Technological innovation reshapes India's handloom sector

When National Award winner Jyotish Debnath, a weaver of fine Jamdanis, placed his 700-thread-count hand-spun muslin into the hands of textile heritage researcher, author and curator, Savitha Suri, the latter was overwhelmed. “I didn’t realise he had placed something there at all. It was so light – perhaps less than 10 grams – and very, very sheer. If it was any finer, it would be almost invisible,” Suri recalls.

In 21st century India, Suri experienced what the French traveller John Baptiste Tavernier wrote about in the 17th century in his book Travels in India: “Muslin so fine that you would scarcely know what it was that you had in your hand…”

In Dhamadka village in Kutch, in Western India, Dr Ismail Khatri, a block printing expert with formal education only up to class seven, was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Arts in 2003 by the De Mortfort University, Leicester, UK, after having advised numerous PhD scholars in their pursuit of knowledge on Ajrakh block prints. In Hyderabad, master weavers Vorugonda Odellu and Vaddepally Dharmender are currently working on recreating ancient Greek weaves with researchers at the Penelope Laboratory, a European organisation with offices in Berlin and Hyderabad, among other places and that aims to “integrate ancient weaving into the history of science and technology, especially digital technology.”

Weavers have been adept at keeping alive handloom heritage, while continuing to navigate across revolutions – from the Industrial Revolution of the 1700s to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) today, as technological innovation transformed traditional manufacturing and industrial practices. 4IR is also fuelling another sector – that of the cultural and creative industries by facilitating transparency and provenance.

Engineers, management consultants, design professionals, or curators, all find their contact with weavers enriching, awe-inspiring and transformative. These professionals are bringing new technologies like machine-to-machine communication, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), as well as updated knowledge management and curation practices into the sector to bridge the gap in the understanding of traditional knowledge.

According to UNESCO, the global cultural and creative industries are valued at an estimated $4.3 trillion per year, accounting for 6.1 per cent of the world economy. Culture has been recognised as an enabler of growth and sustainable development by the Group of Twenty since 2020 and remains an important component of India’s current G20 presidency.

Enumerating the worth of cultural and creative industries is a recent development. The Creative Economy Report in 2008 was the first study to measure its impact, concluding that the creative industries were among the most dynamic sectors of the global economy and offered new, high-growth opportunities for developing countries.

India’s handloom story is not that recent. Textiles, the existence of which are confirmed through archaeological finds dating back more than 5,000 years, and to the Mohenjo-Daro civilisation in 3000 BC, continue to be in production and use. Over centuries, materials, supply chains, customer profiles and several factors have undergone a shift, navigated by weavers to keep the craft alive.

Innovate to understand

Annapurna Mamidipudi, who trained as an engineer in electronics and communications, is working with the Penelope Project, funded by the European Research Council to explore how innovation is at the heart of the relationship shared by handloom weavers with their craft. In her thesis, Towards a Theory Of Innovation In Handloom Weaving In India, she says navigating the mismatch between how modern science and law looks at knowledge and its value and ownership requires “changing the frame of what constitutes knowledge, skill, innovation, and doing it so that does not come in the way of how the weavers are themselves experiencing and doing it.”

Narrating how Odellu and Dharmender recreated the Meander weave, originally made on vertical looms in ancient Greece, on the horizontal loom that Indian weavers traditionally use, she says: “We went through a process by which the weavers translated that design onto their loom. They had to figure out how to do that. What’s exciting is that they built a whole new loom. The innovation is not the product – Meander is an old product that they’re weaving again. The innovation and skill is in translating the logic of that loom into their loom.”

Creative industries and 4IR

In Bengaluru, management consultant and textile engineer, Vijaya Krishnappa and technologist, Ramki Kodipady set up Kosha and applied IoT and AI technologies to handlooms to ensure traceability, which can lead to clear certifications and supply-chain management. The trigger was a meeting with a weaver of Benarasis in Varanasi. “He had on the loom a beautiful saree, which would retail for at least Rs50,000 (Dh2,232). This was in complete contrast with his small, cramped hut, and his helplessness around the gaddidar (traders who control the production and retail),” Krishnappa says.

Kosha uses sensor-activated devices on the loom to record the hours taken, weaver information, and location, among other things. The information rests in a QR-coded label woven into the fabric.

Among the takers for their products, Krishnappa says, are the Tamil Nadu Handloom Weavers’ Co-operative Society (Co-optex), India’s largest, Tata Taneira, and Aadyam, a corporate social enterprise of the Aditya Birla group working with weavers. The clients use Kosha products to manage their supply chains and product provenance. “The aim is to ensure traceability from fibre to fashion. Brands are using it to market their products and educate consumers,” Krishnappa says, connecting this to consumer preference for slow fashion. “Weavers make sustainable fashion without consuming any power. As the country with the largest production of handlooms, this is our USP. Five-star hotels get carbon credit. Should weavers not have carbon credits?”

A supply chain of skill

Archana Shah, of Bandhej stores, was a young student at the National Institute of Design when a visit to a small village of Dhamadka in Kutch, where she stayed with Mohammadbhai Siddhikbhai’s family, proved to be life-changing. “In 1997, we were sent there to document the craft of Ajrakh and create a collection of textiles for a state-owned emporium, Gurjari. Ajrakh is a special skill because it is printed on both sides of the fabric, which is rare. The village was basic – no electricity, no real bathrooms. But it altered my life. Mohammadbhai had the wisdom to teach his children the craft.”

Shah’s latest book, Crafting a Future – Stories of Indian Textiles and Sustainable Practices, is a result of four decades of work with weavers and craftsmen in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan. She travelled extensively between 2018 and 2020 documenting unique practices such as tussar silk yarn production in Odisha. Handled by women in villages, each cocoon goes through three processes to obtain different types of fibre. The rougher outer layer is spun using a small drop spindle, the delicate inner filament is spun using hands and thigh spinning, and the coarse outer part, which attaches the cocoon to the tree, is pounded before being spun to create tussar silk yarn. “Each region in the country offers diverse skills, which leads to a vast variety of product.”

Shah says that a revival of support systems such as hubs for weavers to meet, network and solve problems is needed for a living heritage sector to flourish. “Immediately after independence, we had institutions such as Weaver Service Centres. They had collections of old textiles of the region for craftspersons to refer to. A design office sold designs for nominal amounts. They had a section where they would work together to resolve technical problems such as working with newer yarns, or fulfilling an order with newer colours. Events such as the Vishwakarma Exhibition celebrated the fact that we have artisans who can create things that we see and admire in museums.”

Curating knowledge

As a curator of handlooms, and someone who works closely with weavers, Suri’s job requires her to step in and out of the past and the present, particularly because much of the handloom sector’s past is also its present. In July 2023, she curated the walk through on John Forbes Watson’s 18 volumes dedicated to The Textile Manufactures and Costumes of the People of India, published in 1866.

The volumes were visualised by the author as “industrial museums” for manufacturers in Britain to “imitate” in order to tap into India’s potential “to become a magnificent customer.” Today, they serve as mini museums for India to preserve and learn from. The Asiatic Society of Mumbai, located in the State Central Library, showcased the 18 volumes, filled with swatches cut from 700 textiles, alongside contemporary weaves curated by Suri.

“The books are an acknowledgement of India’s superior craftsmanship,” she says. However, the practical design lesson that she treasures is from an old weaver of Kunbi sarees, woven and worn by the eponymous Goan tribe. “We were engaged in a bottom-up revival, and the weaver commented on the fact that we had got the colours right. He said the red base is the rich soil, and symbolises fertility.” The yellow, white, green, and blue stripes forming checks on the red base stood for family, peace, crops, and water, respectively. Suri says: “He told us that when these colours are in harmony, any element that comes from outside has no choice but to harmonise with what is there, and added that no matter what colour you match it with, the saree will work. And it did.”

— The writer, a founder-partner at Dubai-based knowledge company White Paper Media Consulting, is pursuing a PhD on weavers and handloom weaving at the School of Management and Labour Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai