How Banarasi textile traditions are being shredded apart

Reprinted with the publisher's permission.

Varanasi takes pride in the fact that it is the single oldest city enjoying the stability of a continued and active existence from the time of its inception. Other cities have risen and fallen, but something about Varanasi defies such courses of history. While the traditions of textile weaving is ancient as well, the stability of its foundations has been shaken considerably. 

From a bird's eye view, it is clear that the heavy boots of technology and competition have taken a big toll. Add to these the crushing blow of colonisation at the hands of a Britain that was in the first flush of the industrial revolution, aggressively asserting its political and economic domination over its colonies across the world.

Nostalgia

In this new world, it is not just old-fashioned mechanisation but computers, digital automation and electronic data production that have taken over modes of production. These have flown completely over the heads of all but half-a-dozen weavers in Varanasi. Even those fortunate ones who have had occasion to travel the world and see what modernity is all about, only lament how China has computerised and imitated them out of their profession.

They nostalgically remember their visits to the Victoria and Albert Museum or the Textile Museum in Washington DC where they spotted the splendid weaves of their forefathers displayed in all their glory.

They click pictures of such brocades on their mobile phones, enlarge them on return to India at the nearest digital photo shop in Varanasi, frame them behind shiny plastic sheeting, and hang them on their showroom walls, amongst old certificates and awards, to point out to visitors with whom they do business. Tiny villages around Varanasi like Sarai Mohana, a short walk across a side stream of the Ganga, finds weavers caught between despair, drink and a wild hope that a miracle worker will come to provide raw material, orders and markets. Their sons have gone away to Dubai in search of survival or work in the city at a mobile phone repair shops.

Cholapur, a few miles beyond the outskirts of the other side of the town has well supervised work on more than a dozen looms, with innovative designs given by textile designers who are trying to marry tradition to contemporary tastes, and even enticing modern urban women to take pride again in wearing a "Banarasi" sari.

Master weavers, grihastas and gaddidars, the Hindu and Muslim traders (named as such because they sit on gaddis, mattresses), are the lifeline of the weaver at the loom. They feel a strong sense of responsibility towards their weavers. They know that if they do not provide continuous work, or advance them money for a family wedding or funeral, they may lose them forever. 

Antiquity

European, British and American backpackers, Japanese or Korean Buddhists, students of religion and others who have simply been attracted by the idea of Varanasi's sacredness and antiquity often forget that antiquity itself is composed of many threads, influences, cultures, people and thought. The handloom tradition is one such important thread that should be woven into the entire fabric of this city.

Kabir's humanitarian and all-encompassing philosophy of life is waiting to be rediscovered, just as the skills and potential of the weavers of Varanasi need reinventing. The mighty Ganga has become polluted with all the indiscriminate waste that goes its way.

Global imitations and marketing create a form of pollution of the textile tradition. These forces cannot be allowed to wipe away the history of Varanasi, still living, working, creating and amazing those who explore and discover the shining fabrics that emerge out of its nooks and crannies.

An example of this can be illustrated through the peacock motif which is a reccurring feature in many textiles of Varanasi. Feathers shed by this magnificent bird are gathered from fields and forests nearby and turned into yarn.

This is woven into a luminous multi-hued cloth that is both organic and wondrous. It represents the spirit and ingenuity of the Varanasi weaver who refuses to be forgotten.