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NREGA ties Bhadohi in knots by Geetanjali Krishna


The other day, I met a few carpet manufacturers from Mirzapur who were fuming about the state of affairs there. “In spite of the best weaving wages that we’re able to pay, far too many weavers have now turned to other jobs,” one complained. The recession in the West led to a massive slowdown in carpet exports, reducing the number of orders for weavers. Many found alternative jobs under the NREGA (the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and did not want to return to their traditional trade that offered fewer guarantees. So, when the market saw a slight upswing and carpet exporters began receiving larger orders, they discovered to their dismay that there were hardly any weavers left to execute the orders.

Recently, a desperate manufacturer actually offered Maruti 800s as weaving bonuses, and still found few takers amongst weavers! And to make matters worse, Indian carpets had to compete with much cheaper Chinese machine-made knock-offs that could be woven in a day (similar rugs in India could take human hands several weeks to weave). “It’s a vicious circle. Unless we get orders, we can’t commission weavers to weave carpets. But unless there are enough weavers to weave for us, how can we even take new orders?” they said. At the same time, they could also see why weavers, who were uncertain of their future and without a regular source of income, would want to leave at the first glimpse of a better opportunity.

No wonder then that people are wondering about the future of Bhadohi’s carpet industry that provides employment to around 3.2 million people in Uttar Pradesh. A couple of decades ago, most of the carpet production in this belt was of hand-knotted carpets. Today, this has changed. The bulk of the industry’s revenues comes from hand-tufted rugs that are cheaper to make and faster to produce.

That’s why my interest was piqued when I heard that on September 4, hand-knotted carpets of Bhadohi were finally granted Geographical Indication (GI) status. This means that hand-woven carpets in nine adjoining districts that make up UP’s carpet belt — Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Ghazipur, Sonebhadra, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Jaunpur and Chandauli — will now be allowed the use of an exclusive trademark, Hand Knotted Carpets of Bhadohi.

What would a tag like this really mean? According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, it will prevent the unauthorised use of the registered GI by third parties, boost exports and bring economic prosperity to this handmade carpet-weaving cluster. At the level of promoting Indian carpets in world markets, this sounds great. For starters, it may be useful for curbing the cheap imitations that have eroded the market share of genuine Bhadohi carpets. It may also help establish Bhadohi carpets as an international brand.

At ground zero, however, for the thousands of weavers, dyers, washers and carpet design makers in the Bhadohi carpet belt, the fact that the carpets they create have GI status now has little meaning. What they know is that their source of livelihood is incredibly labour-intensive and skilled — yet they are not even assured of a regular monthly income. In fact, that is why many master weavers have preferred to forget their traditional skill honed over generations, and have chosen the unskilled road work that the NREGA offers.

If only the government offered employment guarantees to people like them based on their traditional skills ... for without weavers, the future of the Hand Knotted Carpets of Bhadohi looks bleak, GI or no GI.