A design for the crafts of India: New life for crafts of India
Rajeev Sethi flags off an initiative to infuse life into India's dying crafts and make them self- sustaining too.
Even those who love to flaunt exquisite weaves from across the country in their collection of sarees and fabrics may not have heard of the Baavan Booti Saree of Nalanda, Bihar. Simply because it was last woven almost half-a-century ago. The hands that worked the looms for this weave are now either rolling beedis locally or working the rickshaws in Patna or earning daily wages as rent labour in distant Haryana's durrie factories.
When culture czar Rajeev Sethi visited the Nalanda villages about two years ago, to revive the craft under the project Jiyo! of the Asian Heritage Foundation, he was greeted by vacant sheds full of looms lying still.
Gradually, as the foundation started getting the women of the villages involved in restoring the weave to make it economically viable, many of their men folk visiting home on leave decided to stay back for sometime to help out. Now, with the inputs of Sethi and the textile design graduates of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), like Pradeep Pillai, the first renewed Baavan Booti Saree (with 52 motifs), albeit on coarse fabric, is ready.
This sample, along with those of many other endangered crafts from other parts of the country, is going to be up on display and sale in the city at Jiyo! The Lotus Bazaar, an exhibition being held by the Asian Heritage Foundation at the World Bank Lawns from April 1 to 3. Earlier, on March 31, the project will be formally unveiled at the Gandhi Smriti, Tees January Marg, with a oneday symposium titled Naya Daur, to be attended by pioneers in conservation of cultural industries from South Asian countries.
"It's not just about culture but about economy," says Sethi. "Economic growth defeats itself if nearly 10 million people get ready to join the workforce every year without enough jobs in the existing industries. We cannot attain overall growth by ignoring the fast growing creative industry," he adds. What these artisans are doing is what they have known for generations and what they are good at like nobody else in the world. Sethi adds that the foundation is ensuring management training for the artisans too so that they don't remain dependant on 'middlemen' from urban India.
The project is supported by the World Bank, with funding by the JSDF, the Japan Social Development Fund. "Beginning 2006, we had these series of debates with the Planning Commission and the World Bank on the cultural legacy of developing countries. My suggestion to the Planning Commission was to not set up another ministry to look after this, adding to the existing nine. I prepared three reports but nobody read them. Then the World Bank came up with support, with a sizeable contribution by the JSDF," informs Sethi. The first phase of Jiyo, which is now ready to be showcased focuses on the "poorest of the poor artisans in India, from Bihar and Andhra."
It's the arrival of the Swadeshi brand in the new century, he says. Arts and crafts being featured include, besides the Baavan Booti weave, natural fibre innovations with Sikki grass from Muzaffarpur, Tholu Bommalata or shadow puppetry from Andhra Pradesh, automated wooden toys from Etikopakka in Andhra, sarees/ stoles in Sujni embroidery from Bihar, scrolls, modular wall paper and tables in Kalamkari and Madhubani paintings, and more.
At the foundation's office at South Extension Part II, artisans from various villages of Bihar, Bengal and Andhra are presently busy giving shape to various aspects of the Lotus Bazaar. While Amitra Sudan Saha, a graduate of the Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur, is busy with the Sikki artisans, Ravi Kant Dwivedi, a graduate of Kalaniketan, Santiniketan, is working on the dying puppetry form from Jharkhand, the Chadar Badar. Glenn L. Chhangt, a graduate of the National Institute of Design, is putting in motion the wooden toys from Etikopakka whereas Pradeep Pillai is thinking of means to create Baavan Booti products for the international tourists visiting Gaya and Nalanda. Says Pillai, "We are making Norens (Japanese curtains) in Baavan Booti with motifs derived from the Buddhist lore."
An interesting aspect of the upcoming exercise will be the presence of celebrated international theatre personality, Ariene Mnouchkine for 10 days, for a workshop for SASIAN Journeys, a commingling of more than 200 traditional performers, artisans, craftspeople, cooks, healers and technicians. The theatrical representation that will be born out of this workshop is slated to travel through the West, culminating in Washington D.C. as part of the Smithsonian South- Asia Folklife Festival.
The scale of the project is humungous, the craftsmen involved mindboggling, the crafts being resusci- tated special and the impact, likely to be far-reaching.
As for the citizens of Delhi, it's yet another excuse to go shopping.
The symposium Naya Daur will be held on March 31 at the Gandhi Smriti, Tees January Marg; the Lotus Bazaar will be held from April 1 to 3, on the World Bank lawns.
WHAT'S JIYO?
It's a project of the Asian Heritage Foundation that seeks to prop up indigenous arts and crafts by making them viable for the artisans.
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