THE history of khadi can be seen like a piece of literature, an embodiment of multiple ideas and thoughts much like unpeeling an onion and discovering yet another layer.

The multiple facets of khadi emerged when Mahatma Gandhi first declared his programme to make hand spinning India’s peaceful weapon to fight the injustice and oppression of colonialism. Everyone was offered a way of being part of the political movement while staying at home. The movement of the spinning wheel was the movement for self-rule. The yarn that emerged from a tuft of fluff from the cotton seed became the ammunition to use on a loom to weave cloth to replace that which came from the mills of Manchester. Diligent, passionate and nationalistic hands worked the charkhas and the looms that produced the fabric we wore and the flag we yearned for. But these did not just aim to throw off the British yoke; Gandhi wove them into a whole ecosystem combining economics, ecology and employment.

People were encouraged to both weave and wear khadi. The word ‘fashion’ would have been sacrilege at that time. The goal was much higher and the fight using fabric deadly serious. The texture, nature, style or quality of the cloth woven was not a subject of discussion or concern. For the farmers and other labourers they had always worn locally woven khaddar for comfort and convenience. Women in rural areas, who wove the traditional khes and chaadars, were familiar with the process. Shepherds in the mountains sheared their sheep, handspun the yarn, wove their lois on their own looms. All of them found their everyday business had become a part of a larger cause, a cause beyond merely covering themselves. It became a simple weapon for the masses, but for Gandhi it was more than just that.

The next layer to unpeel and study is Gandhi’s economic vision. His central theme was ‘the supreme consideration is man.’ The human being was his focus, and only around that a plan must be built for sustainable employment. He saw those mired in poverty, crushed by the machines of the British and facing a frightening future of home-grown industrialization which was Jawaharlal Nehru’s dream. Nehru was guided by Fabian economics of the West, heading towards what led to globalization and dehumanization. Gandhi was without the voice of an E.F. Schumacher, who promoted the cause of Small is Beautiful (1973).

In a moving article in The Guardian titled ‘An economic idea that has sadly been forgotten’, Madeleine Bunting writes, ‘One of the recurrent themes through the book is how modern organizations stripped the satisfaction out of work, making the worker no more than an anonymous cog in a huge machine. Craft skill was no longer important, nor was the quality of human relationships: human beings were expected to act like adjuncts to the machines on the production line. The economic system was similarly dehumanizing, making decisions on the basis of profitability rather than human need: an argument that played out most dramatically in the ’80s coal miners’ strike. What Schumacher wanted was a people-centred economics because that would, in his view, enable environmental and human sustainability.’

 

What I am leading to is that from a political weapon, Gandhi forged an economic policy that was humanistic, integrated, and of course, obviously bound to fail. His opponents were not only a large section of the Congress party itself, but his ideas were pitted against a fast industrializing development model across the world, fuelled by those who only cared for profits and building corporate empires. People were not central in this model.

Gandhi, and his economist ally and personal friend, J.C. Kumarappa, struggled along with those faithful souls whom he had formed into khadi and gramodyog groups across the country. Most were associated with the Congress. Others were those loyalists who worked in his ashram just serving Gandhi and his ideas. Khadi production units were set up everywhere, and Gandhi encouraged every-one to wear khadi as a badge of honour and freedom. Nearly everyone in the Congress party did so although many also opposed these ideas which they believed were regressive. Some who broke away as democratic socialists and followed his economic vision also wore khadi with sincerity.

 

Today, well into the second decade of the 21st century, fashion designers are being roped in by governments to infuse a fresh dose of patriotism and nationalism to revive languishing khadi organizations. There are commitments made on public platforms to pay spinners and weavers better wages by pushing khadi among elite circles and gather celebrities to promote the fabric. Initially, Gandhi was his own brand ambassador and fashion model. He could easily mobilize the masses to spin and take to khadi, but he also paid special attention to women from high society like Anasuyabehn Sarabhai in Ahmedabad, Lady Tata and Lady Petit from Bombay, and Rabindranath Tagore’s niece Sarladevi with whom he had a special relationship for as long as their passionate views on khadi coincided. He made them spin the charkha and wear khadi saris to demonstrate their beauty, relating all the while to its role in the freedom movement.

Sadly, in a few decades after Gandhi’s death, khadi withered into an empty slogan when cosseted in the rigid, insincere and apathetic arms of government administered bodies. It became a token that no one could carry forward effectively, yet no one could risk burying. The cynical urban classes rejected khadi as they began to mock politicians corrupted by power. Synthetic, mill made fabrics offered modernity and change. The polyester revolution, facilitated by a new textile policy in 1985, changed the face of fabrics and daily wear in India. Labourers, bus drivers, working women and the elite readily took to the much cheaper polyester and other synthetic fabrics without a thought for our hot and humid climate, rashes and odour caused by perspiration, and more, just because it was cheaper and easier to maintain. We have got our freedom so what is so sacred about it now, they asked.

The farmers and ordinary villagers who spent time in the sun continued to wear khadi but they could only purchase clothes in October when the government offered a hefty discount. At other times of the year, most of the 14000 showrooms across the country remained dusty with a slothful sales staff and badly stitched, unwearable clothes on display. Smart, ambitious politicians would buy the finer khadi, have kurtas and pyjamas custom-tailored, impeccably maintained by dhobis who would bleach and starch them stiff. They would wear them and strut around like peacocks, not allowing a speck of dirt to attach itself to them. While active and committed political and social workers, college students, and old traditionalists in households that have a legacy associated with the freedom movement, carried on the khadi kurta tradition as their normal form of dress, most others have moved on.

 

By the early 1980s, the onslaught of polyester, textiles from big mills, and an exponential growth in powerlooms pushed khadi into a corner. Stores like Fabindia offered replacements for the standard khadi kurta with coloured handloom ones, popular among students and social activists. Khadi saris worn by women during the freedom struggle were now worn either by diehard Congresswomen, Gandhians, socialists and Indira Gandhi when she was among rural crowds. She saved her expensive handlooms for foreign visits and when officially entertaining dignitaries. For most women, wearing khadi became a token and ceased to serve its original purpose. Rural weavers and spinners were no longer gainfully employed.

 

A small footnote is the survival of Gandhi’s idea that instead of using flower garlands people should greet each other by offering simple handspun (khadi) yarn. Though available in all khadi bhavans in the colours of the national flag, they lie forgotten, along with the idea itself. Politicians prefer the gigantic flower garlands that frame the entire torso of a leader, while some atrociously offer garlands of currency notes at political events and weddings. When the prime minister promoted the idea of tying ‘rakhis’ made of yarn in 2017, khadi outlets were oblivious and had made no preparation to make them available.

Today, the debates continue about whether the yarn spun from a pure Gandhi charkha is purer than the labour saving ambar charkha. Should machines help relieve drudgery even if the fabric is not the original handspun khadi? Should superfine Kerala yarn, be interspersed with handspun khadi for a smoother, softer cloth to please customers or should only the rough textured one be considered pure? Most weavers do not want to produce the fine 120x120 count fabric anymore as the cost of the product is very high. Some revival efforts are on in small pockets in Bengal. Some private organizations are successfully marketing khadi, but many of them struggle combatting multiple roadblocks.

The current situation is one in which the increasingly ‘corporate’ mode of marketing, increased privatization and the arrival of private players with vested interests, NGOs from small and sincere, to bogus fronts and others intending to promote khadi, feel the field is wide open. However, they face a bureaucracy full of confused objectives, rigid rules, corruption at lower levels, ageing weavers and spinners, and other obstacles along the way. Visit Ponduru in Andhra Pradesh and you will see it all.

The questions to wrestle with are: can ‘purity’ of fine khadi production work, except as a luxury material for the very rich? Can the fashion world change its attitude towards wearing khadi? Gandhi did not envision a free country in which khadi would be bought and worn only by the very rich who have multiple options to choose from, and for whom a khadi outfit may only be a passing fad in a globalized world. That brings us to the essential question – for whom is khadi made today?

 

As mentioned earlier, greater public attention to handlooms came about when government marketing bodies such as Handloom House were set up. During the Janata government, from 1977-79, there was a major push for handlooms through organized government fairs, where handsome discounts were offered to customers. These faded out when the succeeding Congress government lost interest in promoting handlooms at a mass level and traders circumvented the system by availing discounts multiple times by buying and selling the same product to and from each other.

Another measure to support handloom weavers was the janata sari scheme where jobless semi-skilled weavers were paid Rs 100 per day to make cheaper saris, subsidized further by marketing them at Rs 20 each. This was a big success for a short while among rural communities who worked in the fields, till some bright sparks added ‘design development’ in the form of pastel colours and fancy embellishments. The urban upper middle classes began buying them for their domestic workers who did not like them. Stocks piled up in storage sheds and the scheme ended along with the Janata government.

 

Irrespective of government schemes, traditional handlooms, especially saris and dhotis, have a strong life of their own. People from Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and urban areas of Gujarat and Rajasthan still wear their local handlooms as a matter of habit and tradition. In the ’70s and early ’80s saris were sold at prices ranging from Rs 80 to 150 a piece, while finer, more ceremonial ones were not exorbitant even though earnings of weavers were low, there was little competition from other sectors and marked-up designer labels had not come on to the scene

Currently, the ‘glass half full or half empty’ syndrome continues in debates on the state of handloom weavers in the country. Another cliché comes to mind – everything that is said about India is true and the opposite is also true. If one choses to be a vocal activist deriding the current state of affairs for reasons of the heart or politics, one will cry out loud about the dying handloom sector, impoverished weavers leaving their looms idle, suicides (unconfirmed), and the callousness of current authorities in power. If one chooses to be creative, there are a million ways of supporting handlooms beyond hashtags.

The problem is, no matter how enthusiastic the political authorities or senior administrative officials are, the actual implementers of grandiose plans for the sustainability of handlooms have been at the lower rungs of the administrative hierarchy, officers who slumber in cocoons of insensitivity, inefficiency and corruption. All the good intentions of senior bureaucrats are turned on their head and all good plans end up in smoke. Temporary showmanship has replaced attempts to clean up a defunct system. Red tape has merely moved online. Grants given to sincere NGOs are riddled with dozens of conditions. The mistrust of the citizen, which was a legacy of the British, lies firmly embedded within existing bureaucratic systems.

 

The ‘ease of doing business’ has certainly not entered this sector at any level, except for relaxations in GST procedures. To be fair, far too many bogus bodies and NGOs sprout at the sound of money, and if they have godfathers, political pressure is used. Bureaucrats find easy solutions – they merely scrap the scheme, mistrust everyone, or prefer the safety of working with other government institutions. This blocks innovation, inclusiveness and a wider pool of unofficial but highly experienced domain experts. Apart from all that, there is no coordination between the ministry handling khadi and the one handling all other textiles, and some major policies inadvertently undermine policies in other departments.

In contrast, weavers themselves are highly resilient, proud of their skills and traditions, innovate whenever they sense a good market, and do not depend on help from the government. The many well established Muslim and Hindu weavers and traders often overshadow the semi-skilled voiceless weavers of Varanasi, while rural weavers wait about in the wings, unheard. However, Varanasi has successes and tragedies, as do other pockets across the country. Innovation and enterprise has entered the psychology of weavers in many parts of India, and as mentioned earlier, the steady support of traditionalists, from any echelon of society, is their source of encouragement. The internet helps the younger generation, who can operate both a loom and a computer, imbibe modernity, retaining pride while marketing their traditional skills. They now find mannequins to drape their textiles for photo shoots, learn photography on their smart phones to send attractive pictures to customers by Whatsapp, and carry around portfolios or albums of their work on their phones or laptops.

There is a sensing of possibilities by government and private bodies in linking weaver rich areas with tourism. Chanderi, Phulia, Kancheepuram, Pochampally, Kutch, Kerala and many others are already on the travel routes of small private tour operators. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Culture and Tourism, are working on these ideas although sometimes their focus tends to be diverted towards religious tourism rather than history, art and culture. Perhaps they have not yet realized that all arts, whether craft, textiles, or painted arts, are founded on age-old spiritual traditions, myths, legends and stories that are still respected and followed by their practitioners.

 

If this is encouraged as a part of development possibilities, weavers would find themselves part of an integrated cultural whole, with customers coming to their doorstep. Weavers in Bhujodi, Kutch, already have aspirations like wanting to set up a small museum and cafeteria to be run by them. All these plans need a synergy which is still lacking between ministries.

Schools have got over their overdose of British systems and now the progressive ones (unfortunately not government schools), celebrate heritage days, and welcome crafts workshops and events. Many young people studying textiles at design institutions take up weaving and make it a part of their profession. Senior designers are working on textile engineering, creating new fabrics and textures on handlooms in their studios in collaboration with weavers. The rise of interest in natural dyeing has encouraged even small weavers in a small town in the Prakasam district of Andhra called Chirala (the word ‘chira’ meaning sari), to experiment on many styles of weaving using only natural colours. Special efforts to encourage and develop natural dyes will help attract international markets craving for eco-friendly materials.

 

The potential for development is immense, but handlooms are always made to sound as if they are doomed. It is clearly time to pick up the success stories, replicate and support them, and seek new markets targeting less glamorous, more mass-based products. College graduation ceremonies have adopted Pochampally scarves and saris, and many institutions provide uniforms made only of handloom cloth. If polyester has to be added for better maintenance, then so be it, since the poor cannot afford to be purists. While purchasing power is admittedly with the elite, they are also the hardest to please.

Another footnote: an experiment with popularizing the lowly gamchha among men as scarves, and woven wider and longer into saris, has given new hope to women weavers in Bengal who earned less than Rs 60 a day but have now tripled their income. Male weavers have largely moved to powerlooms to produce lungis in these regions. And another: it is also important to respect those below-the-radar handloom textiles worn by the labour classes for rituals, and ceremonies, as they are often machine imitations that kill the weaver’s traditional market.

The cloud looming heavily over handlooms is partly due to the uncontrolled establishment of powerlooms after 1985, ironically just when the Handlooms (Reservation of Articles for Production) Act 1985, was promulgated supposedly to protect handlooms. It was a mockery when the New Textile Policy of 1985, gave priority to polyester as a cheaper fabric which lowered the objective of ‘employment’ to a secondary status. This helped powerlooms happily multiply their outputs in lakhs. No one checked. Purists rail against any form of mechanical device being attached to a handloom to ease labour, as it converts it into a powerloom of sorts. Yet labour hampers weavers and increases the cost of the product. Weavers whose designs and processes cannot be replicated on a powerloom remain unscathed, but most compete against powerloom imitations that flood the market. A visit to weaver’s collectives in Bengal in 2017 showed this writer a tiny slice of the reality as they shared their sorrows.

 

Shantipur now has 90 per cent of its production output woven by powerlooms. They reckoned that 200 powerlooms destroy the work of 5000 weavers. They complained that powerlooms use electricity at low domestic rates while handloom weavers in Phulia have to pay commercial rates for the use of electricity in their sheds. The main problem was the agreement between India and Bangladesh which allowed the import of 47 items of cotton cloth. For every one legal truck, they said, 10 illegal trucks entered with other goods. Twenty trucks a week bring powerloom saris to one shop alone in Phulia.

Figures of existing looms, given by representatives, were 25,000 looms in Phulia, 35,000 in Shantipur and 15,000 in Nabadweep. If other outlying areas are included, there were around one lakh handlooms here. They counted 2.5 persons actually working the loom. Apart from that, seven persons were involved in producing a sari, including spinning, hand sizing, drumming and beaming, denting and reeding. The weaver and a helper worked at the loom, and two more persons were needed for polishing. The fact is handloom weavers keep powerlooms along with their handlooms, as they need to earn and customers need cheaper saris.

 

Other points raised at the meeting were: power is already used for spinning thread, but not for hand and foot work. If one allows power for feet, where does one draw the line? Welfare, subsidy, PPF, provident fund and pension have all been withdrawn. They discussed whether weavers should ask for welfare measures and subsidies, or whether they should project themselves as custodians with the ability to provide employment at the grassroots level and generate national wealth on their own strengths. There are 90 women Members of Parliament who primarily wear saris. Can they be involved in the fight to save our handloom heritage, they asked. Weavers felt that customers did not know the difference between handloom and powerloom saris. Anu Agha, MP, agreed she didn’t. The supposed corrective – the Handloom Mark scheme – was not implemented. Cooperative schemes failed because 75 per cent of the production now comes from the powerloom sector; the sad tales went on and on.

An article appearing in Business Line in 2012 written by Bharat Srinivasan, CMD Loyal Textiles, on the handloom vs powerloom situation is sad and telling:

‘The Handlooms (Reservation of Articles for Production) Act, 1985, needs to be revisited in view of today’s realities. The Handlooms Act has reserved almost all mass-consumed items to be produced by handlooms since 1985. This reservation continues till date, despite the fact that it would be impossible for us to clothe a billion people economically by using handlooms. Even in 1985, it was an impossible Act to comply with. The reservation persists in spite of the common knowledge that most mass-consumed items are produced only on powerlooms. When hank yarn was brought under the excise net in 2002, powerloom units, strangely enough, were up in arms against the order, and openly admitted that bulk of the hank yarn was indeed consumed by them. Bringing hank yarn under excise will affect them adversely, they argued. More recently, when the Textiles Commissioners’ officers found several thousands of powerlooms making items reserved for handlooms, they too admitted that powerlooms had been making these items for several decades and, in fact, should continue making them. Over 75 per cent of the goods exported from the Karur region, through the Handloom Export Promotion Council, too, are made on powerloom or even on shuttle-less looms.’

 

The author ends with the elitist solution one should fear. He writes, ‘The way to popularise handlooms, thereafter, is to showcase handlooms as testimony to our rich cultural heritage. It is, therefore, important to revive handlooms to produce more intricate fabrics for the super-rich, through a formal engagement with traditional weavers. The handloom weaver should be converted from a daily wage earner living in poverty into a respected, highly paid artisan. Only then will our rich heritage of handloom weaving survive and, in fact, flourish. Handlooms are meant to clothe the millionaires of India, and not the billion Indians. Let us not mandate the flute to stoke the fire in the oven.’

Poetic, but heartless, and surely a far cry from Gandhi’s dreams.