The Unknown Indians: People Who Quietly Changed Our World (Exploring India) by Gupta Subhadra Sen

Author:Gupta, Subhadra Sen [Gupta, Subhadra Sen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rupa Publications India
Published: 2016-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

The ruin of our crafts

The British rule was the time when our crafts, especially that of the weavers, faced a planned assault from the East India Company. This was the time of the industrial revolution in Europe when factories came up where textiles were woven on machines. So the East India Company systematically ruined the Indian textile industry by taxing the weavers heavily while British textiles were not taxed at all, making Indian cloth very expensive. An important part of Gandhiji’s Satyagraha was the use of handwoven khadi cloth. The campaign was so successful that the import of cloth from the mills of Manchester came down by half.

When India became independent, one of our first challenges was to revive Indian handlooms and handicrafts. A leading champion was the extraordinary Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. She travelled all across the country by train, car, boat, bullock cart and on foot seeking craftspeople who still knew their art. She and her team then set up shops like the Cottage Industries Emporiums, and held handicraft festivals across India to popularise the handloom and handicrafts of India. So today if you wear a kalamkari kurta or wrap yourself in a Kashmiri shawl, it is because of the work of these dedicated people. They were reviving the warp and weft, the colour and shape of our civilization.

In the West, most traditional crafts have faded before the onslaught of factory product, but in India they continue to fill our lives with their magic. So the potter and weaver; the metal smith, stone carver and leather worker; the miniature painter and the man polishing a diamond… they are the quiet creators of India’s many hued, vividly varied civilization.

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