Handloom weavers are not in a state of a problem, they are in a state of possibility.
As a part of my travel to different weaving clusters, I recently visited two districts in Assam and my belief on above quote got emboldened further.
If you talk to anyone on the street, they will say that fabric woven on powerloom and mill would be much cheaper than the fabric which is woven on handloom. Therefore, in their understanding, for all commercial reasons powerloom and mill fabric will gain market acceptance.
Agreed but with a caveat. Machines can and will always do tasks at a cheaper rate which are monotonous and repetitive. Perhaps this is the key reason why we travel by automotive bikes or cars and not on bullock cart anymore.
However, votaries of this machine vs. hand logic, fail to understand that powerloom and mill fabric is cheaper only when it is woven at certain MOQ (minimum order quantity) in the same design. This MOQ runs into 1000's of meters in one design and mostly as a blend of man-made fibers like polyester and acrylic.
So, if someday you go to a powerloom or mill owner and tell him that you need 5 meters of a specially designed unique fabric in finer counts of cotton and silk, the larger possibility is that owner will laugh at you or will ask for an exorbitant price for weaving this 5 meter fabric for you. This is where handwoven fabric comes into the picture.
In Handlooms due to manual nature of the operation, several permutations & combinations are possible for developing intricate designs which will not just change the design aesthetic but also functional properties like texture, drape, strength, dominant stability, wrinkle control, fall and hand feel AND in a very cost effective manner compared to powerloom and mills.
All these can be ingeniously manipulated by simply changing treadling order or changing the combination of tying treadle with the frame. And if you decide to make changes in yarn, count, drafting, extra weft and post loom processes you can literally create magic in every 2-3 meters of fabric.
To cut the long story short, this essentially means that one can get a very unique piece of fabric in a very cost effective way only on handloom! Isn't that a luxury? Can this luxury be commercially exploited for providing respectable and remunerative livelihood to artisans?
With very few exceptions, European luxury continues to tell and sell this story of its hand crafted, French and Italian artisanship in a big away. Can Indian artisanship be presented and sold this way?
Not sure. When it comes to Indian artisanship the image which we start visualizing is of defective, badly woven and color bleeding fabric.
Was Indian craftsmanship always bad? I am sure it wasn't.
What has happened? Can something be done? What is required to be done? Who will do it & When?
What has happened? Can something be done? What is required to be done? Who will do it & When?
Organizations like Dastkar Andhra, WomenWeave, Khamir, KGU etc. in the not for profit space and Good Earth, Anokhi, Fab India, Jaypore.com in the for profit space are trying their best. But need is humungous 'pilots' can be good sedative in the moments of utter despair but they need to scale up to become solution.
In next two decades, we are about to the lose the heritage of thousands of years to museums.
But,
If it can be done then that would be a golden period not just for weavers for but for India as a whole as 90 % of worlds handwoven fabric is produced by India.
And,
If it's not done the government would never to be able to provide alternative skilled employment to such a large work force.
