Nearing Extinction - A story of the weavers of Venkatagiri

G Nagayya and his wife are still in drudgery at the dusk of their lives

Thirty-five-year old G. Kesavulu’s day begins at 5 a.m. He gets straight to work, which goes on until his first break at nine, when his wife, Shobha, takes over the machine for an hour. Kesavulu resumes work for a couple of hours and, when he breaks for lunch, Shobha takes over again for another hour. The cycle goes on until the couple are dead on their feet. All this toil earns them merely Rs. 8000 ($128) a month.

The couple are weavers of the famous Venkatagiri village, a hamlet known for its handloom tradition. They reside in a weavers’ colony at Bangarupeta, about 3 k.m. away from Venkatagiri in the South Indian State of Andhra Pradesh.

Kesavulu and his wife toil throughout the day to earn merely Rs 8,000 a month. 

Venkatagiri is known for its variety of handlooms. They produce sarees of pure cotton, cotton and silk mix, and pure silk. In their days of prosperity, these artisans weaved exclusively for the kings of the region and the income from this sufficed them for the whole year.

However, the modern day story is very different. This famous village of weavers is in crisis. The traditional art of weaving is likely to be extinct there with the last generation of seasoned fingers caressing the threads. Power looms have taken over and these artisans, who had carried on the legacy for generations, are paid a meagre remuneration for their labour.

The weavers, along with their old and the young, toil all day to keep the 500 odd looms in the village running. Nonetheless, the silence of the looms at Venkatagiri seems imminent.

In a single circular room, one half of which is occupied by a loom, G. Nagayya along with his wife Eeramma, are still in drudgery at the dusk of their lives. The other half of the room, serves as the cooking and living space for the couple who are in their 60s. They weave Venkatagiri-sada sarees (simple sarees), in the traditional way, unaided by machines.

Nagayya earns the traditional way, unaided by machines 

“Young people can weave four or six sarees a month but my wife and I being old, we can make only two.” The couple produce the material for the simple colour-blocked sarees at home, and sell them to a master weaver at Rs. 1000 ($16) a saree.

 “We get a pension of Rs. 1000 each. Including that, we manage with the Rs. 4000 ($64) that we make a month,” says Eeramma. “If we could do anything else, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

Nagayya’s progeny are also weavers and live close by. His grandchildren attend school and do not want to become weavers, but he is sure that weaving will not wither away. “There will always be slackers who won’t study and they won’t have any option but to resort to this. Weaving will continue forever.” Nagayya’s optimism itself reflected the irony of their lives.

Some weavers use CAD-punched sheets that can operate the loom

Earlier, every house had at least two looms, but now there is only one. “Weaving is dying,” says Kesavulu nonchalantly, as he labours away at his ‘machine loom’, standing in the pit from which he can operate the loom. He makes intricate movements with his hands. CAD-punched sheets that determine the design on sarees hang overhead, and cast a pattern of light and shadow on him. It takes his family four full days to finish a silk saree, if they push themselves to the limit for the entire period.

In the outer room, his wife Shobha spins the thread for the sarees on a floor charkha (spinning wheel), which most women in the village, old, and young are seen spinning away at, at all times. Further, she dyes the thread according to the specific colour scheme of each saree.

“If one of us falls sick we have to forego the income for those days. With our expenses, we can’t afford to fall behind even a single day,” she says.

Most weavers do not want the next generation to come into the profession as they do not see a future in it. 

Handloom production is for the most part, de-centralised, and a master weaver (trader), commissions small weavers to weave sarees, and at times, as in the case of Kesavulu, provides them with raw materials. Kesavulu sells a saree for Rs. 1500 ($24) which, he says, is sold in the market for about Rs. 6000 ($96).

Forty nine-year-old Lakka Srinivasulu, who calls himself a ‘designer and a weaver’, weaves some of the most labyrinthine designs on his sarees. It takes him almost five months to weave a saree that eventually earns him Rs. 1.5 lakhs ($2402). According to him, the remuneration depends on the skill level of a weaver. “I was lucky enough to be noticed by a master-weaver when I was young, and was able to learn a lot of designs.”

Srinivasulu is also a part-time lecturer at the Indian Institute of Handloom Technology at Venkatagiri, one of nine such institutes in the country. “The college has only two full-time teachers. I teach them Computer Aided Design and update them on the technology which, sadly, very few people can afford to keep up with.”

A master weaver commissions small weavers to weave sarees

In a house in the next street, sixteen-year-old P. Parvathi is sitting in one corner of a room holding a notebook, while her mother and grandmother are working on a loom at the front veranda. Parvathi says she wants to become a Telugu (the language of Andhra Pradesh) teacher. “There is no future in this profession,” she says uncomfortably. Her mother, Vani, who is 35, chimes in, “I will see my best so that my kids don’t have to resort to this.”

Ch. Ranagaraju, president of the local weavers association, and a weaver himself, sympathises with the younger generation who are looking for alternate employment. He said the government must support the weavers, for weaving to become a sustainable livelihood. “We went to Delhi a few months ago and met a Cabinet minister who promised to help us, but so far we haven’t heard anything from them. The government needs to concentrate on skill development.”

Lakshmiamma has been weaving since she was 14 and despite physical ailments, she still continues even in her 70s

Being the second largest employer after agriculture, India’s handloom sector is not just an important part of the economy, but it is also a part of the country’s cultural traditions.

According to the third National Handloom census (2009-10) there are 43.31 lakh (4.3 million ) weavers in India.

The Indian government does allocate some resources to the development of the handloom sector in its annual budget, but the numbers are shrinking every year. For instance, the allocation for the National Handloom Development Programme has decreased from Rs. 362 crore ($58 million approximately) in 2014-15 to Rs. 150.00 crore ($24 million approximately) in 2015-16.

Handloom is the second largest employer after agriculture

The various schemes for the welfare of weavers, including insurance, distress relief and occupational heath would not have a significant impact unless there is a marked increase in the budgetary support.

Handloom adopts environment friendly processes where energy consumption, capital investment and infrastructure requirements are minimal. In the current scenario where the push for a greener technology is stronger than ever, the survival of handlooms and hand-spinning is imperative.

(The story was co-written with Sadhana Chathurvedula and originally published in Contributoria )