The abolition of the All India Handicrafts Board and the All India Handloom Board by the Union Textile Ministry has evoked a mixed response from those working in the sector. While the decision is a welcome move that makes the weaver’s connection with the government machinery smooth by discarding the intermediaries, the matter of concern for all parties involved is how will the government ensure a smooth connection with grassroots level workers? The advisory bodies are created to help the government in formulation of the development programmes in a sector, but having too many intermediaries counters that very objective.
“Handicrafts is the second major sector after agriculture. Handloom and handicrafts provides maximum visibility to the country globally. But how much support a weaver family gets is a matter of concern,” says Sunita Budhiraja, who founded the social media campaign, Six Yards, 365 Days, 10 months ago to support weavers. Stating that having less number of authorities ‘to poke their nose into your affairs’ will be a good thing for the entire sector, Budhiraja remarks, “But it all depends on what sort of system the government works out. No use having a good idea if it cannot be implemented well.” Fashion Designer Anjul Bhandari agrees, “I am sure a lot of people will be very upset with the decision as a lot of money changes hands when the path is long and winding.
But we need to figure how much help was being provided by these boards to artisans that they have to crib about it not being there,” Bhandari ponders, adding, “Having a board or even clusters doesn’t help as there is a lot of corruption, which doesn’t help the art or artisan. We need to treat artisans as national treasure as the Japanese do. We need to be given a free hand without any pre-conditions to empower artisans.” “The government should create a platform that can assess the demands and challenges of the sector, and work proactively towards addressing them. It can be a onestop- shop like Make In India, or five-stop-shop, but the functioning should be smooth and weavers taken care of,” suggests Budhiraja.
Crafts Village Founder Iti Tyagi adds, “Both these boards were the bodies that supported artisans and weavers, the spine of handicraft and handloom sectors. Artisans need to know how they can make themselves heard without such advisory bodies.” But then there are those who totally trust the government’s decision, like Fashion Designer Gautam Gupta of label Asha Gautam, who undertook a campaign ‘Special Ode to Handloom’ to honour weavers. “This will remove a lot of bureaucratic layers. The government is streamlining the process so that there is direct interaction between the ministry and the community, which means decisions will be taken faster,” he says.
In a nutshell
Industry experts feel that the government should work out a system that has a better connect with the artisans