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Khadi's new spin
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Khaddar, the coarsest of khadi varieties, can serve the lowest end of the market as well as make for the most stylish trousers. Can khadi stay afloat if it does not swim with the tide of economic changes and sartorial preferences? asks BAGESHREE S.
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There are those who feel that khadi should not be stuck in a time warp and that it should keep up with market trends.
NOTHING IS immune to change. Not even "steadfast" notions of purity, sacrifice, commitment, and the like! Consider, for instance, the path khadi has traversed since the years of freedom struggle to the present — from a symbol of national emancipation, to netaware, and finally to chic ethnicwear.
When Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) and Khadi and Village Industries Board (KVIB) put up a fashion show at what was once the Central Jail, there were, predictably, many who saw it as a sacrilege. Didn't the humble hand-spun, hand-woven fabric mean to Gandhiji not just economic but also moral regeneration of the nation? Didn't he elevate spinning and weaving to the plane of penance and meditation? Why, he recommended spinning even for those who wanted to practise brahmacharya! The Mahatma wrote: "A person who wants to subdue his passion has need to be calm... So quiet and gentle is the motion of the spinning wheel that it has been known to still the passion of those who have turned it in the fullness of faith... " (Young India, 1926). What a fall there was my countrymen for this "livery of Indian freedom" — from the noble ideal of abstinence to models sashaying down the ramp! So the critics argued.
But some, who believe that canonised fossils are of little practical value to anyone, beg to differ. Prasanna, a theatre personality and the man behind a successful co-operative called Charaka, says: "The Gandhian concept of khadi production is essentially dynamic, not static." One has to pick from the Gandhian concept the idea of a decentralised, co-operative movement, rather than take it verbatim. Prasanna heartily approves of the efforts by government agencies to make khadi more "trendy" and appealing to the youth. But they could do with greater decentralisation, he says, and contends that nothing can sustain as an industry if it has to depend on subsidies and rebates alone.
The K.C. Pant Committee, constituted to look into reforms needed in the khadi sector, did, in fact, suggest a change in the rebate structure, though it offered other kinds of governmental assistance to keep the industry afloat in the era of global competition.
The Directorate of Khadi Development, constituted earlier this year, in the meantime, has been working towards re-orienting khadi to suit the changes sweeping the country — in market structures, changing sartorial preferences, and so on. G. Guruprasanna, Director of KVIC, Karnataka, details the new technological and marketing initiatives of the commission towards helping khadi drop its drab image and assume a more consumer and market-friendly face. Improvised charkhas and looms have been introduced, which have not only ensured greater productivity and quality, but also more earnings for the rural artisans (mostly women). Exhibitions are being conducted regularly. There is a never-heard-of-before thrust on quality control and design and development. There is also a greater emphasis on readymade.
How have these initiatives translated to better sales? "We can't claim that sales have soared. But we have been able to maintain sales only because of the new thinking. We would have been nowhere in the competition otherwise," says Mr. Guruprasanna. But he believes that reforms cannot go so far as withdrawing support to the khadi industry entirely and allowing it to the compete with the big textile sharks.
After all, even as we talk of reforms, there is no forgetting the principles with which a body such as KVIC was set up: with the "social objective of providing employment, the economic objective of producing saleable articles, and the wider objective of creating self-reliance amongst the people and building up of a strong rural community spirit".
But considering the spirit of the times we live — marked by ruthless competition, hire-and-fire system of employment, and a near-inhuman insistence on standardisation — would these very principles undermine the survival of the industry? Can social commitments of employment generation and fair price to consumers go hand in hand with market savviness?
"Why not?!" ask people like Chandrashekar, a designer with a special fascination for khadi. The crucial thing, he says, is to bridge the "they" and "us" gap between the rural artisans and the urban market. The tragedy is that a set of people goes on making products in isolation without a clue about who the buyer is and what his needs are. "There is an enormous buying power in the urban middle class today. On the other hand, there is enormous human resource and skill in rural centres. They only need to be oriented to each other." Such a system would work for both. On the one hand, it ensures livelihood for the artisans. On the other, since production is happening away from the urban centres, there are no prohibitive overheads, ensuring cheaper final products.
As Mr. Prasanna points out, rural India offers an enviable range of cotton varieties and weaving styles, waiting to be tapped. Weaving, as a tradition, is as ancient to us as papermaking is to the Chinese. Add to this the fact that weaving is one of the most ecologically and economically viable activity to reduce dependence on agriculture.
But it was surely not for these sociological reasons that khadi, as a fabric, caught a designer's eye and made him repose faith in its marketability? "It's simply a fabulous fabric!" gushes Chandrashekar, as he feels an elegant off-white khadi top, with orange stitches running down its length. No machine can match the wonderful possibilities of the human hand and the mind. And you really don't need to "adulterate" khadi with tencel or polyester to make it trendy. And every time he thinks of the range of possibilities the fabric offers — from thick to the finest — he is "simply kicked about it". There are possibilities within one variety too. Khaddar, the coarsest of khadi varieties, for instance, can serve the lowest end of the market. But you can also make the most stylish of trousers out of it.
The crucial thing then is to put behind us the myth about khadi being the garment of politicians and intellectuals and all the baggage that comes with it. "Khadi need not be an `alternative' ware. It can be pushed to the mainstream with some effort," Mr. Chandrashekar argues. This "pushing" means not only making the artisans a little more sensitive to the craft, but more importantly, adopting a far more effective marketing strategy. "We can no longer afford to have musty, cobweb-ridden shops where stocks are piled in cupboards one can't reach. I mean, you can't be stuck in 1947!" he says. Only dust the fabric and the shop a bit and nothing can stop khadi from going places. "Eventually, khadi will sustain," says Mr. Chandrashekar, with confidence.
Well, can one ask for more if sustainable development and fashion technology can hold hands? Blasphemous alliances are, after all, known to produce healthy offspring!
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