FOR almost five millennia, the Indian subcontinent is recorded to have the skills for the cultivation and weaving of cotton. Roman records from the early period of the first millennium A.D. suggest the exchange of Indian cloth with gold in an international network of trade. And until the mid-18th century, it is suggested that the region was the foremost supplier of cotton fabrics to the world, following which the invention of mechanized manufacturing through the Industrial Revolution transformed the production, and eventually the use of such hand produced cloth.

It is possible then for us to look at Mahatma Gandhi’s experiments with hand spinning cotton through the Indian freedom movement against British colonial rule, as part of a much longer – and broader – history for handmade cloth. It traverses a wide range of geographical, cultural and mercantile contexts, and places the historical pre-eminence of the Indian subcontinent in the knowledge of rearing specific varieties of cotton. It were such varieties of the fibre that lent themselves to handwoven fabrics which have been referred to in the past as ‘woven air’, their fineness suggesting the most sophisticated textile traditions.

Gandhi evolved the word ‘khadi’ from the word ‘khaddi’, a pit loom, which became synonymous with the handspun and the handwoven. In a political strategy to enable economic self-reliance among the people of India, his ideas for such khadi meant that the daily activity of hand spinning was meditative. It also meant sourcing of cotton for such hand spinning from local sources, whether courtyards or backyards of homes, temples or other public spaces not necessarily fields where cotton was grown commercially. Within such experiments, khadi began to be referred to as a robust and coarse fabric, as the livery of the country’s national movement. It suggested a common garb for millions of Indians, as they emerged with a singular identity from multiple regional, caste, social and religious identities.

This cloth was far removed from the refined muslins and fine count cottons that had brought much renown to the Indian subcontinent for millennia. This khadi represented the other extreme of the luxurious handspun and handwoven manufacture, and identified more with the masses. This suited Gandhi’s intention to make khadi a powerful symbol which could lend itself to the widest form of appeal as was possible. In its use as a un-dyed, plain fabric, white khadi also began to further notions of austerity and simplicity, expressed in Gandhi’s own lifestyle and civilizational ideas. In time, such was its popularity that khadi emerged as a fabric representing morality and dissent, a treasured symbol of upholding public service and values, that traversed well into post-independent India.

Today, khadi is a government owned brand which encompasses a wide range of textile and non-textile products, made within the purview of the Khadi and Village Industries’ Commission (KVIC), an organization aimed at the development of rural manufacture. Its non-textile repertory includes handmade paper, packaged food and a self-care range of soaps, natural face packs and so on. Over several decades, policies related to the KVIC have favoured a consistent bent towards mechanization, with the objective of employment generation. In such a scenario, where does the handspun and handwoven find itself within the evolving definition for khadi? And what are its meanings and metaphors in the 21st century?

 

Khadi, within the Indian national movement, deserved its share of scholarship, research and writings. Khadi has also received a renewed interest among Indian designers in recent years, emphasizing its links with sustainable fashion practices. In this contemporary avatar, Gandhi has also received a revival of interest. Simultaneously, with the rise of Ambedkarite politics, khadi has been questioned, bringing up criticisms of khadi during the national movement itself. Such critiques of khadi have come from Rabindranath Tagore who opposed Gandhi’s arguments for khadi as an economic tool. Several women leaders were also opposed to the austerity that Gandhi’s promotion of white khadi represented, arguing that it brought up associations of the unfeminine, of Hindu widowhood, while losing the importance of India’s artisanal traditions of handmade textiles.

With the backdrop of such an on-going interest in Gandhi and khadi, and in a year celebrating 150 years of his birth, one has recently explored curatorial efforts being initiated towards handspun and handwoven cotton today. Presented as a series of exhibitions titled Meanings, Metaphor: Handspun and Handwoven in the 21st Century, these interventions have tried to bring the question of khadi out of the realm of academic discussions into the physical – and visceral – experience of the fabric, and address its material qualities. In doing so, they explore the exigencies of keeping a dialogue with, and use of, the handmade alive, at a time when almost all aspects of manufacturing stand mechanized, and globally fast digitalizing.

The first iteration of the series of exhibitions was presented in Chirala, a town in coastal Andhra Pradesh, in November 2018, as part of Anchoring Innovation, a gathering and conference of hand weavers and handloom specialists. Viewed by more than 4000 hand weavers over a week, in a makeshift exhibition space of a computer lab in a government school, the exhibition proposed a workshop style format where three new textiles were shared everyday, inviting engagement and discussion around them. One afternoon, a handloom weaver remarked that through the display of the exhibition, he was able to see that what he wove on a daily basis as yardage of cloth was art, and not mere production, and that he had seen himself for the first time as an artist, and not a labourer. The exhibition addressed the current hierarchies and divides between the roles and relationships of those referred to as artists and designers, and those as artisans and craftspeople.

 

In its second iteration, the exhibition was on view in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, in a large unused warehouse of the 125 year old Lakshmi Mills. One hundred and eight handspun and handwoven textiles appeared floating in the air, as a performative presentation bringing alive their dynamic drapes and uses in the Indian context. Viewed by almost 800 visitors a day, ranging from school and college students, textile connoisseurs, art patrons, designers as well as textile mill workers and handloom weavers, this iteration exhibited and showcased the importance of handmade qualities of textiles in a city and region strongly identified with mechanized production.

In its third iteration, the exhibition was presented at the Bangalore International Centre in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It questioned viewers on the relevance of millennia-old skills of making cloth in a city that has led the revolution in digital technology and the entrepreneurial start-up business culture. Together, the three iterations of the exhibition established the need for curated exhibitions of Indian textiles that could provide an alternative environment to engage with the fabrics of India, apart from fashion weeks on the one hand, and the carelessly generated content about handmade in India by a network of self-styled experts and social media influencers.

 

The textiles in the exhibitions were drawn from a collection, commissioned by the late textile expert Martand Singh between 2000-01, through a project supported by the Volkart Foundation in Switzerland. One hundred and eight khadi fabrics from nine states across India were sourced for a series of exhibitions, and documented in a limited edition catalogue of samples. In parallel, 108 designs of handwoven sarees in khadi were designed and commissioned in Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. These textiles travelled as Khadi – the Fabric of Freedom, a series of exhibitions presented in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore between 2002-03. The project involved as its core team textile scholar and historian Rahul Jain, saree expert Rta Kapur Chishti and textile designer Rakesh Thakore.

This was Singh’s last formal project in the field of Indian textiles, over a career spanning almost five decades. Beginning with brief forays into the world of textile design for exports and interior design, Singh had been at the Calico Museum of Textiles in Ahmedabad for almost a decade from the early 1970s to the early 1980s. For a decade after that until the early 1990s he was at the helm of Vishwakarma, a landmark series of documentation, design and curatorial projects initiated by the Government of India, as part of The Festivals of India, cultural diplomacy initiatives between India and other countries. A co-founder of INTACH, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, he had been the Chairperson of its UK Trust, until retirement from active public life by the mid to late 2000s.

 

Khadi – the Fabric of Freedom, closed a circle of his interest and engagement with Indian textiles by premising its texture and materiality. His previous projects in the field had raised the need for excellence in the revival of Indian textile crafts and arts to their highest levels, and restored the cultural narratives of the symbolism of the colour, motifs, ecologies of making, and the rituals of their use in the Indian context. With this focus on khadi however, he was able to explore, and present to the public for the very first time, the importance of the tactile, with the textiles on display being open to touch by the viewers. This was unprecedented, and almost two decades since the exhibitions were first conceived, continue to be seen as pioneering in terms of the curatorial vision. The exhibitions were accompanied by the development of collections of apparel fashion garments by leading Indian designers such as Asha Sarabhai, Ritu Kumar, Abraham & Thakore, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Manish Arora.

In an introductory note to the catalogue, Singh remarked – ‘The woven journey has come full circle. The older I grow, the less I know, the more I feel.’ Asha Sarabhai, who wrote an essay for the catalogue reflected on khadi’s ability to ‘…pose very basic questions on what we are using this form of hand production…to do… to focus attention on how to create a congenial environment so [that] Mammon’s unbridled industry is not allowed to swallow up and edge out alternative ways of doing.’ Further, that ‘there is no way it [khadi] can, nor should even wish to be constrained to, compete within those parameters – it needs to set its own and prove them viable.’

The project’s efforts to position khadi as a new idea in luxury, forecast the present trends in ecology and fashion. The importance of handspun and handwoven were best summarized in Rahul Jain’s words in the catalogue: ‘At a time when speed, precision, and replicability have become the hallmark of production technology, the wholly handspun, handwoven, and hand patterned cloth epitomizes a product of ultimate uniqueness and luxury. A human process in which the head, heart, and hand work in unison may be perceived in this sense as the most meaningful, most rarefied, technology of all. The products of such a process will retain, in our age, the distinction of striking at the finest and innermost of human sensibilities.’

 

One of the direct impacts of Khadi – the Fabric of Freedom, was the energizing of several clusters of hand production in Bengal, which till then had largely been involved in the weaving of sarees along traditional lines, largely for local markets. The designs for sarees for the exhibition tried to introduce a new vocabulary, devoid of regional specificities, favouring a more universally legible language. Simple geometrical patterns and motifs, with an emphasis on refinement in the weaving and the textures of the fabrics, helped such production centres expand their clientele, opening up Bengal to foreign companies. In the ensuing two decades, the region has developed into a thriving source of handspun and semi-mechanized spun cotton yarn, and also handlooms for the contemporary home furnishings and fashion markets.

Some of the international and Indian brands and labels that have been informed by such thrusts are Dosa by Christina Kim in Los Angeles; Khadi & Co. in Paris; Issey Miyake, Jurgen Lehl and Calico in Japan; Neeru Kumar, Pero by Aneeth Arora, Injiri, Bai Lou, Maku and Weavers Studio, among others. Through the two decades since Khadi – the Fabric of Freedom was first staged, official statistics reveal a decrease in the number of cotton hand spinners in the many small pockets that were documented back then, but today there is evidence of new centres of hand spinning that have been established across the country.

 

One such centre is Kutch, where, in the rehabilitation efforts in the post-2001 earthquake scenario, the hand spinning of a traditional variety of cotton called kala cotton has received a new lease of life. Its hand spinning, of up to 100 counts of yarn, has helped the region of Kutch develop refined skills not known earlier, and which until 10 to 15 years ago relied largely on the hand spinning of relatively coarser and thicker varieties of yarn using sheep wool. If kala cotton has helped galvanize a new energy and interest in handlooms in Kutch, informing a new repertory of products, whether sarees or stoles not associated conventionally with the region, it has also shaped the trajectory of Kora by 11.11, a New Delhi based brand which makes limited edition denim products using kala cotton. Priced upwards of a thousand pounds per product, both khadi and denim, typically associated with popular consumption, are thus transformed into products of high-end luxury.

Such discussions of hand spinning in cotton must be complemented equally by the expansion of hand spinning of silk in the last few years, especially with tussar, eri and muga, lesser known silks than the mulberry variety, and which are typically associated with the eastern and north-eastern regions of India. This is also true of the promotion of hand spinning in wool through new developmental initiatives and the work of non-governmental organizations in Uttaranchal. The best varieties of pashmina in Kashmir, even today, rely on the use of handspun yarn, and markets for such textiles are constantly increasing. We may therefore assume that the present contexts and relevance of hand spinning continue multifold.

Last summer, the legendary international designer Issey Miyake paid homage to the late Martand Singh, through an exhibition on khadi in 21:21 Design Sight, at a design gallery co-founded by him in Tokyo. Titled Khadi: the Fabric of India’s Tomorrow, the exhibition presented fabrics from Khadi: the Fabric of Freedom, as well as from earlier collaborations between Singh, him and Asha Sarabhai. It spoke of the value that a country and design ecology such as Japan, confers on the relevance of handmade textiles as a continuing Indian resource for both India and the world. For a fabric so steeped in the past, but with a present, it can only be seen as inportant in the future.

 

Such optimism in the future of hand spinning can only be emphasized, however, if there is a larger vision for the very idea of handloom itself. And such efforts as have been discussed above, address a small and niche aspect of the ecology of handmade manufacture of textiles in the country. Those who work at the grassroots level argue that there remains a relevance for handloom at a much larger scale going into the future. Seen at multiple levels and from economic, cultural, and civilizational perspectives, how long can we as a country, and the world, afford to consume at the current rate? Can rampant mechanization address the realities of employment generation in all fields, not just textiles?

 

The need for handmade production to provide employment and wages in rural India has been the core of government policy since the early years post-independence. This was reflected in the formation of institutions like the All India Handicrafts and Handlooms Board, and the sector was championed by national leaders like Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Pupul Jayakar. In time, as urban markets for handmade products faced levels of saturation, the importance of international markets was seen, which led to the founding of the Handicraft and Handlooms Exports Corporation. Other government initiatives at the state and central level helped the seeding of private enterprise in the field, both for the export and domestic retail markets.

By the early 1990s, while handlooms coexisted in India with other forms of machine made fabrics, each with its own environment of production, distribution and use, handlooms and handicrafts were beginning to be seen as ‘sunset’ sectors. The economy was growing fast, foreign investment was transforming the work culture along multinational lines, all of which cumulatively contributed to the present position of the Indian economy. Despite the ensuing expectations of industrialization to generate employment in the country however, large-scale unemployment continues unabated. Those involved in the handmade sector remind us of the promise and the enduring relevance of handlooms in this ground reality.

For decades, the role of handlooms was seen as providing, among other things, a source of seasonal employment in relation to agriculture. In the months that farmers are not required to be in the fields, hand based production provided the additional income. With rising costs of energy, handlooms remain largely within an environmentally sound mode of manufacturing that do not rely on electricity. Unfortunately, statistics reveal that despite the affordability of handmade technology, handlooms are on the decline and only a few pockets remain in the country where they continue to thrive.

 

In my view the handmade can only find a distinct future if it can demonstrate an ability to do what no machines can. The handloom sector thus needs to find a way to develop an ability to design and produce in ways that premise the intervention and skill of the hand at every possible stage. The contemporary fashion landscape, which has seen the potential of using handlooms in recent years, needs to find creative ways to ensure that interest in the handmade continues. There is a need to engage with the consumer to showcase the need to buy better products, not necessarily in larger quantities. Finally, we need to accept the coexistence of the handmade with the machine made, that were incorrectly pegged for more than a century as being opposed to each other. That conversation will hopefully become the basis for a new synthesis, perhaps even result in a new aesthetic.