/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE-INDIA: Court Order May Kill Cloth Printing Art

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Vinod M.

Sanganer, India, Jul 8 2003 (IPS) - For over five centuries it was as if time had stood still at the famed block printing units in this ancient town 40 kms away from Jaipur, the capital of western Rajasthan state.

Generation after generation of the Chhipa caste mesmerized the world with the simple but elegant technology of jabbing multi-hued, environmentally-friendly, vegetable dyes onto white cotton cloth with intricately carved wooden blocks.

And now after centuries of being part and parcel of Sanganer’s landscape, the Chhipas have been served a court order asking them to leave the town on the dubious grounds that they are polluting the environment.

”We learned this trade by watching it being practiced around us and we let our children play here while we work only because the colours that we use are not toxic,” said Navratan Devi Chhipa pointing to bales of brightly coloured cloth that contrast sharply against the drab walls of her modest home that doubles as a workshop.

Sanganer is an important tourist destination and its block printing as well as its equally famous handmade paper industry, said to be the world’s largest, once patronized by Rajasthani royalty, continue to add to the charm of the mediaeval town.

The Chhipas never had the marketing resources or the savvy of modern India’s fashion gurus. Yet their products have held their own often becoming fashion statements for the country’s trendy film stars or even being adopted by the sophisticated fashion houses of the western world. .

In fact, the art of the Chhipa artisans caught European imagination as far back as the 17th century when Indian calico fabrics were exported to the continent in large quantities by the colonial East India Compan

Following India’s independence in 1947 and the ushering in of the industrial age, the Chhipas began to lose popular support and their art hovered on the brink of extinction until timely intervention by influential cultural icons such as Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, Laila Tyabji, Pupul Jaykar and Prabha Shah effected a revival of sorts.

As new markets were discovered and exports rose, block printing became popular enough for businessmen from outside the region to smell an opportunity in Sanganer and begin the mass manufacture of cheap imitations of the Chhipa art using modern screen printing techniques and chemical dyes.

Over the last three decades Sanganer became home to hundreds of these modern industrial units which flooded the markets with their screen-printed imitations but, in a distorted way, increased the importance of Sanganer as an important center for textiles.

Still there seemed to be space enough for everyone. Of the estimated 250 million dollars worth of textiles garments and home furnishings exported from Rajasthan each year block prints retain a healthy 100 million dollar share thanks to discerning buyers.

But after decades of peaceful coexistence, the block printers have reason to protest – they are being penalized for the pollution caused by the screen printers whose factories have been releasing toxic effluents into Sanganer’s environment.

Recently the Rajasthan High Court, acting on environmental concerns, ordered the closure of Sanganer’s printing units without discriminating between the traditional and the modern. All units have been given until March next year to relocate far away from city limits.

”For all these years we were never accused of polluting the environment. And now because the screen printers are polluting the environment with their harmful dyes, we too are being asked to vacate,” protests Kund Bihari Udaiwal, president of the Calico Printer’s Co-operative Society Ltd.

"More than 80 per cent of the traditional artisans still use vegetable dyes which are not harmful,” he argued adding that relocation would hurt the craft and cause economic hardships to the artisans and their families. He and other traditional printers regard the court order as the most serious challenge they have faced in modern times.

Udaiwal agrees that there is a threat to the fragile environment of Sanganer, one of the few towns in the largely desert state of Rajasthan which is blessed with abundant natural water sources but he thinks that traditional block makers are being made to pay the price for the sins of the rapacious screen printers.

”Apart from using non-toxic vegetable dyes our daily output is just a fraction of what the screen-printers churn out each day and they use up 20 times more water than we do,” he said.

The unfairness seems all the more when it is realized that the screen printers have already forced many a traditional artisan to close shop. Forced by economic necessity a few Chhipas have even given up their prized independence to working as wage earners in the modern units.

”It is drudgery and they use dangerous dyes which harm our health – but I need work to feed my family,” says Ravi Shankar, who had to close down his business a few years ago and take up a job as ‘colour master’ in one of the modern screen printing factories.

The traditional units are run from the artisans’ houses, with the whole family chipping in. Women like Suraj Chhipa, 55, fear that the smooth rhythm of their lives would be seriously disturbed by the relocation because only the men would be able to travel to the factories.

”We shall lose our independence and because our children do not have chance to bond with this work it is bound to die out,” said Suraj Chhipa.

”If the place of work and the place of living are separated, the craft will not be passed from one generation to the next and it will soon go extinct,” agrees Rajkumar Jani, an influential member of the Rajasthan Chamber of Commerce.

”Our women contribute in several auxiliary processes and once denied their role they can only add to the financial burden of the family – there is no future for us now,” said Suraj Chhipa.