Handicrafts: A neglected industrial sector in Kashmir

Kashmir is blessed with rich history and cultural heritage,which shows the traditions and culture of the valley and produces variety ofcrafts such as woodcrafts, pottery, jewellery, stone-carving, etc. Thehandicrafts from different parts of state have their own uniqueness, yet, thetraditional craft, which has endured for hundreds of years, is on gradualdecline among the Kashmiri people.

Handmade carpet industry is not only a major earner of theforeign exchange for the economy but also a contributor to the povertyreduction in the rural areas. This industry is spread all over Kashmir withhighest concentration in remote rural areas as families belonging to theseareas, especially women, can easily enter this sector as an occupation, sinceit requires minimal infrastructural facilities. One of the major issues facedby the “Handmade Carpet Manufacturing” is the low wages of employees ascompared to other industries that require skilled labour. Many workers are ableto earn twice or thrice more in other sectors, than in the carpet industry, dueto which they switch over to other industries. Another drawback prevailing inthis industry is the cost and time incurred on one finished product. On averagea carpet takes several months to be finished, which means that every workerneeds to be paid for months on one carpet before a finished product is ready tobe sold in the market.

   

Despite many opportunities available in this sector andadvantage of cultural heritage, this industry has been immensely ignored, with lowskilled work force and old methods still adopted in manufacturing process dueto which this sector has faced a huge loss of international market share.Though the demand for hand knotted carpets is rising, the local industry set uphas not been organised enough to cash this opportunity.

Due to industrialisation, burgeoning growth in substituteproducts, rapid changes in consumer tastes, paucity of raw materials, thehandicraft industry in the state has lost its place in the market because themachine-made products are very cheaper and handicraft products require complexlabour work with low profit margin. Moreover, the rising price of raw materialsand low marketing network has put this industry in miserable state. Apart fromagriculture and livestock, the alternative source of income is handicrafts.

As far as the provision of credit facilities are concerned,there are several institutions/schemes which provide funding facilities butmost of the rural artisans are unaware about such schemes and generallyfinancial institutions require security to payback the loans, which is a majorobstacle for artisans as they hardly can provide any security.

One of major weakness of rural artisan is the low level ofeducation, very small number of institutes available in rural areas to providecraft education and most of the artisans are unable to get benefit either dueto low awareness or poor access. Moreover, the education and research relatedto traditional crafts were not added in professional institutes, which is alsoa major obstacle to pass cultural heritage knowledge to younger generation.

 Lack of innovation indesign and emphasized that artisans should adopt modern tastes of customers tocompete in the market. In addition, the poor infrastructure has damaged thissector, which hinders production process leading to uncompetitive business.Moreover, due to unwillingness of young generation to pursue this career, manycraft tradition have disappeared and many are struggling for survival.

Conclusions

The heritage embodied in crafts is valuable cultural assetfor any nation; it indicates culture and traditions of a particular region. Thecraft production is very vital part of economies in several developing nations.Thus it becomes necessary and justified to pay attention in terms ofappropriate policy measures to protect and preserve the craft tradition.Moreover, various organizations and governments have only focused on thepreservation of the traditional products. Thus, the question of transmittingcraft related skills and knowledge from generation to generation exists. Thepresent piece explored and identified several issues faced by traditionalcraftsmanship in order to contribute to the sustainability of heritage-basedlivelihoods and to preserve the cultural heritage. The purpose of safeguardingtraditional craftsmanship is to ensure the transmission of craft related skillsand practices from generation to generation.

 Author, a PhD inmanagement studies, is presently working on a project on youth entrepreneurshipand education in conflict areas at Kashmir University

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