A death-blow to weavers?

Despite its anti-handloom bias, the 1985 policy continued to speak of social objectives. Although it was inclined to the liberalisation of the textile industry it provided certain measures to protect the handloom sector. The Satyam Committee report seeks to undo all this.

DURING THE past 15 years, handloom weavers, constituting a major section of the workforce in the country, have experienced severe crises. If the drastic change induced by the 1985 textile policy proved to be disadvantageous to the weavers, the economic reforms liberalising export of cotton and yarn since the early Nineties catalysed the crisis in the handloom sector. The textile policy, proposed for the new millennium, only seems to hasten the process of marginalistion and displacement of the communities in this sector.

To make recommendations for a new textile policy, the Government constituted a committee in July 1998 under the chairmanship of Mr. S. R. Satyam, a former Secretary in the Ministry of Textiles. The committee submitted its report to the Government this year. Given the far-reaching changes suggested by the report for the textile industry, in general, and for the handloom sector, in particular, it is worth examining whether what is in store for the 12.5 million handloom weavers in the country is justifiable.

Despite the overarching significance of the committee, there was no representation from the handloom sector on it. A policy statement on a sector so crucial as textiles should be expected to reflect the social concern and commitment of the policy- makers. Going by the recommendations of the committee, the proposed policy can only be expected to be vacuous on this score.

It may be recalled that the 1985 policy had been criticised for its dubious distinction of being the first anti-handloom policy in the post-independence period. Despite its anti-handloom bias, the policy continued to speak of social objectives. Thus its objective was stated to be one of increasing `the production of cloth of acceptable quality at reasonable prices to meet the clothing requirements of a growing population' while keeping the employment potential in view.

Further, the 1985-policy, despite its move towards liberalisation of the textile industry provided certain measures to protect the handlooms - significant among them being the Reservation Act and the Hank Yarn Obligation of the spinning mills.

The Satyam report seeks to undo all this. The principal objective of the report has been defined as one of coping with the competition in the international market. The handloom weavers have accordingly been advised to `stand up on their own' and to compete in the global market.

While suggesting that the Government support the weavers in this by devising special schemes the report recommended for the scrapping of the Reservation Act and the Hank Yarn Obligation which despite their ineffective implementation have been the only support to the handlooms.

What is central to the recommendations of the Satyam report is its method of analysis of the handloom industry. Deviating from the well-accepted method of categorising weavers on the basis of organisation of production into co-operatives, master-weavers and independent weavers, the report sought to divide them on the basis of the `quality' of cloth produced into three tiers. In the first tier are grouped the weavers `producing unique, exclusive, high value-added items', in the second tier producers of `medium- priced fabrics and articles from not-so-fine counts of yarn' and in the third tier those producing `plains and low cost textile items'.

Though there is no attempt to estimate the proportion of each tier either in terms of production of fabric or the volume of employment, it is simply assumed that the third tier comprises the bulk of weavers producing coarse fabric and by implication the less skilled lot of the handloom weavers!

Thus follows the recommendation to convert the weavers of the third tier into first tier. The Government is asked to provide them with semi-automatic looms and training.

The committee's acknowledgement of the fact of poor and inadequate database on handlooms has not deterred it from coming up with far-reaching recommendations. But the implications of such a callous exercise could and indeed would be disastrous to the vulnerable weavers belonging to the backward class, minority Muslim, dalit and tribal communities dependent on this sector for their livelihood. For one of the major (needless to say) unexamined assumptions of this exercise is that the weavers in the third tier are not only unskilled but also produce cloth that has no market demand! It is presumed that this sector has survived only on account of the State protection.

The strength of the handloom sector lies in its regional diversity, community skills and the demand in the local markets. The proliferation of the decentralised powerloom sector since the Sixties (despite the restrictions) and the entry of cheap cloth into the rural market have eroded the local support base of the handlooms.

According to the estimates of a high-power committee headed by Shivaraman (1974), for every two people getting employment on the powerlooms, 24 handloom weavers get displaced. Keeping this in view, the subsequent policies imposed restrictions on the growth of powerlooms. Yet their growth went on unrestrained.

The legalisation of more than half a million unauthorised powerlooms following the regularisation provision in the 1985 policy illustrates the enormity of the problem. Further, with the process of modernisation, hastened by the liberalisation of technology imports since 1985, the rate of displacement and marginalisation of the handloom weavers has only increased.

In spite of this adverse ground situation, the report recommends the powerlooms as the possible mode of accommodating them. It is, therefore, a sad case of the cause of the problem being paraded as the solution.

The anti-handloom dispensation should be amply clear from the following statements. ``Generally the handloom weavers remain tradition- bound and are averse to change... For more than five decades, the poor handloom weavers remained spoon-fed through Government schemes and they continue to look up to the Government for anything and everything.'' Nothing could be farther from the truth than this wise statement! The survival of the handloom industry is largely due to its own strength and capacity to adapt itself to market changes.

The history of state intervention in the form of support is a track record of ineffective implementation. The mushrooming of the powerlooms since the Sixties, the impasse in the Reservation Act since its legislation in 1985 and the irrelevant schemes like `Bicycle to the Weaver' and the `Looms to the Loomless Weavers' at a huge cost to the exchequer, which the policy framers came up with in the midst of the crisis in the early 1990s (when the crisis was on account of the steep increase in the prices of hank yarn) demonstrate the contemptuous approach of the policy- makers.

What the proposed textile policy aims at doing is to strike a death-blow to the millions of weavers across the length and breadth of the country.

K. SRINIVASULU

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