Srinagar: As the government celebrated National Handloom day on Friday in various functions across India, Kashmiri artisans under distress continued to remain stuck in their homes, ruing the fate of their traditional art pieces, which remain unsold due to back-to-back lockdowns that began August last.
One of them is Ghulam Muhammad, an artisan who weaves pashmina, without work for mote than a year. His loom, which is situated on the outskirts of Srinagar, has gathered dust.
“A fresh order seems like a dream now,” he said while speaking to Kashmir Reader. “Last year’s post-August 5 situation and then the lockdown of Covid put everything at standstill.”
Muhammad’s customers are domestic as well as international. Exporters buy the fabric, which is one of the best-quality wool in the world, for Muhammad to weave various designs on it, then sell it directly to customers. For a year now, the exporters have got the product no further than Kashmir.
Muneer Ahmad, an exporter of Pashmina, says that there has been absolutely no trade for over a year now.
“This is what has confined us to our rooms,” said Muhammad, who is the only earner in his five-member family, three of whom are daughters who have completed their graduation.
As per government figures, there are about 50,000 weavers working on looms in the valley. According to president of the Kashmir Artisans Rehabilitation Forum, Parvez Ahmad Bhat, the artisan community which was already in decline has suffered a crushing blow as a result of lockdowns.
The looms are close to shutdown, he said. “People have left the work of handlooms due to less returns, and now whosoever was making a living from it has been discouraged due to the lockdowns. The worst part is that all this has happened in open glare of the government, which has done nothing about it,” Bhat said.
The government’s seriousness can be seen in its actions. Quietly, unlike its publicity stunts on national day of handlooms, the Union Ministry of Textiles abolished the All India Handloom Board (AIHB) in the last week of July, taking those associated with this industry by surprise.
In Kashmir, the Directorate of Handicrafts & Handloom participated in a function on Friday organised through video conferencing by the Union Ministry of Textiles in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi e-launched the National Handloom Day celebrations. The Textiles Ministry launched a mobile application for ‘Handloom Brand’ as well as #Vocal4Handmade hashtag for promotion of handloom products, which was inspired by the Prime Minister’s call of ‘Vocal for Local’.