She is perhaps best known as the founder of Dastakaari Haat Samiti and for her concern for traditional handicrafts of India. More recently, she was in the news for kickstarting the #100Saripact.
Politician and activist Jaya Jaitly, who was in Coimbatore recently for the inauguration of the 24th session of the Indian Art History Congress, spoke passionately about the need to allow folk art to keep its identity intact. On the sidelines of the sessions, she spoke about the handicrafts sector and why she chose to work in that field. Excerpts.
What led you to work in the handicrafts sector?
I have always loved arts and aesthetics and creative cultural expressions. Also my family is very social-work oriented. So, for me to serve the public by promoting art was the perfect combination of personal inclination and cause. Craftspeople inspire me to inspire them.
There is a general feeling that our crafts are and artisans are endangered. Would you agree?
There are craftsmen who have skills like masonry, woodcraft and the like. If architects and interior decorators will associate with them, it will add a new set of skills to these artisans and uplift them to the status of a professional. Professionals have a responsibility to see that these skills don’t fade away.
At the same time, a whole lot of crafts are created anew depending on geographical region, laws, design and other inputs. In Uttarakhand, for example, shawls and stoles are made of fibre from hemp and plants like nettles. Some crafts have been lost because they fulfilled a social need that does not exist anymore. But we have to be able to convert it to a contemporary use. We have to carry them along as we progress.
What were the reasons behind forming the the Dastakaari Haat Samiti?
I have attended a lot of conferences and all that I heard was craftsmen need finance, raw material, design inputs as if these were the most important things. But I felt, from my experience, that if you provided a market these things will fall into place. We talk about global markets but we will not provide a market for our craftsmen. We will allow Pepsi and potato chips to come in but we will let our artisans sit on the pavement and get chewed up by policemen.
So the idea was to create a common platform; where crafts didn’t matter, gender didn’t matter. The purpose was to sell. And so they started helping each other. The bag maker would get handles from the bamboo craftsmen. So this became a place for promotion, awareness building and confidence building. It brought them into direct contact with their customers rather than have intermediaries. That’s how Dastakaari Haat led to the creation of Dilli Haat.
Now we have periodic bazaars more for the craftsperson to get feedback directly from their customers, rather than from designers who want to control that knowledge or experience.
You had a book on textiles of Varanasi out recently. Why that city specifically?
I kept going to Varanasi to work with the weavers and I found that the books about the place were about the Ganga and the spirituality of the city etc. There is an equally important tradition of handloom weaving there. There is a legend that when the Buddha died, his body was wrapped in a cloth woven in Varanasi. Some of the stupas have these textile designs carved in stone on them. There is ancient tradition and the weavers are doing fabulous work. But they are suffering; some are selling blood at blood banks to feed their family. So I wanted create a book that people would pick up — lots of tourists do that — and go look for these weavers.
What is the status of your dream project, the Hastakala Academy?
It is coming into being; it’s still in the ABC stage. It was accepted in the Plan document by the UPA government and announced by the NDA government. In the last year’s budget, Rs.30 crores was allocated for it. Now there are lots of procedures and files to clear.
This should be crucible of the cultural story behind every craft in India. Every craft has a root, a meaning, a reason why it existed and why certain things are produced in a certain way. If we have that, we don’t have to fear China. They can only replicate the object; they cannot add the cultural history behind it. The cultural history adds a lot of value to that object. Say you replicate a tattoo design on a textile, you can say that this design came from a particular community that lived in a specific region and the reason why they made the tattoo. I’m hoping that the Hastakala Academy will gather all this knowledge and document it.
You had written two books for children showcasing Indian art traditions. Why didn't you write any more?
I’m not a fiction writer but I felt it was necessary to educate the urban child about a craftsman’s family. You have to have a certain element of adventure, magic and yet root it in something through which a child will learn to appreciate the art and value system. Also there was an UNESCO grant for a project so I thought ‘why not do this?’
A few words about your passion for the sari.
Well I think it’s strong feeling of confidence in one’s own identity. I think we are privileged to be born in India where we can wear this as an everyday dress. How does it even compare with the LBD of the West? You can’t compare the two. Some say inconvenient but I ask if skin-tight jeans and five-inch heels is not more inconvenient. I think the idea of inconvenience is more in the mind.
Prema Rangachary is the Director of Vidya Vanam, a school for tribal and underprivileged children in Anaikatti, near Coimbatore
