The Covid-19 Lockdown may soon ease off in West Bengal, however there has been massive damage done already, as it virtually cut off livelihoods of weavers and workers associated with the textile industry. The lockdown is said to have affected over six lakh registered workers associated with the weaving industry.
The worst affected districts, according to reports, are Nadia and Birbhum. Over 2.5 lakh people make a living working on looms in different parts of the Nadia district like Shantipur, Phulia, Bethuadhari, Chakda and Habibpur. Most of the cotton looms produced in India come from this region, according to surveys an average of three people per family are involved in this profession here. However, most of the weavers here depend on money borrowed from moneylenders to run their business. This creates a vicious cycle of debt.
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What are the weavers of Birbhum saying?
I went to meet weavers at Tantipara village, which is 18 km from Suri in Birbhum district. Once as soon as you stepped into the village you would hear the rhythmic knocking sounds of the looms. All poetic and musical, however the ground reality now is that the financial condition of the weavers in Tantipara village under Rajnagar block of Birbhum is deteriorating. The weavers say they are in distress due to the long lockdown. The looms are no longer making sweet music.
It was from here that the textured “tussar” cloth gained fame in the country and abroad. However, no one now knows the distress of the weavers who have had no work due to the lockdown. Artist Akshay Das, a weaver, told me he joined his family of weavers as he “did not get any job opportunity after studying.” All members of his family are involved in this work. It takes them four to five days to weave a fine saree, but due to the pandemic and the lockdown there have been no sales.
“We have the finished sarees stored in our own house. We are doing business with high interest loans from moneylenders but if we cannot repay those loans, we will be in great danger,” he said adding, “Shopping is absolutely shut down, once I could sell a saree for Rs. 1,000-1,200 in the market, but now I can’t. Even if someone wants to buy, they don’t offer a fair price.”
The Tantipara “Hand Print” is an exclusive creation. The weavers told me that Tantipara is also the birthplace of a unique saree that is adorned with a style known as the “Hand Print”. Many young boys and girls are involved in this printing work as there is no other job opportunity for them even after studying. It takes a whole day to print a saree, but now that the work has stopped, the artists take their own sweet time to print a saree. “If the government pays a little attention to this, then maybe we artists will see a glimmer of hope,” said Das.
Weaving cloth is art and engineering
I learnt that while a weaver’s job is to weave, those who apply any special techniques on these looms are called “fabric engineers”. The size of the loom and the artistic technique inside vary but the spindle wrapped in yarn is stretched horizontally by pulling the handle hanging on the Bengali loom. I also learned the loom has an attachment called “shana” whose specified job is to spread the yarn along a certain width by placing the threads in a special formation side by side. “When weaving cloth with the help of Shana, each burn is placed one after the other with a blow. A dakti keeps Shana strong,” said a weaver. While all this sounded highly complicated to me, for the weavers it is a skill passed down generations.
Why is Nadia famous for its weaving industry?
Although the town of Shantipur in Nadia translates to ‘city of peace’ the real identity of the city to the people of Bengal is associated with the Shantipuri sari. The weaving industry centered on Shantipuri sarees is also one of the key contributors to its economy. The Shantipur Saree has Geographical Indication (GI) status and therefore intellectual Property Rights Protection. Locals claim that the first saree weaving unit was started in Shantipur in 1409 during the reign of Ganesha Danu Sadhandev, the king of Gaur. However, weaving sarees was scaled up commercially during the reign of King Rudra Dev. According to history books the weaving industry of Shantipur flourished after Independence, when many weavers of Bangladesh migrated here from East Pakistan, and later Bangladesh.
Soon, besides handlooms, machine looms made up a large part in the weaving industry of Shantipur. This machine operated loom first came to Shantipur in 2015 from Ranaghat-Phulia Weaving Industry Center and has now engulfed almost the region. The study found that more than 75 percent of the population is now involved in machine-loom weaving, and that hand-loom weaving is declining day by day. The local weavers think that in the next ten to twelve years, not a single handloom will be found in Shantipur. Most of the handloom weavers are women and elderly folk. Most adult males are moving to other states to work in factories or hotels. The reason is simple. The income here is so low that it is difficult to run the household. The men migrate in the hope of earning a little more and women and old people are left behind to continue working on the handloom.
There have been other changes too
There were many independent weavers here once. They worked without the intervention of moneylenders or third parties. They brought raw materials to weave and themselves went and sold their products in the market. But now their numbers are very low. There are more ‘dependent weavers’ now. They are very poor and depend entirely on moneylenders, I realised. These form the majority at the Shantipur loom weaving center, now. From the initial investment to buy raw materials, to selling the final product, they have to depend on the moneylender. As expected, the moneylenders often exploit the poor weavers.
Then there are weavers who work under a co-operative and are assured a fair wage. Their standard of living is much better than the other two classes. I also learnt that most workers here are employed as yarn makers as they cannot afford to buy any looms. They may have weaving skills but are forced to do this because they have no alternative. Products from Shantipur Weaving Center are exported to West Bengal and other parts of India. However, the income of weavers does not seem to increase.
One of the major problems in the development of the industrial center is non-compliance with the law that states that 11 types of cloth must be produced only by hand loom. If these are produced on the machine loom it is a punishable offense. Nowadays, however, these products are being produced in large numbers through machine-operated looms. The owners allegedly copy Shantipuri sarees and sell them at low prices in the market, said the weavers. As a result, the handloom weavers cannot compete and are forced to rely on moneylenders to reduce their losses and they do not even get a fair price for their sarees. The handloom products are now confined to the narrow market at Shantipur. It is the moneylenders who are allegedly stockpiling the final product and can thus control the market at will. The weaver is stuck as banks are reluctant to lend money to them.
In 2011, the then Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka and signed an agreement between India and Bangladesh which paved the way for the import of cotton cloth from Bangladesh. This had an influence on the weaving industry of Shantipur. Now weavers claim it is competition from sarees “imported from Gujarat” that they fear. Then there are caste divides which keep them away from accessing government schemes. According to the locals, a few years ago, the government had started giving handlooms to each family, but it was only a certain ‘caste’ that managed to get any. Perhaps if the mainstream media visits and reports from here, the authorities will take notice. Till then the handlooms continue to wait in silence.
This report is part of CJP’s Grassroots Fellowship Program, and has been written by researcher Ripon Sheikh, who is travelling around rural Bengal, tracking and documenting social and cultural movements of indigenous people.
Meet CJP Grassroot Fellow Mohammed Ripon Sheikh
This young man, who has graduated with a B.Sc degree from Burdwan University, loves trivia. Sheikh’s passion to research and seek “unknown information about World History” has earned him many medals and trophies at various University and state-level Quiz championships, and youth festivals. Sheikh is a born orator and a natural community leader. He has the potential to represent his community, state and country at a global level one day. His immediate goal, however, is to find a job so he can support his parents.
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