The large shed — a common Karnataka Handloom Development Corporation (KHDC) centre for weavers and workers to work — echoed our conversation as the dead pitlooms stared at us.
In a corner of the shed, lay dyeing equipments — rusted, dusty and disintegrating — parked in another corner was a Tata Sumo, with similar signs of ruin. The place was overcome with cobwebs, plaster had peeled and the remaining looms and other furniture had rusted. There was a small office for supervisors too.
“Earlier, we were one of the best. This shed housed over 40 looms, all brimming with colourful silk yardage and sarees. There was no dearth of work,” said Shiva Kumar, a retired KHDC official.
My eyes went towards an old couple who were still working on the warp of a pitloom. Looking at the dusty, faded fabric that was half-woven, I deciphered that they were summoned there to ‘show weaving to the guests’.
In just over twenty years, due to sheer neglect, the once thriving handloom weaving unit at Kalluru, near Gubbi in Tumkur district, had now collapsed into a ghostly silence. Kalluru was one of KHDC’s flagship centers, with over 200 weavers and workers involved with production of fine quality silk sarees.
Almost every household here, at some time, was employed with the KHDC. According to the official figures, the number of handlooms at Kalluru is around 75, however, the ground reality is different.
According to the fourth handloom census 2019-20 conducted by the Central Government, the official number of weavers by employment status in Karnataka is around 27,000, which includes weavers employed by master weavers, state-run Handloom Development Corporation, Khadi & Village Industries Board and Co-operative societies. This is about one-third of what was recorded in the third handloom census 2009-10. Even if we ignore the fact that these figures are far from accurate, this alarming decline in numbers and the continued downward trend reflects the apathy of successive governments.
Brief history of handloom weaving
Handloom weaving was considered a respectable profession, with highly-skilled weavers commanding a good price for their work. They were all entrepreneurs in their own right.
The weaving clusters had organically sprung up and thrived in complete alignment with other sectors in Karnataka. For instance, the cotton weaving clusters of Ilkal and Gajendragada in North Karnataka, which were primarily cotton growing regions, and Kollegala, Kodiyala and Molakalmuru were silk rearing regions. These clusters helped various rural sectors grow hand-in-hand and resulted in a thriving local community of producers and consumers.
However, with the advent of automated looms and powerlooms, which were gruesomely forced upon our weaving communities by the British, the intricate fabric of the symbiotic rural economy was damaged.
With mechanisation came the large, centralised factories that would process homogenised cotton bought from farmers and feed them to the automated looms, removing the human connection between farming and weaving communities. The remaining handloom weavers, who refused to give up their ancestral profession, were reduced to a few isolated pockets.
State-run handloom development corporation
Over the years, the Union and state governments have made several efforts to revive the handloom sector, with policies and schemes to improve their livelihoods. However, the widening gap between policies and their implementation, compounded with inefficiency, corruption and lack of clear intent has worsened the situation on the ground.
“This shed belongs to (the) KHDC. The central government wanted to lease this land to a petrol pump. We put up a resistance saying how can a shed designated for weaving be given away to a petrol pump? And they shelved the project, at least for the time being,” explained Shiva Kumar.
I realised the sense of belonging that the locals still had for this shed; they owed their livelihoods to the KHDC and they knew that as long as the shed stood, there was hope. Giving away the land to a petrol pump would mean a point of no return and the weavers could not accept that.
A weaver at work in Kalluru, near Gubbi in Tumkur district. Photo: Ratheesh Pisharody
Facing this large shed was another building that used to house the dyeing unit. The dyeing work also trickled down and eventually came to a standstill since five years. The large boilers that were under repair had started to disintegrate; crores of rupees in infrastructure and equipment were just lying around and turning to dust because of neglect.
“There have been no good officers since a few terms; the ones who came would hardly visit the centre and would divert whatever little funds that were allocated elsewhere,” Shiva Kumar lamented.
Before I could ask him if he could have done anything, he continued:
“What could I do, I was just a junior officer; we are all responsible for the state this unit is in today.” As if confessing would absolve him of the crime.
The KHDC was one of the largest government-run handloom enterprises in the country, employing over 40,000 weavers across Karnataka, just a few years ago.
It was run as a corporation, which invested government funds for infrastructure, working capital and paid wages to the weavers for their work. The wages were competitive enough, the year-round work satisfactory, and incentives like housing helped the weavers stay with the corporation over the years. Even when the corporation ran at a loss, they promised to buy the goods from weavers to secure livelihoods.
But in the last decade, the decline of the KHDC has been rapid and uncontrolled. Mismanagement, corrupt officials, bad marketing strategy and unfavourable policies for handlooms have almost brought it to the brink of extinction. Now, with its own survival in question, the KHDC is unable to support weavers, and slowly, the weavers are reduced to actual numbers less than 4,000. This has left thousands of handloom weavers in a state of destitution. Some moved to powerlooms, some became daily wage workers taking up work that they were not skilled at and eventually they were left to fend for themselves.
The silk sarees produced at Kalluru were sold at good prices at the state run Priyadarshini showrooms, ensuring a stable source of income for the weavers. Kalluru is still famous for silk sarees, just that, the sarees sold in the thriving stores — Kancheevaram, Dharmavaram, Molakalmuru, Gadwal and other famous weaves — are not produced here, but sourced from outside and resold.
The challenge of the automated machines
There were no powerlooms earlier, but now, the younger generation, who have not yet migrated out of Kalluru, prefer to operate powerlooms as they seem easier than sitting for hours in a pitloom and working. Since there is not much of a difference in the earning of a handloom weaver vs a powerloom weaver, there were no incentives to offer for hard work.
The powerlooms not just snatched away jobs, but also drove the prices of products down, leaving the handloom weaver to unfairly compete with the faster machines. To make matters worse, the development in technology was heavily partial to the automated machines, with the ability to quickly copy any intricate designs and reproduce them in less time. The cheaper powerloom sarees that flooded the market made it impossible for the handloom weavers to survive because they were sold as handwoven.
Even today, the biggest problem of handloom and powerloom co-existing is that the powerloom sarees are sold as handloom. The Handloom Reservation Act of 1985 had reserved about 11 products to be exclusively woven on handlooms — such as towels, dhoti, sarees etc. But the lack of implementation of the Act and further amendments that have diluted it over the years has ensured that authenticity of handloom products sold in the market is questionable.
We visited a house in the weavers’ colony where a young man named Mahesh was operating a powerloom. The loud sound of the machine drowned our conversation and made us leave the place quickly. I learnt that Mahesh was earlier a handloom weaver but had moved to powerloom.
He explained that weaving by handloom takes at least two days to complete a saree with butta and he managed to earn a wage of Rs 1000 per saree. Whereas on powerloom, three sarees can be completed within a day, each saree fetching Rs 300. Although, it was not always that they would get raw-material to produce three sarees per day, as the demand had to be balanced. And, the erratic power cuts ensured that they could not keep up with this pace. Even then, Mahesh was clear that the youth were not ready to work on handloom, which being slower and consistent, had ensured that there was enough work for all the days.
Next door was Jawaraiah, who was in his 60s. He was working on a beautiful Priyadarshini saree when we walked into his house. Proud of his work, he was happy to explain the technique of weaving-in buttas. He was aware that he was one of the few remaining handloom weavers who continued the profession.
“I am getting old, and slow, the machine is too fast and noisy. I cannot operate it. It might be okay with younger men, but for me, it’s still the pitloom,” he explained candidly.
He said that his son works in Bangalore, but he prefers to continue working in Kalluru as long as possible.
A short distance from the weavers’ colony, we visited a house where two women were working on two separate warps. Jagadamba, a young woman was weaving a beautiful gadwal saree. Theirs was a traditional old house with space in the main hall for three warps, two of which were in use, and an attic where they stocked the sarees.
“We work privately for a silk shop owner in Andhra. We weave Gadwal sarees which are in demand there. They give the designs and coloured yarn and we offer our labour in terms of weaving,”Jagadamba explained.
Bhagayamma, the other woman who was working on the warp was involved in a process called kecchu, a pre-loom technique of passing each strand of yarn through the comb-like pins of metal that hang on the loom to keep the yarns separated from each other. This process, also known as warping in general, is a necessary pre-loom process and is practiced by only seasoned, experienced handloom weavers. She was a neighbour of Jagadamba and an expert in this skill. She said that she did the kecchu work for several weavers in the village.
Anasuyamma was another woman weaver we met on the same street. She was widowed at a very young age and had returned to her hometown Kalluru, with her two daughters. She picked up weaving and started earning to keep her family afloat and get her daughters educated.
“It was very difficult for me to manage initially, but now I am used to sitting at the loom. It has helped me educate my daughters and earn a dignified living in my village,” she said pragmatically.
Her elder daughter was married, the younger one was in high school and stayed with her. Anasuyamma was appreciative of the KHDC which gave her a livelihood. She liked the fact that they supplied the yarn and took the fabric from her at regular periods; unlike private markets which were unpredictable. However, of late, she feared the uncertainty looming, with work drastically reduced.
“Earlier, I used to sit all day and weave and still had enough work to do for the entire month. Now, I restrict myself to just four hours a day fearing that I will not have work in the coming days. The yarn supply has drastically reduced and so has my earning,” she laments.
Yet, unlike a few others, she says she will not be able to cope with the powerlooms.
“Being a woman, they are too fast and very noisy for my liking, I prefer the handloom and working at home at my own pace,” Anasuyamma said.
Handloom was more inclusive, hand-spinning and weaving would together ensure that nobody was left out. There was a role for everyone to play in the production — old people would be either weaving or spinning, women would do weaving, pre-loom activities in their free time, children would participate in helping with the pre-loom activities as well.
The powerlooms are operated by younger men who can monitor up to three looms running in parallel, excluding the larger workforce from employment opportunities and reducing the number of employed to a great extent. In many cases, automated looms are situated away from homes, in smaller sheds or factories that prevent the participation of women who find it difficult to leave their household duties and go to work.
Future potential of handwoven
In recent times, with the market for handwoven and traditional weaves growing, customers are willing to pay a good price for authentic products. And, especially, with the market trends collectively moving towards more sustainable means of production, with increased awareness about handlooms and khadi, it is production which is faltering.
With the world now looking towards our country for ecologically sustainable means of production, with growing population and the resulting unemployment, with depleting natural resources, it is these smaller, decentralised, rural enterprises that hold the key to sustainable forms of production.
As Handloom Day is just around the corner, the urgency to address the challenges faced by handloom weavers has never been more critical. Lack of access to markets, insufficient initial investments in design and working capital, meagre wages and decline in dignity that the weavers once enjoyed have contributed to skilled weavers leaving their traditional profession and taking up other jobs to manage their livelihoods.
The Karnataka Handloom Development Corporation (KHDC) shed in Kalluru, near Gubbi in Tumkur district. Photo: Ratheesh Pisharody
With dwindling prospects and apathy by successive state governments, the last remaining handloom weavers in Karnataka are staring at the brink of extinction. Unless we bring in better wages and access to the market to make this a lucrative and respectable profession it once was, it is difficult to draw the younger generation to this craft.
Kalluru yearns for its past glory, the bygone era when the khat-khat sound of the looms would reverberate in the entire village. The deathly silence that lingers, the dilapidated KHDC shed, which constantly reminds them of the flourishing times, has created an atmosphere of gloom and disappointment in the village. Although the hundreds of weavers have managed to find some other work, in their hearts, they hope that the KHDC would rise one day, from its ruins, like the phoenix. What we have to see is whether it would, and if it really does, whether it would be too late.
Sharada Ganesh is associated with a Rural Women’s Co-operative Society that works with handloom weavers to provide ecologically sustainable livelihood opportunities. She is presently serving as the Managing Trustee of a Bengaluru-based Desi Trust.
