PROTECTORES INVISIBLES

Effects of labour migration

With the intensified need to meet the demands of the mass market great tension came to local community cohesion. The steadily expanding industry brought economic benefits and has provided a livelihood for the people of Sanganer who are involved directly and indirectly, but the development brought migration into the village as well. People

coming from near Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh have become settlers and have become an integral part of Sanganer printing culture by introducing their own flavours into the repertoire of Sanganer tradition, but also by partaking in the now fragmented labour processes. Most migrants do piece work in a factory for daily wages. In Edwards’(2016, p169) reflection on the Sanganer printers’ success story in terms of stating the influx of migration as “Farrukhabad’s loss [and] Jaipur’s gain”, one local Chippa member raised his concerns regarding sharing traditions with people coming from the outside and establishing business, stifling and constituting severe competition for Chippas. He explained:

“There’s sadness and there is a bit of happiness. I'm feeling sad because we are now using the synthetic dyes. But I am happy because we can do the production process quite fast. As the demand is high we can deliver it. It’s like money and god. Money is not god but not lesser than god too. But I am worried because we are losing the tradition. I feel if we would have continued the tradition and these industries [screen printing] would not have emerged. The natural dyeing process, we have forcefully kicked it out from the market to fulfil the demands of orders. I’m not comfortable how other caste people have taken up our printing. These other caste people are not sensitive to our printing tradition and to our community as they think if they suffer; let them suffer. So they do not provide any means of help to us…the main Chippa people who used to do the printing have declined while other caste people have taken up our position.” (Ram Swaroop, personal interview September 2015)

Fellow Chippa members are more progressive and liberal about the migration and see printing as a more democratic activity shared with everyone to the benefit and growth of the industry. Knowledge, once bound to the community and the caste

110

system, is no longer confined to caste or class. Here, not only are new traditions introduced to the locality but the copying of their existing traditions and techniques also becomes a rather pressing issue for the traditional printers, especially because of the actions of the screen printing factories which, it is claimed, copy the motifs and designs to sell as cheap versions of block printing33. This is in line with Scrase’s views (2012) on design copying and how tradition may be irrevocably effected when: “global competition, copying and cheating on one hand, the inevitable disappearing of one’s craft occupation due to ‘natural attrition’ and decline on the other” has a direct effect on the progression of traditional crafts (Scrase 2012, p123).

Effects of the fashion businesses

This was also evident in Sanganer when one of the artisans, Sanjay Chippa describes how the idea of design copying weakened the community relationships once endowed as part of a harmonious community practice: “…because of the work precautions also the work relationship [with Rangrez dyers] diminished. After the fashion oriented industry came into the business we had to keep the designs we make to ourselves as others might copy it. So eventually the whole process [dyeing and printing] started to happen in one place.” (Sanjay Chippa, personal interview, September 2015)

The copyright concerns of the fashion industry here clearly affect the sharing practices of craft which were based historically on a communally owned and developed canon of motifs and skills. Printers are now conscious of who they work with, and blocks once owned by the community belong to external buyers or factories. New trade relationships follow as sourcing of fabrics depends on the fashion company’s requirement, and printers are chosen according to their level of skills, speciality, reliability and efficacy. When such individuals emerge as important figures in the craft community reshaping business alliances (Venkatesan 2006), with special attention given to outsiders

33

Although Sanganer printing has attempted to protect its tradition by registering under the Geographical Indication (GI) Goods Act which allows printers to take legal action against the infringement of products produced and sold under the name of ‘Sanganeri Hand block printing’. However, during the field study we observed that not a lot of printers are fully aware of the GI, and how GI supports them in safeguarding Sanganer prints and how it boosts marketing and sales activities under the recognition of the GI tag.

recognised as entrepreneurs (Bundgaard 1999), it might be time to shift attention to the common view that Indian Society was inherently culturally driven (Fuller 1989 cf Venkatesan 2006). What might have then happened to those core relationships of people, material and ideologies which were bound up by kinship, caste systems and occupational relationships is worth reviewing. Examining Sanganer printing from that point of view, fashion buyers, designers and traders emerge as new mediators who forge new relationships replacing community driven and occupational kinships; sharing cultures and the collective identity of craftsmanship seems to be replaced by business alliances. Similar observations were made by Edwards (2016) where established business entities were infringing community rights when modern textiles parks were proposed to revive traditional craftwork and offer environmentally sustainable practices.

The example of Anokhi

A company trying to preserve some of the traditional community of practice is leading Indian retailer of block printed textiles Anokhi. It maintains long-term relationships with printers, attempts to balance heritage considerations, and as their website states Anokhi attempts to “maintain an open and honest relationship with [their] craftspersons [and] helps them to work in conditions of their own choosing and commits itself to providing them with sustained work” (Anokhi n.d.).

Even though the labour relationships and marketing promotes a commercial appeal there are also enforced strict ethics on design copyrights. Anokhi’s design director Rachel Bracken-Singh said:

“…we aim to provide work throughout the year for the printers we work with… but they are actually able to work with anybody else if they choose on other designs. We prefer not to let them use our own designs for someone else which has happened on occasions. (Personal interview September 2015)

112

Image 22: Anokhi's retail store in Jaipur

Photo by author

These new work alliances, based on own choosing, design ownerships and meeting the order demands also mean that the printers as well as buyers are free to move rather than being bound by lasting kinship. This becomes even more critical when printers have to produce for “criteria that evaluate[s] the viability of the design” and for the “rapid turnover of designs” which Anokhi produces targeting seasonality and capturing the “story” for each month (Kumar 2006). In this way, national and international designers contribute to grow Anohki’s own design repertoire (Edwards 2016).

Within this scenario there are positive movements to understand the lives of the printers, their aspirations and agency within the constraints of design and an attempt to balance cultural heritage with commercial values. Anokhi insists that, “It’s important to know what’s behind the cloth…a symbolic relationship…how the techniques have been used. Who’s been printing them…[whilst acknowledging] you also have to make desirable products otherwise nobody will buy them. It can’t be perceived as charity or this is a traditional craft…the end product has to be something everybody wants to buy. (Rachel Bracken-Singh, Anokhi, personal interview September 2015)

In that sense, even though appreciating the ‘living culture’ embedded in cultural processes, Anokhi’s approach to product design finally emphasises the product, or the material culture more than the process itself. Anokhi’s emphasis on product rather than on process goes against Smith’s (2006, p3) assessment that it is the cultural processes, that identify the products “as physically symbolic of particular cultural and social events, and thus give them value and meaning”. The next section hence goes on to discuss the relationship between the maker and making, to investigate issues that have arisen due to the disengaged nature of the two where, objects or artefacts has the tendency to become mere objects with no values attached.