Call it the New Clone Age, but pashmina wool is on the verge of a science-generated comeback in the Kashmir Valley. The successful cloning of pashmina goat, which produces the famous and pricey cashmere wool, has revived hopes for the dwindling traditional shawl-making industry of the Valley.
Born on March 9 this year, the cloned goat christened ‘Noori’ (meaning ‘light’ in Arabic) was the first in the world created by Professor Riaz Ahmad Shah and his team of six scientists, under a World Bank-funded project.
“Noori is the first cloned Pashmina goat in the world and she represents a major breakthrough for us,” says Prof Shah, who works at the SK University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology’s Centre of Animal Biotechnology.
Shah and his team used a simple method involving little more than a microscope and petri dish to produce ‘Noori’. The noted scientist, who had cloned India’s first buffalo ‘Samrupa’ three years ago, says the method “can readily be replicated across the Kashmir Valley”.
The fine cashmere wool-producing pashmina goats, which are only spotted at an altitude of 14,000 feet in Ladakh—the coldest region of Jammu and Kashmir—can now be reared in lower altitudes like Kashmir Valley.
Shah says cloning can not only increase the number of goats but the quality of wool yielded from them will also be finer than those existing naturally. The trend could bolster the Himalayan pashmina industry, which, according to traders, brings in `8 crore a year. “Pashmina goats are of economic importance because its main function is pashmina wool. Industry related to this is worth `500 crore. So, this is a product which has got a bearing on the economy of our state,” says Shah, whose young team is now preparing to clone a heard of pashmina goats. Eventually, this group of scientists hopes to clone the endangered species such as the Kashmir stag or Hangul—the only surviving species of the Asian red deer.
Efforts of Prof Riaz and his team have brought a ray of hope for more than 20,000 families associated with the pashmina shawl industry in Kashmir. The dwindling number of goats and the duplicate variants of the pashmina shawl once made famous by Emperor Napoleon’s wife Josephine in France have pushed the industry into difficult times. “Although duplicates have been pushed into the market at much lower prices, there is no match for the tightly-spun and hand-woven by craftsmen in Kashmir,” says Mir Jaleel, a local trader.
The pashmina goat must be carefully reared in the cold and windy conditions to stimulate growth of the fine wool on its underbelly. Jaleel feels if such rearing is possible in the atmospheric conditions of the Valley, the commercial impact would be huge not only for the tradesmen but for the state as a whole. Jaleel, who runs an arts and crafts shop at Nehru Park on the banks of Dal Lake in Srinagar, thinks the trend could help genuine pashmina shawl-makers.
The shawl-making cottage industry has long been a source of income for thousands of women who spin the yarn before it goes to looms where it is hand-woven. But manufacturers in Punjab now import wool from Australia and New Zealand, and then spin it on machines, treat it with chemicals and pass it off as pashmina, says Jaleel. “Even China tried its hand at the pashmina shawl but failed. The beauty of our shawl lies in the way our women spin it and the weavers weave it,” he says.
Sujat Mantoo, a handicrafts businessman in Delhi, is delighted at the news. He feels not only would cloning help revive the pashmina shawl industry but also help its export grow from the state. Mantoo says while a genuine pashmina shawl costs between `20,000 and `25,000, most Kashmiri traders who hawk in different cities of India sell the variants made in Punjab owing to their low costs. “A duplicate shawl sold in Indian cities is priced somewhere between `3,000 and `5,000,” he says, adding hawkers pass the Punjab-made shawl off as pashmina even to the people of the state where it is manufactured. “Post-cloning, more pashmina goats would mean more production of the genuine pashmina shawl and that could also bring down the cost, thereby making it accessible to middle-class Indians,” the young entrepreneur says.
Mantoo’s business partner Gowhar Khan is already pinning hopes on the revival of Chiru or Tibetan antelope which produces shahtoosh, a type of wool that is even more priced than cashmere.
The animal has been placed on the protected list since 1975 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The shahtoosh shawl fetched around $5,000 a piece until the Central Government banned it in 1991.