Dilshad Hussain, winner of several national and state awards, now depends mostly on his family members, including his daughters and daughters-in-law, to carry forward the traditional craft of engraving or nakashi and enamel or kathai work that has been slowly disappearing from Moradabad바카라the town once known as the brass city of Uttar Pradesh and a major export hub. With government support, Hussain has trained several youngsters keen to learn the craft he learnt from his grandfather, and happily mentions that his daughter Ujma Khatoon is also a state award-winner.
바카라The brass city is now a misnomer,바카라 says Hussain. 바카라As the cost of brass has more than doubled since 2005, aluminum, steel, wood and glass have replaced it in most cases. Technology is also advancing very fast and steadily replacing handicraft. For instance, moulding, casting, engraving, scrapping, polishing and finishing are now mostly done by machines, particularly in big units.바카라
Ajam Ansari, member of the All India Handicrafts Board, admits that barring small units still using old machinery, export units are mostly mechanised, with computerised designs and even laser engraving for faster production at lower cost. Only 60 per cent of the handicrafts sold in the domestic market or exported are handcrafted, he reckons. The estimate can be doubted as new machinery has made it difficult to tell handcrafted products from machine-made ones. Handcrafted items are unique in design, come with long traditions, and are special to a region.
바카라The traditional craft of embellishing brass and copper utensils with fine engravings is almost vanishing as the number of trained and skilled craftsmen is declining, while customers are chary of having to pay more for these wares,바카라 says Anuj Kumar , deputy commissioner (industries), Moradabad. According to Shantmanu, development commissioner (handicrafts) under the ministry of textiles, they have to follow the definition of handicrafts in the Supreme Court바카라s 1995 judgment and be strict about applicability of the norms while implementing government schemes. 바카라It should primarily be handmade and the element of machinery, if any, should be minimal. There also has to be some element of artistic appeal,바카라 explains the bureaucrat. Engraving and inlaying are artistic work that have to be done by hand to qualify as handicraft. Certain groups use machines for doing everything, while there is a smaller segment that is still doing only part of the work using machines.
The government has identified 35 crafts as endangered or languishing craft. 바카라Besides these, wherever machines are posing a challenge to the conservation of traditional crafts, we impart short- and long-term training to artisans by giving them incentives,바카라 says Shantmanu. The segments most affected by mechanisation are toys, as seen in clusters in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Varanasi in UP, where machine-made toys have made major inroads. Even block printing has gradually been taken over by web screen printing and it is difficult to tell handmade from machine-made. Another sector affected is of metal or stone-made idols of Ganesha, for example, with cheaper imports from countries like China posing a major challenge and hastening mechanisation. In case of handmade carpets, however, Indian products make up over one-third of the global supply.
바카라Handcrafted no longer implies the use of dexterous human fingers, informed by an agile mind, motivated by tradition and moved by the spirit,바카라 says Rajeev Sethi, curator and founder-chairman of the Asian Heritage Foundation. 바카라In the name of lessening drudgery or increasing production and promoting efficiency, labour-saving devices are replacing handcrafted tools to the detriment of skills that even the poorest of the poor can possess.바카라 Sethi believes 바카라made by hand바카라 is a much-abused tag in case of most Indian handicraft products.
Mechanisation has crept into a lot of material, including marble, with machines doing everything from cutting to polishing to edging. The finesse may be better, but the products aren바카라t unique or handcrafted. 바카라A lot of wire inlay is being done by machines,바카라 says Puneet Kaushik, an artist who has been working with artisans for over two decades. 바카라The significance of doing a unique one piece is no more there. It바카라s all about quantity.바카라
Kaushik points out that people even in crafts museums are happy when approached with an order for 10 identical pieces as they know it is not difficult to make a die and put it together. For instance, most of Kalamkari craft is now screen printed. Forget natural dyes and colours, even in miniature paintings you have beautiful prints made to look hand-painted with little tweaking of hand or eye.
Experts say handcrafted handicraft exists only in small pockets where the artisans don바카라t have a choice due to being too poor or unaware of alternative ways바카라as in case of palm leaf work. Or if it is a very labour-intensive craft involving working with the hand right from scratch바카라for example, pattachitra paintings or terracotta work in Odisha.
Amrita Sabat of Sabat Exports, which has done yeoman바카라s service for popularising Odisha바카라s handicrafts in the global market, laments that with machine-made and cheaper terracotta work from West Bengal flooding the market, the terracotta artisans of Bolangir and Sonepur districts are facing tough times. 바카라Once machines come in, it no longer remains handicraft,바카라 stresses Sabat
Even the famed tarakasi (silver filigree work), which until two decades ago was entirely handmade, is now seeing some switchover to machines. 바카라It is still strictly restricted to making and straightening of the fine wires, which used to take a long time earlier,바카라 says Prafulla Sahu, secretary of Odisha Swarna Roupya Shilpi Mahasangha. 바카라Wire-making, which could take up to two full days earlier, is now done with machines in five minutes. The rest is all handmade.바카라
Experts say there is need for both the government and private sectors to highlight the handmade aspect of our products for enhancing awareness about our culture. Shubhra Singh, chief operating officer, The Nabha Foundation, points to their efforts to revive and promote phulkari, Punjab바카라s traditional embroidery included in every trousseau and household in the state. 바카라If you leave out the past 5-7 years, there was a huge deterioration with machine-made phulkari taking over the market. Things have gradually started changing as we work very closely with artisans trying to revive this part of Punjab바카라s culture and heritage,바카라 says Singh.
When the foundation started working with artisans around a decade ago, it realised that women had forgotten how to do phulkari even in the villages. 바카라Some 30 years ago, every woman would know how to do it, but we saw that the younger women had no idea about its heritage value. Even in households where women were doing phulkari work, many of the original intricate motifs were all lost,바카라 says Singh, who is happy that they have been able to collect some traditional designs from personal collections and wedding trousseau, and also recreate designs with the help of reference photographs.
Award-winning Moradabad artisans Dilshad Hussain and daughter Ujma Khatoon.
Similar is the story of Kantha embroidery in Bengal and chikkan work in UP. Kantha originated as an art form around 1,000 years ago when stories (katha) were woven on cloth. 바카라This art form would have been on the verge of extinction, but for a few individuals who helped revive and re-revive it multiple times through the ages,바카라 says Farah Khan, who works on reviving Kantha embroidery. 바카라From something that would merely fuel the local economy, it has become of great commercial value nationally and internationally.바카라
Growth is paralysed, feels Khan, as the handicrafts sector is unorganised, and poorly exposed to new designs and technologies, besides suffering from lack of marketing facilities, proper infrastructure and institutional framework. Faraway villages without proper transport facility make the business very difficult. Hence kantha products sold in the market were of poor quality. The dedicated work of a few individuals is helping revive this traditional craft.
Shantmanu is happy that some segments like musical instruments face no threat unlike traditional toys and dolls. The handicraft commissioner stressed that you cannot force any artisan to follow old ways when concerns of livelihood overrule other considerations. Nearly two decades ago, there were around 65 lakh artisans in the country. Three years ago, when the government started the process of granting a unique number to the artisans based on the Aadhaar card, 25 lakh were identified. 바카라The process is continuing and we may at the most touch around 40 lakh, which shows the decline in the number of handicraft artisans,바카라 he says.
On the roads of Moradabad and many other handicraft cluster towns, hundreds of artisans have switched to other professions and are encouraging their progeny to follow suit. Others keen to pursue the craft seem to be increasingly adopting machines. In the process, much of our traditional arts and craft seem to be losing their past glory and the country its heritage.
By Lola Nayar with inputs from Lachmi Deb Roy and Sandeep Sahu
