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Advances, Middlemen and Debt: The Political Economy of the Handloom Weaver

  Advances, Middlemen and Debt: The Political Economy of the Handloom Weaver How a system of credit and control quietly converted India's free craftsmen into bonded workers — and why the mahajan was both villain and necessity. Source: Report of the Fact-Finding Committee (Handloom & Mills), Govt. of India, 1942 Chapters IV, V & VII By Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan There is a particular moment in the career of any craftsman that determines everything that follows: the moment he runs out of money before his cloth is finished. For the handloom weaver of India, that moment arrived reliably, repeatedly, and with consequences that accumulated over a lifetime. He needed yarn before he could weave. He needed to eat while he wove. And he needed to wait — sometimes weeks, sometimes months — before his finished cloth could be sold. Without capital, he could not bridge these intervals alone. And so he borrowed. And so began the system that the 1942 Fact-Finding Committee on Handloom and Mill...
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Painting of the day

  Chandu @ Camp Mumbai
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How did the 1914 War Affect Indian Handloom Production?

By Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan The 1914-18 War significantly impacted Indian handloom production, primarily by exposing the industry's precarious dependence on mills for its yarn supply . Shortage of Raw Materials The war led to a sharp decrease in cloth imports and a corresponding increase in internal demand. Indian mills responded by consuming a larger portion of their own yarn production, which left considerably less "free yarn" available for handloom weavers. In the quinquennium of 1916-17 to 1920-21, mills consumed 1,644 million lbs. of yarn, while the amount reaching handlooms dropped to 1,097 million lbs.. Additionally, the scarcity and high cost of dyes severely hampered the production of coloured goods, such as saris, kailis, and lungis. Net imports of dyes fell from a pre-war average of over 15 million lbs. to just 0.7 million lbs. in 1915-16, causing dye prices to rise nine-fold. Decline in Production As a result of these shortages, total handloom produc...
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From Caste to Craft: How Hereditary Weaving Communities Shaped India’s Textile Identity

From Caste to Craft: How Hereditary Weaving Communities Shaped India’s Textile Identity By Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan Long before the factory existed, India clothed the world from the loom. Behind this achievement stood not individual artisans, but entire communities — peoples for whom weaving was not merely a trade, but a birthright, a cosmology, a way of inhabiting the earth.   India has been a producer of cotton cloth from time immemorial and is generally regarded as the birthplace of cotton manufacture. The marvellously woven tissues and sumptuously inwrought apparel of ancient India were not only used within the country but found their way into Egypt, Greece and Rome. In ancient Rome, Indian muslins and chintzes were the rage of fashionable women. Yarn of very high counts was then in use and it is a marvel how such fine yarn was spun by hand in those days. The principal centres of this ancient industry were Dacca, Masulipatam and Paithan — name...
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