Why is Handmade necessary in our lives?

Jaya Jaitly – Founder Dastkari Haat Samiti

Every year during National Handloom Week in August and National Handicrafts Week in December, government bodies and individuals, non-government institutions and commercial establishments put their spotlights on these sectors to highlight their importance. For me, as an individual who has devoted my working years to the well-being of India’s crafts people, this is not merely a celebration of handicrafts and handlooms as such, but an attempt within a process to give the practitioners of a vast variety of skills a respectful and sustainable livelihood and a life of dignity and pride. These special weeks are not just celebrations concerned with marketability and brand promotion in the commercial sense but a way of embedding the wonders to be found in handcrafted materials, intricate and unique processes, the climate and eco- friendly nature of their production and as the perfect representatives of India’s multi-layered creative culture.

For Handloom Week it is not enough to wear a handloom sari for a fashion photo on Instagram or buy a handmade gift during some festive season and go back to synthetics after it's over. It is an occasion to cast our minds towards what our civilization is all about, towards the storytelling ability of our traditional artists who will paint, sing, dance and do puppetry depicting the tales of yore while also being able to paint current events and contemporize their view of today’s world. The village potter is learning to carry on making water pots and cooking vessels for their village community but now to craft intricate statues of gods or elephants, housing structures and decorative wall murals for urban interiors. Some areas provide sophisticated tableware for homes across the world! 

Embroiderers, weavers and block printers are today embellishing fashion runways in cosmopolitan cities abroad, even taking our humble khadi to new heights.  Women are unique contributors to this movement and are today both designing, making, presenting and selling their products at crafts bazaars that pop up in every city. When we celebrate crafts, we can happily be proud that we are valuable contributors to taking forward the heritage skills of an age-old civilization and walking in step with the transformation of society into one which respects women, handwork, sustainable production and a gentle creative value system that the planet needs.