Dying Skill and Starving Weavers: The crisis of Banarasi Handloom

By Kumar Gautam, Centad

Background

Trade has the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty provided it is fair and pro-poor ^[1] . However, in the Indian context, this trade potential has been by and large lost and the opportunities to poor people have been denied. The glaring example is the miserable condition of the Handloom Weavers Community of Banaras known all over the world for their exclusive Banarasi silk sarees woven with brocade zari work.

Banarasi Handloom products made from the fine silk in the holy city of Banaras in Uttar Pradesh are in big demand by buyers in India as well as abroad. Especially, the famous Banarasi handwoven sari since the ancient (Vedic) times is ranked among the finest traditional sarees of India. It is believed that the making of a Banarasi saree gained prominence during the Mughal rule. The traditional Banaras handloom is exclusively known for its handwork by traditional weavers who developed the Benarsi saree brand, which is much sought after for its intricacies, art and aesthetics. It is heavy and hand-woven out of fine silk with traditional designs bearing elaborate and rich embroidery either along the border or all over.

The Context

About 38 million people are employed in the textiles sector in India and close to 33 per cent i.e. 12.4 million, are concentrated in the Handloom sector, which is on the decline today. Following the second phase of trade reforms in India, a big number of handloom production units went out of business. Between 2000 and 2005, the average annual growth rate of handloom production was -6.99 per cent ^[2]. Out of 6.3 million handloom weavers, Varanasi alone has more than half a million involved in the Varanasi Silk Industry ^[3]. The majority of them are low caste and extremely poor. More than 60 per cent of weavers are women working in small family units. Spread out in and around 125 km of Banaras, this ancient and traditional art of making Banarasi saree has continued to be passed down from one generation to another. The Banaras Handloom Industry generates revenue worth Rs 4,000 crore annually and is a source of livelihoods for about 10 lakh (one million) people in the region ^[4]. Varanasi alone is home to around 10,000 shops selling Banarasi sarees and providing livelihoods to several million people around Banaras, including Gorakhpur and Azamgarh. The question which arises is: The Banaras Silk Industry, known for its unique weaving skills of its traditional weavers, continues to generate huge demand for its products, then why are the weavers subjected to such abject poverty? Surely, the answer to this query could only be found outside the typical static demand-supply framework.

Box-1 Ruined on the silk Route The driver of our vehicle for the field visit introduced himself to us: ‘My condition is as bad as this car’, said the driver referring to the vehicle hired to travel to few villages and talk to weavers to hear the story from the horses’ mouth. He surprised us when he added, ‘I was a weaver myself about seven years ago. There were three handlooms running in our house then and we were doing well. It was about 10-12 years ago when the bad luck hit us. Our Banarasi handloom sarees stock would remain piled up in traders’ store for a long time. We were told that people did no longer want to buy the Banarasi handloom sarees as they are very expensive’. It was shocking to know when Rajan, 37, the driver lamented in emotionally choked voice, ‘My village had more than 600 weavers 10 years ago. Today, there are just about 10 or 12 of them existing somehow. The handlooms are lying idle and abandoned only to be heaped and crumbled one day under the load of dust and rust’.

Lives Hanging by a Silk Thread

About more than a million weavers who have survived the mass destruction of livelihoods in Banaras have similar stories of misery and penury to tell. Rajan was probably among the luckiest ones who managed to find some job in the city itself unlike most weavers who hardly knew any other skill to be gainfully employed [See Box 1]. More than 500,000 weavers in Varanasi alone who still exist today (60 per cent of them are traditional Muslim weavers) are jobless, hopeless and clueless about their future. The situation has come to such a pass that weavers of the world famous Banarasi handloom saree and brocades in and around Banaras are finding it difficult now to even earn their square meal a day. About 60 per cent weavers have abandoned their traditional occupation. Either they have migrated to cities in search of livelihoods as unskilled labourers or have become rickshawpullers or brick-kiln workers in and around the city. A few shocking instances of hunger deaths, selling blood and even selling their off-springs in highly distressed circumstances have also been reported by the media in recent times. This story of weavers’ livelihoods being destroyed is not an isolated case of Benrasi saree weavers alone. It is the case with the weavers’ community all across the country such as Kanjeevaram, Chanderi, Kota, Banglore, Kunoor etc.

Reasons for Crisis: What Went Wrong?

The unfair trade liberalisation and the bad trade politics (i.e. trade policies and trade practices), threats from the power loom, shortage of cheap raw material, exploitation at the hands of the middlemen, lack of intellectual property rights and GI protection, changing consumer tastes and preferences and the prevalent huge corrupt practices in the handloom cooperatives have imperiled the livelihoods of the handloom weavers.

Priced out of Existence

Owing to liberal trade polices in post reform era, like many other centres known for textile industries in countries, the silk industry in Banaras suffered a severe blow due to huge growth in cheap silk imports from China as China silk costs $1-1.25 per metre while Indian silk costs $2.5-4 per meter. The silk industry of Varanasi consumes 12,000-15,000 metric tonnes of silk every year and out of this, over 60 per cent of silk is imported from China ^[5]. The trouble for the weaver began way back in 1996 when in order to counter the threat from cheap imports and give Bangalore silk industry a boost, the Deve Gowda Government during 1996-1997 (H.D. Deve Gowda hailed from Karnataka) imposed a ban on Chinese silk yarn imports. The idea behind this was that Varanasi saris would only be woven from silk yarns from Bangalore. Probably because of its superior quality, smuggling of Chinese yarn into Banaras began. Soon realising that their need for Chinese yarn would only grow, the weavers demanded an Open General License (OGL) to import Chinese silk. The big blow to weavers came during 1999-2000, when the Indian Government allowed duty-free imports of Chinese plain crepe fabric. In 2001, India also abolished its quantitative restrictions on silk imports on demand from the WTO. Since then annual growth rates of silk imports have soared exponentially. Between 2000-01 and 2004-05, imports of silk fabric into India more than doubled in value terms and in volume terms the cheap imports of silk fabric from China to India increased from 14.48 lakh metres in 2000-01 to 9.649 crore lakh metres in 2004-05, a whopping increase of 6,560 per cent in just five years ^[6]. The Indian silk industry in general and Banaras silk industry in particular was severely hit and consequently resulted into the proliferation of cheap silk sarees which gradually replaced the original Varanasi sarees which used to be costlier because these used to be hand-woven and hand-printed or embroidered. This gave rise to protests by the Karnataka Weavers Association and Varanasi’s Silk Trade Association against the dumping of Chinese silk in the Indian market. In 2003, the government imposed an anti-dumping duty for five years of $27.98 per kilo for Chinese imports of mulberry raw silk. Provisional tariffs ranging from 57 to 108 per cent were also imposed on other silk imports from China ^[7].

The figure 1 shows that during these five years, average applied tariff rate has increased by 40 per cent while the annual growth rate of imports has fallen by just 15 per cent. It may be noted here that during this period there has been a noted increase in silk fabric imports from China during the same period as the tariff on silk fabric continued to be low. The import duty on raw material was as much as 32 per cent but on fabric and textiles it was just 10 per cent. This situation has been fully exploited by the power loom sector due to their existing scale advantage over the handlooms which led to production of huge power loom based silk products and marginalisation of the handlooms.

Power Loom Menace

The advent of power loom is another big menace to the very existence of Banarasi sari traditional skills and the livelihoods of the handloom weavers. As you enter the Lohta Panchayat village in Banaras in the daytime, you can't ignore the cacophonous cluttering noise all around you emanating from the houses. The serene sound of handloom weaving is drowned into the noise polluting power looms. The use of power loom for making a saree looking almost identical to a traditional handloom Banarasi saree has made many of these traditionally skilled weavers redundant. Not only the skill has become redundant but also the weavers have become redundant and jobless, as the power loom requires less people and less time in making a Banarasi power loom saree. One Banarasi saree, which takes about 10 days on a handloom, can be replicated (albeit nowhere near the same quality) within one and a half day only. This way, one power loom replaces about 10 weavers ^[8]. On the power loom itself, from designing to weaving and even embroidery work is accomplished reducing the elements of skill and human intervention to a great extent. More so, the power loom practice has made the weavers even more dependent on the traders. The power frame (locally called Jakad), provided to the weavers by the traders (Gaddidars) further reduces the negotiating power of the weavers. Driven by the self-interest of profit-seeking in total disregard to the traditionally unique skill and millions of weavers livelihoods, the traders have deliberately promoted power-loom weaving. For a saree woven on a power-loom, the trader has to now give only Rs 60 for a saree made in a day and a half instead of Rs 450 for the same.

Cake for the Exploitative Middleman and Crumbs for the Skilled Weaver

Both, the producers and the consumers remain the losers in the unfair trade policies and practices while the dominant traders and intermediaries reap all the benefits. The power loom textiles and clothing are being sold all across the world and even within the country in the name of Indian handloom, but the handloom weavers have always been denied their fair share and increasingly becoming impoverished. In Banaras, the Banarasi saree traders (locally known as Gaddidars) who are rich and influential in their respective areas pay an extremely meagre amount to weavers taking undue advantage of weavers’ ignorance and access to markets. A weaver normally takes about 10 to 15 days to make a saree. Once the saree is woven, it comes to Gol Ghar and Kunj Gali where Banarasi sarees are sold at wholesale rates. There are several hundred shops where every morning people from different villages come to deliver ‘created’ sarees to the market. There are some 10 shops whose turnover, they say, even crosses 80 crore in total. If the weaver chooses to buy raw material worth Rs 900 at his own expense to weave a saree and sell it to the trader, he would receive around Rs 1600. A back of the envelope calculation would tell us that for weaving a saree, a weaver gets on an average just about Rs 60-70 a day for 8-10 hours of daily work in which about three people have been involved. Mere Rs 20-25 a person a day for such a rare, traditional and highly skilled work! Usually the common refrain of the traders to the weaver for offering the meagre amount is, “I can offer only Rs 450 for this old design, nobody is buying these nowadays.” The interesting point is that when the trader sells this saree, he would earn a profit of somewhere between 60 and 100 per cent. This simply means that if the weaver received around Rs 1600 for a saree of which Rs 900 was the cost of the raw material, the trader would sell it at a price around Rs 2,800 to 3200 [ibid]. The trader earns at least four times more than the weaver.

Moreover, many a times, these traders indulge in unfair practice of fault finding in the hand-woven sarees to further squeeze the already low remuneration offered to the weavers. For example, in the process of weaving a saree on a very hot day of the summer season, a drop of sweat on the saree in the making becomes a sufficient reason for the traders to harass the weavers and penalise through paying a pittance for the saree. It is interesting to note that while traders do not generally find it difficult to sell those so-called defected sarees, still they penalise the weavers. In case if such a defect is pointed out, which is rare, the traders win their buyers’ sympathy saying that such minor human folly are part and parcel of handloom.

The power loom made sarees can be bought very cheap. They are about one-fourth of the price of the handloom Banarasi sarees. Due to the vested interest of the rich traders in promoting power loom and reducing dependence on labour power, the Banarasi silk saree producing units today are flooded by power looms and power loom sarees are being openly sold as a handloom saree. Consumers too are kept in dark and are not informed about the handloom – power loom difference.

The Role of the Government in Handloom

The Central Government has taken some bailout initiatives such as Integrated Handloom Cluster Development Programme (IHCDP) with the objective of providing the necessary interventions and training to enhance productivity. The Varanasi cluster is one of the 20 handloom clusters identified by the Ministry of Textiles in 2005-06 for interventions and support. In 2006, the Government of India initiated Handloom Mark scheme to promote handloom products but the registration under Handloom Mark product is dismal. Only about 250 weavers so far have registered themselves under Handloom Mark. These initiatives by the Government have been at best only halfhearted and continued to be dogged by bad politics and corrupt practices. Moreover, the trends in budgetary allocation for handloom over the past decade suggest that the Handloom does not find favour with the Government. It is certainly not the priority sector as the there has been remarkable decline in the budgetary allocation for Handloom over the past decade in terms of allocated share of Handloom in the total textile budget. In 1997-98, Handloom was allocated 27.5 per cent of the total textile Budget. But in 2006-07, this allocation dipped to 7.9 per cent (see table 1). Table 1 shows that this decline has been consistent over the years and not once in these 10 years the share of handloom increased even in those years between 2001-2005, when this sector suffered a huge blow and needed more support.

Table 1: Budget Allocations to Handloom

The Way Forward

The efforts should be made to save the rare, ancient and traditional skill of the Banarasi handloom as well as to protect and promote the identity of unique Banarasi handlooms. Despite a number of existing policies pertaining to conserve, protect and develop India’s handloom industry, the weavers continue to be the victims of unemployment, poverty, and exploitation. Though shrouded by the clouds of adversities, there exists a silver lining. The struggle is on and a global campaign to save handloom has also been launched. The relentless campaigning including lobbying and advocacy with the policymakers of the country have had some positive results.

On the policy front, civil society bodies and weavers organisations demand for imposing restrictions such as dumping duty on the cheap import of silk from China. Anti-dumping duty on raw silk is imposed only on medium and low quality silk of the grade 2A and below. Grades about 2A which constitute high quality silk, are not subjected to anti-dumping duty. Power-loom silk weavers Associations of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, along with CSB have approached and filed a petition with the Government of India (DGAD) to curb the import of cheap Chinese silk fabrics into the country. The DGAD, after the investigations had recommended imposition of provisional anti-dumping duty by issuing Gazette notification on April 28, 2006 on silk fabric of weight 20-100 grams per metre imported from China, which has helped the power-loom industry. This imposition is to expire in early 2009. There is a strong demand for extending this imposition beyond 2009.

There is also a strong demand seeking a GI status for Banarasi saree and Brocade. In fact, Banaras Bunkar Samiti and Human Welfare Association, the organisations working to safeguard the livelihoods of the distressed and displaced weavers, have filed an application seeking the GI status for Banarasi saree and Brocade. The mood between the activist and the weavers is upbeat after the recent visit of Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of the UNCTAD to Varanasi who saw for himself the labour being put in by the artisans in weaving the traditional brocade silk sarees. Pledging his support for Banaras Handloom GI recognition, he said, “We would like to support the effort to have a formal geographical indication, of course, at national level. There would be a subsequent international recognition of this product of 'Banarasi silk sarees' and brocades and other products that should be gaining in terms of more value outside India as well...” Furthermore, UNCTAD plans to produce a systematic information network that would be disseminated around in a way that markets abroad will be well informed of the products from Varanasi. They would also try to create brand recognition along with the geographical indication of the products. It is estimated that prices fetched by the GI registered (patented) products are about 30 per cent higher in the international market besides bringing glory to the country. It is so because once the product is recognised under GI category, the practice of imitation sale is curbed.

On the practice front, there is a need not only to build awareness but also strengthen its credibility among the consumers in this regard. If consumers are aware and assured of the original handloom product, the demand for handloom products is expected to grow manifold. As a consequence, the derived demand for weavers would also increase. This way, on one hand a rare skill will be saved and on the other hand, livelihoods of millions of weavers will be safeguarded.

(Note: This write-up is primarily based on the interview and focused group discussions with the stakeholders during a recent field visit to Varanasi in September 2008. The author sincerely acknowledges the cooperation of Human Welfare Association, Varanasi during the visit.)

¹ Oxfam International, 2002, “Rigged Rules and Double standard”

² Francis, Bijo and Raghuvansi, Lenin; “Handloom has become live grave
for weavers”, PVCHR, 2005. Also visit http://antiwto.blogspot.com
/2005/11/handloom-has-become-live-grave-for_30.html accessedvisited on 03.10.2008.

³ http://floatingsun.net/udai/files/Varanasi_2.pdf , Accessed on 01-10-2008

⁴ Ibid 2

⁵ Source: http://news.tootoo.com/Textile/Textile_Materials
/20080610/110831.html

⁶ Action Aid International, 2006, "Looming Crisis" Also visit
http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/archives/2006/Varanasi_
Weavers_Crisis_1.pdf accessed on 4-10-2008

⁷ Banerji, Olina; "Silk Rout", June 28, 2008, Tehelka magazine

⁸ Discussions with Dr. Rajni Kant, Director, Human Welfare Association, Varanasi and based on inputs received during the
Focused Group Discussions during the field visit

October 21, 2008