Powerloom menace looms massive over Mangalagiri weavers in Andhra Pradesh

At the outset, Ratnalacheruru, a village close to Mangalagiri in Guntur district, looks like a quiet place. It is 12 p.m., and besides for infrequent whistles from strain cookers and chattering of women and men, the village appears to be wrapped in an all-encompassing silence. However, as one goes additional contained in the street that connects the National Highway-16 and the village, one can hear a faint hum of the looms and tunes of an previous acquainted tune.

Following the tune takes one to the ‘bazaar’, a cluster of 4 to 5 worksheds. There are round 15 such sheds in Ratnalacheruvu. While the variety of looms in each shed is just not the identical, each shed has greater than 10 models.

The sheds, made by putting wood logs loosely collectively, are a supply of livelihood for a lot of weavers who don’t personal a loom. The grasp weavers present them with uncooked supplies, and the weavers have to present the completed challenge in a time-bound method.

Playing previous S.P. Balasubrahmanyam songs loudly within the background in order that the music doesn’t drown within the chugging hum of the 23 looms, 60-year-old Venkateswara Rao and different weavers work with intense focus. Heads bent over the pit loom, the weavers pulled the thread of the loom, giving life to the material.

Unique ‘Nizam’ border

Mangalagiri sarees are pure cotton materials, with the zari sourced from Surat in Gujarat. They are characterised by an absence of designs or ‘buttis’ on the physique. The ‘Nizam’ border is exclusive to Mangalagiri sarees.

Mangalagiri’s reference to weaving goes again a great distance. In her thesis, submitted to the University of Hyderabad for a Doctorate of Philosophy in History, P. Swarnalatha explains how necessary weaving was within the 18th century and why looms have been confined to some areas, together with Mangalagiri.

The thesis, ‘The World of the Weaver in the Northern Coromandel, 1750-1850,’ was later transformed right into a guide.

In it, she says: “During 1750-1850, the weaving industry constituted the most important occupation next to agriculture. The spatial location of all these communities and the distribution of weaving villages was conditioned by many factors like the availability of raw materials, proximity to the centres of raw materials, accessibility to nearby market centres and port towns, means of transport, and ecological factors.”

Lives weaved round Krishna river

The deep black soils and medium black soils alongside the coast of the Pranahita, Godavari, and Krishna rivers help cotton crops extensively within the area, explaining the increase of the textile enterprise in Mangalagiri and different areas.

Mangalagiri, nonetheless, has been seeing a decline within the weavers’ quantity for a very long time. Venkateswara Rao is without doubt one of the few folks nonetheless within the conventional weaving enterprise. Many weavers have left to work as farm labourers, coolies, development employees and different odd jobs.

According to the knowledge supplied by Udaya Kumar, Assistant Director, Handlooms and Textiles, Guntur and Palnadu districts, there are 2,500 weavers and round 6,000 folks in Mangalagiri Assembly constituency, represented by Human Resources Minister Nara Lokesh, concerned within the ancillary actions comparable to dyeing, sizing of a saree, prin winding, warping, and so forth. The variety of looms within the constituency stands at round 1,500.

“There used to be 10,000 looms earlier in the constituency. In the past 25-30 years, so much has changed,” says Venkateswara Rao, including that no teen needs to be on this occupation. However, his son is a weaver since Venkateswara Rao didn’t have sufficient earnings to teach his two sons. His youthful son works at a gold store.

Venkateswara Rao has been engaged on a blue-coloured cotton saree since 8 a.m., the time he normally involves work right here. If he works repeatedly from 8 a.m. to six p.m., he can weave 5 cotton sarees in per week. There is not any idea of Sundays for him. They take a break day work solely on the brand new moon day. Depending on the time spent, he could make a saree in a day or two.

Despite his weariness and frustration from insufficient wages, he doesn’t let the identical have an effect on the saree. “I have been in the business of weaving for the past 40 years. I studied till Class V and have known no other work except this. If only I had known, I would not be doing the work,” Venkateswara Rao says, sitting on the bottom together with his legs suspended in a pit dug out to place the loom.

When requested concerning the purpose, he says that aside from inadequate wages, the occupation has little to supply them, forcing many weavers, most of whom belong to the Padmashali group, to search for different livelihood choices. He is just not eligible for monetary assist below many schemes apart from an old-age pension. “None of us from the worksheds received the aid under the YSR Nethanna Nestham because only those who owned a loom were eligible for it,” Venkateswara Rao says.

Keeping custom alive

Ratnalacheruvu is without doubt one of the few villages, aside from Atmakuru, Kanagala, Ilavaram, Bhattiprolu, and so forth., all situated round Mangalagiri, the place the normal weaving continues to be alive, regardless of the robust competitors from powerlooms.

The causes for the decline are multifarious. One of them is that the earnings usually are not adequate to maintain themselves. “Even rag pickers must be earning more than us. They say we are artists, and they talk of respecting the weavers, but it is just fluff. Nothing has been done for the weaver community so far,” he says.

These days, for 5 sarees achieved in per week, Venkateswara Rao will get ₹3,150, relying on the kind of saree. If it’s a pattu saree (silk), the wages are larger as they require extra time and labour. Out of ₹12,000-13,000 he will get in a month, ₹3,000 is spent on hire, round ₹400 on the present payments, and the identical quantity on getting medicines.

The state of affairs was not all the time so unhealthy. The earliest reference to Mangalagiri sarees tells us concerning the sort of patronage the normal weaving course of loved within the previous days. According to the knowledge supplied within the utility looking for a grant of Geographical Indication (GI) tag for Mangalagiri sarees, the normal weaving right here has its roots method again within the sixteenth century.

The candidates say that there was a time when pilgrims visiting the Panakala Narasimha Swamy temple in Mangalagiri needed to positively purchase a saree from an area weaver, explains Macherla Mohan Rao, founder president of the State Handloom Weavers’ Federation, that handlooms misplaced their worth when the central authorities began encouraging the import of uncooked supplies for linen and polyester in 1985.

“The fabric made out of imported raw materials was made available in domestic markets at cheap rates. That was the beginning of the decrease in the demand for handloom products. Later, over the years, the situation was exacerbated with the advent of powerlooms,” he explains.

The Central authorities launched the idea of power-operated machines for the primary time in Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu. The idea has now reached Mangalagiri, Venkatagiri and Chirala, changing the onerous work of weavers with machines. With powerlooms duplicating the identical material at a less expensive value, shoppers have a tendency to purchase them, leaving handloom weavers with out market, Mr. Mohan Rao says.

Sri Leela, a weaver in one other close by shed, says regardless of working for years, they don’t have a home of their very own. Unlike her male counterparts, she takes 15 days to weave 5 sarees since she has family chores. For 5 sarees, most of them pattu, she is paid round ₹5,000.

‘Education, a distant dream’

“We do not have enough to eat three meals a day. Educating children is a distant dream for us. Sitting on a pit loom for hours together takes a toll on our bodies. Still, we cannot afford hospital bills too, so we visit registered medical practitioners (RMPs) and take over-the-counter medicines for pain relief,” she provides.

Unlike different weaves, Mangalagiri sarees could be woven on a pit loom alone, in accordance with the knowledge within the GI tag utility. Weaving on a pit loom renders the material toughness and sturdiness, the 2 issues the saree is understood for. A Nizam border is greatest woven on a pit loom because it requires the applying of strain to weave the sting of a saree with out gaps and frays. All the looms within the sheds are pit looms, and with them comes the bodily inconvenience.

The sadder half is that she has by no means worn a Mangalagiri saree herself. This isn’t just about Sri Leela alone but additionally about weavers generally. The merchandise of their labour not reaching them frustrate them, however they should do it anyway for his or her livelihood, they are saying.

“While we get ₹500 per saree, the products we create are sold at ₹1,800 each. We can never afford to buy them. When the master weaver spots damage, which is not rare, the saree comes back to us. But, we have to pay the full amount for the damaged product too,” explains G. Nagamalleswari whereas spinning a yarn at her residence in Atmakuru village.

Her husband G. Thirupattaiah weaves the sarees whereas Nagamalleswari helps him with the method, comparable to getting the yarn prepared and dyeing it, amongst different issues. Unlike Sri Leela and Venkateswara Rao, the couple owns a home and a pit loom. Their sons, too, usually are not within the occupation. The couple acquired monetary assist below the YSR Nethanna Nestham.

In search of greener pastures

Nagamalleswari factors out what number of of her acquaintances had left for agriculture work. “Both of us could not go because we suffer from severe backache. Once you get habituated to weaving, you cannot do any other work,” she says.

Venkateswara Rao sums up their predicament in a single line. “Mangalagiri is nothing but ‘peru goppa, ooru dibba’ (Except for the big name, there is nothing really great here),” he says, whilst he expressed gratitude to Minister Nara Lokesh for distributing ₹25,000 to all weavers within the constituency after the Budameru floods destroyed the looms and rising the old-age pension from ₹3,000 to ₹4,000.

In February, Heritage Foods Ltd Executive Director Nara Brahmani launched ‘Weavershala’, a Tata Company by Taneira, in Mangalagiri, to upskill weavers.

At current, there are 20 looms with superior applied sciences. The seats are designed to scale back strain on the spinal wire.

Mr. Mohan Rao stated whereas the intent was proper, such power-operated handlooms, or semi-powerlooms would deliver doom on the normal weaving.

He added that the governments launched powerlooms within the identify of ‘drudgery reduction’ and welfare of weavers by saying that powerlooms would scale back the inconvenience related to pit looms.

“But, if they cared about weavers, they would have asked textile engineers to work out ways to reduce pressure on the pedestal instead of replacing the whole loom with a powerloom,” he says, lamenting that the successive governments failed in conducting elections for cooperative societies from 2013 in each Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

If the federal government actually needs to assist conventional weavers, it ought to encourage conventional weaving strategies, cease the inflow of power-operated machines, and educate folks concerning the distinction between handloom and powerloom merchandise.