/craftsperson. Cultural and creative industries are best built, imaginatively, around the skill and the skilled people; not the other way round.

 

From some 30 years of association with Anokhi, it is our belief that Jaipur’s heritage – its arts, buildings, and craft skills – appropriately supported and managed, can transform our local economy. Why, we ask ourselves, in today’s world of consumerism and leisure travel, should there be poverty in our region at all?

But when we set about applying our lessons more widely, we found our public systems and priorities do not help us – we need new strategies, policies and priorities. We need a highly supportive entrepreneurial environment. The private sector and public sector both need to engage and engage together. We need to move beyond our historic distrust of each other so that both bring to the sector what each does best.

After years of working successfully in the private sector at ground level in this field, the challenges before us can appear insurmountable. Yet we take heart by recent events. There appears to be a change around the world with respect to the field. Policies and concerns at central and state level in India indicate increasing awareness of the issues. There is an interest, and growing commitment, at several key levels, to conserve and develop the treasures we have.

In the field of traditional arts and crafts in India, rapid social change means loss of patronage, yet institutional and entrepreneurial support is minimal. ‘Progress’ is projected as abandoning past skills and adopting western models. Modernisation devalues tradition, encouraging artists and craftspeople to look for other employment. Increasing urbanisation erodes traditional practices. There is little if any incentive for youth to perpetuate local arts, lifestyle or traditions. Crafts are perceived more as a tourist attraction than a potential economic force. And if one finds key government officials who are sensitized and proactive, they get shifted to another post before they can complete their work. We need to take on board and work with all these issues.

In respect of Jaipur’s unique, extraordinary, and irreplaceable historic built environment – the city’s USP for tourism – there are still no regulatory (heritage based) protective mechanisms or building regulations to conserve it. No policies are in place in the country to support use of traditional technologies. There are no institutions to teach and transmit the skills of traditional building and integrate them with new technologies. These facts again point to issues that need to be addressed.

 

Yet, there is talent, enthusiasm and entrepreneurship in abundance in our new emerging India. There is an increasingly large pool of young professionals, of experts and creative minds available within the country. If we are to tackle poverty and inequality through creative and heritage based industries like Anokhi, we need to harness the energy of such people. We need to include those who understand the field in local and national policy-making. We need them to develop and identify good practices, and we need policies and fiscal measures that reward such practices. Overall, an environment is needed that encourages private entrepreneurship at every level. If doing business of any kind, if even establishing an institution for public good, is taxing to the point that those best suited for the work cannot engage, then what hope is there for us to move in this direction?

In response to some of these challenges, a group of citizens came together in 2002 to take action and address these challenges at the Jaipur city level. From our wide-ranging experience in arts, crafts and management of the historic environment, strategies have been identified and a course of action charted. Efforts are on-going to engage the local community in the vision with the belief that local people know best about local matters. It is us, the local community, if anyone, who can bring about social change.

 

To this end Jaipur Virasat Foundation positions itself to include citizens in all its various projects to help develop its vision and strategies. The core of its agenda is a programme of action through which it seeks to understand, record and refocus the wisdom of the region’s cultural traditions, transform them so they are seen as relevant and become useful to the local people as an economic resource. In a land such as ours, where many of us live our lives perpetually undernourished, spending limited development funds on conserving a building makes little sense if it does not improve people’s lives.

The foundation’s core programme includes an annual city festival of creative arts and crafts. This is envisaged and planned as a tool to engage the maximum number of people in the vision, to create opportunities for creative management of heritage resources and to build up brand Jaipur – a brand that focuses on heritage assets.

City festivals are great because by definition they are inclusive and highly enjoyable – and while everyone is enjoying themselves, they can drive positive change. In the JVF Jaipur festival 2005, citizens show-cased and enjoyed a six-month long schools programme focusing on the local environment and the myriad of learning opportunities it offers. A year round rural performing arts programme brought unknown artists and regional musical forms into the public eye.

A significant craft design and technology initiative linked students of the local craft institute with professional designers, craftspeople, and little developed skills. Craft skills were distanced from their caste associations and promoted through highly appreciated visitor workshops. Special activity holiday packages provided access for visitors to the real culture of the city in its diversity and unique strengths. A Jaipur heritage shopping map was launched to give direct access to the visitor to some of the best of local crafts based outlets – an initiative to link entrepreneurs in good practices and bring them together to strengthen the field.

Such a festival can be replicated from place to place across the country as a matter of policy. Creatively driven by local cultural industry stakeholders, run by arts professionals, supported and facilitated by local and national government, creative festivals the world over have been shown to generate employment, attract visitors, increase local spend, provide a unifying platform on which diverse communities can work together, renew and reinvent local culture each year, link local with global to the advantage of both, build local brands across the world and help build a sustainable economy rooted in local living heritage.

 

The foundation also supports the development of a Jaipur Heritage Institute to provide year round infrastructure to underpin and develop its vision. Such institutes are urgently needed. They are needed for a host of functions including to map local tangible and intangible resources; to create awareness and build capacity; to provide access to traditional artists and skills through e-directories and listings and other means that build connections from both directions – from traditional society to the modern, and vice versa. Institutions are needed to give direction and training to the entrepreneurial sector, to create and stimulate quality cultural tourism products and promote them, to strengthen entrepreneurial and NGO links, to provide training in the management and perpetuation of our historic built environment, our crafts and traditional skills.

 

The acute danger in our present context in India is that we are moving too fast, with instruments of governance designed to serve colonial rulers of a former era so that we make mistakes which cannot be undone. In conservation it is said that benign neglect is preferable to wrong intervention. A highly publicized recent example of this was the intervention in Delhi’s Red Fort by the then Minister for Tourism, Government of India. The tragedy is that such ‘wrong’ interventions happen every day. They happen all over the country, in every historic environment. They are the norm, not the exception and they do a great disservice to each person who calls India, this land that bears witness to a continuum of important civilizations, as his or her home.

As we move rapidly into a new economy and into the global village of today’s all-connecting culture, India needs at local, state and national level mechanisms that guard it against this irreversible loss. Our democracy is still very young, with few checks and balances to regulate power centres. Until these are in place, and specialist, stable departments are held responsible and accountable, the management of culture and cultural assets, including the historic built environment, needs to include private sector experts and professionals at every step. These fields are too specialized and idiosyncratic for government administrators to decide on and deliver content.

To this end, JVF in its vision document supports the establishment of local heritage commissions representing civil servants, heritage experts, and heritage city stakeholders in equal measure. Such a body would be voluntary, and would appoint subcommittees of specialists in each field. Already there are some such mechanisms in place in several Indian cities. If through best practices we are to convert culture to commerce and build sustainable local economies, if we are to use regional heritage as a tool to increase employment, we need the participation of those who understand the field in charting, and steering, the course.

 

If JVF today were asked to give its current wish list to best achieve its goals, it would be as follows.

* A dynamic national, and state, level cultural policy that links culture to economic and social development.

* A Heritage Commission for each state, and for each significant heritage city.

* Provision within government administration norms for a five-year, five-member heritage committee in each state administration, and at the national level, voted by citizen members and employees of recognized heritage NGOs. These would then serve on the State Heritage Commission.

* Recognized inventories of best practices for the SMEs and cultural industries, including a ‘craftmark’ to endorse the genuine product, with incentives and supportive policies at state and national level to promote their use.