The centre of the National Flag is adorned with a replica of the spinning wheel. But, while weavers across the country still treasure the hoary loom inherited from their ancestors, the nation has all but erased this symbol from its memory. The spinning wheel is today a cipher. There are no national awards for craftsmen and weavers. Moreover, there is no representation at the Rajya Sabha from artisans, while there are representatives from art and film industry.
Recently, activist Jaya Jaitli — known for her work for artisans and weavers, who also conceived craft bazaar Dilli Haat and is one of the founders of Dastkar, a society for crafts and craftspeople — has proposed a Hast Kala Akademi on the lines of the other akademies such as the Sahitya Akademi Lalit Kala Akademi and the Sangeet Natak Akademi. She made the proposal to a Planning Commission working group on textiles as part of the 12th Five-Year Plan.
Jaitli, president of the Dastkar Haat Samiti, says the akademi would function as a body which nurtures a cultural heritage and builds respect beyond “marketing products” or subsidising “welfare”.
“A Hast Kala Akademi could be created as a more compact, private-public autonomous institution promoting all non-commercial explorations of the craft sector, while indirectly benefiting its economic prospects as well,” she says. They belong to social categories for which reservation is sought as a tool for empowerment. But quotas are not the only way to empower them. “We can raise the stature and self-worth of artisans by providing institutions and platforms which go beyond merely assisting them, in producing and selling better products in India and abroad,” says Jaitli.
While a Hast Kala Akademi on the lines of other akademies would raise the cultural recognition of this sector, it could support many exciting activities such as resurrecting dying crafts; encouraging skills that could come under UNESCO’s list of intangible heritage; commissioning studies linking objects to rituals, myths, legends, festivals and ceremonies; commissioning academic and informative publications to include documentation of rare crafts including region-wise processes of natural dyeing; commissioning documentaries of craftspeople in their own cultural habitat; and, organising high quality exhibitions in museums of art and ethnology in India and around the world, demonstrating the relationship between India’s crafts and its performing arts and classical literature.
According to her proposal, it is important to compile India’s major cultural heritage and creativity related to the arts, and there is no august body of this kind for crafts. This is despite the fact that this area comprises a wider range of creativity emerging from our traditional cultures than those “fine arts” promoted under the Lalit Kala Akademi. It should be possible for the government of India to set up a body constituted on the same — or even slightly altered lines — as the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the Sahitya Akademi and the Lalit Kala Akademi to bring crafts onto a higher platform. If there were a Hast Kala Akademi, it would add just that missing component which leaves crafts behind in national and international minds.
The working group and sub-groups on handicrafts and handlooms spent hours examining schemes in the ministry of textiles, and proposing new ones for the 12th Five-Year Plan. A wider consultative approach brought in many experienced activists, state organisations and thinking heads to contribute ideas for this sector: advocacy, marketing, design, promotion, entrepreneurship, brand building, education and health were all examined from the prism of existing schemes and suggestions invited for their improvement.
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However, a cursory glance of all the subjects shows they actually come under two overall heads — marketing and welfare. The end result of the exercise, while useful and positive was still an exercise in tinkering with the existing situation rather than thinking bold and big,” says Jaitli.
Pointing out the gap which exists for recognition of handicrafts and handlooms in the policy making arena, she says since Independence, government agencies handling craftspeople and their work have been divided between the khadi/gramodyog department and various ministries such as industry, rural development and textiles. Sometimes programmes are duplicated, some slip between the floorboards altogether,or crafts interests are crushed under the weight of bigger interests within the same ministry. These divisions have left crafts floundering in the cultural field, since no ministry deals with such aspects other than the ministry of culture. A composite appreciation of the cultural world from which crafts emerge and a forum for their sustenance and propagation cannot come if crafts are considered merely a cottage industry, manufacturing merchandise that needs subsidies forever.
Although marketing is crucial for craftspeople, since their interests are mainly economic, a large number are greatly proud and conscious of their cultural heritage. They demonstrate an intimate knowledge of the cultural ethos of the region to which they belong. This involves history, ethnography, myth, legend, identities and meanings, which would be lost if we address only their economic concerns , she writes in a note she sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, pressing for a Hast Kala Akademi.
If they listen, then the 12th Plan would unfold a belated recognition for the keepers of India’s tradition in arts and crafts 50 years after the other akademies were formed.