Powerloom threat looms large over Mangalagiri weavers in Andhra Pradesh

Inadequate wages, a dearth of youngsters taking up the profession and the stiff competition from powerlooms mar the once glorious traditional Mangalagiri weavers’ craft

At the outset, Ratnalacheruru, a village near Mangalagiri in Guntur district, seems like a quiet place. It is 12 p.m., and except for occasional whistles from pressure cookers and chattering of men and women, the village seems to be wrapped in an all-encompassing silence. However, as one goes further inside the road that connects the National Highway-16 and the village, one can hear a faint hum of the looms and tunes of an old familiar song.

Following the song takes one to the ‘bazaar’, a cluster of four to five worksheds. There are around 15 such sheds in Ratnalacheruvu. While the number of looms in every shed is not the same, every shed has more than 10 units.

The sheds, made by placing wooden logs loosely together, are a source of livelihood for many weavers who do not own a loom. The master weavers provide them with raw materials, and the weavers have to give the finished project in a time-bound manner.

Playing old S.P. Balasubrahmanyam songs loudly in the background so that the music does not drown in the chugging hum of the 23 looms, 60-year-old Venkateswara Rao and other weavers work with intense concentration. Heads bent over the pit loom, the weavers pulled the thread of the loom, giving life to the fabric.

Unique ‘Nizam’ border

Mangalagiri sarees are pure cotton fabrics, with the zari sourced from Surat in Gujarat. They are characterised by a lack of designs or ‘buttis’ on the body. The ‘Nizam’ border is unique to Mangalagiri sarees.

Mangalagiri’s connection with weaving goes back a long way. In her thesis, submitted to the University of Hyderabad for a Doctorate of Philosophy in History, P. Swarnalatha explains how important weaving was in the 18th century and why looms were confined to a few regions, including Mangalagiri.

The thesis, ‘The World of the Weaver in the Northern Coromandel, 1750-1850,’ was later converted into a book.

In it, she says: “During 1750-1850, the weaving industry constituted the most important occupation next to agriculture. The spatial location of all these communities and the distribution of weaving villages was conditioned by many factors like the availability of raw materials, proximity to the centres of raw materials, accessibility to nearby market centres and port towns, means of transport, and ecological factors.”

Lives weaved around Krishna river

The deep black soils and medium black soils along the coast of the Pranahita, Godavari, and Krishna rivers support cotton crops extensively in the region, explaining the boom of the textile business in Mangalagiri and other areas.

Mangalagiri, however, has been seeing a decline in the weavers’ number for a long time. Venkateswara Rao is one of the few people still in the traditional weaving business. Many weavers have left to work as farm labourers, coolies, construction workers and other odd jobs.

According to the information provided by Udaya Kumar, Assistant Director, Handlooms and Textiles, Guntur and Palnadu districts, there are 2,500 weavers and around 6,000 people in Mangalagiri Assembly constituency, represented by Human Resources Minister Nara Lokesh, involved in the ancillary activities such as dyeing, sizing of a saree, prin winding, warping, etc. The number of looms in the constituency stands at around 1,500.

“There used to be 10,000 looms earlier in the constituency. In the past 25-30 years, so much has changed,” says Venkateswara Rao, adding that no youngster wants to be in this profession. However, his son is a weaver since Venkateswara Rao did not have enough income to educate his two sons. His younger son works at a gold shop.

Venkateswara Rao has been working on a blue-coloured cotton saree since 8 a.m., the time he usually comes to work here. If he works continuously from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., he can weave five cotton sarees in a week. There is no concept of Sundays for him. They take a day off work only on the new moon day. Depending on the time spent, he can make a saree in a day or two.

Despite his weariness and frustration from inadequate wages, he does not let the same affect the saree. “I have been in the business of weaving for the past 40 years. I studied till Class V and have known no other work except this. If only I had known, I would not be doing the work,” Venkateswara Rao says, sitting on the ground with his legs suspended in a pit dug out to put the loom.

When asked about the reason, he says that apart from insufficient wages, the profession has little to offer them, forcing many weavers, most of whom belong to the Padmashali community, to look for other livelihood options. He is not eligible for financial aid under many schemes except for an old-age pension. “None of us from the worksheds received the aid under the YSR Nethanna Nestham because only those who owned a loom were eligible for it,” Venkateswara Rao says.

Keeping tradition alive

Ratnalacheruvu is one of the few villages, apart from Atmakuru, Kanagala, Ilavaram, Bhattiprolu, etc., all located around Mangalagiri, where the traditional weaving is still alive, despite the tough competition from powerlooms.

The reasons for the decline are multifarious. One of them is that the earnings are not sufficient to sustain themselves. “Even rag pickers must be earning more than us. They say we are artists, and they talk of respecting the weavers, but it is just fluff. Nothing has been done for the weaver community so far,” he says.

These days, for five sarees done in a week, Venkateswara Rao gets ₹3,150, depending on the type of saree. If it is a pattu saree (silk), the wages are higher as they require more time and labour. Out of ₹12,000-13,000 he gets in a month, ₹3,000 is spent on rent, around ₹400 on the current bills, and the same amount on getting medicines.

The situation was not always so bad. The earliest reference to Mangalagiri sarees tells us about the kind of patronage the traditional weaving process enjoyed in the old days. According to the information provided in the application seeking a grant of Geographical Indication (GI) tag for Mangalagiri sarees, the traditional weaving here has its roots way back in the 16th century.

The applicants say that there was a time when pilgrims visiting the Panakala Narasimha Swamy temple in Mangalagiri had to definitely buy a saree from a local weaver, explains Macherla Mohan Rao, founder president of the State Handloom Weavers’ Federation, that handlooms lost their value when the central government started encouraging the import of raw materials for linen and polyester in 1985.

“The fabric made out of imported raw materials was made available in domestic markets at cheap rates. That was the beginning of the decrease in the demand for handloom products. Later, over the years, the situation was exacerbated with the advent of powerlooms,” he explains.

The Central government introduced the concept of power-operated machines for the first time in Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu. The concept has now reached Mangalagiri, Venkatagiri and Chirala, replacing the hard work of weavers with machines. With powerlooms duplicating the same fabric at a cheaper cost, consumers tend to buy them, leaving handloom weavers without market, Mr. Mohan Rao says.

Sri Leela, a weaver in another nearby shed, says despite working for years, they do not have a house of their own. Unlike her male counterparts, she takes 15 days to weave five sarees since she has household chores. For five sarees, most of them pattu, she is paid around ₹5,000.

‘Education, a distant dream’

“We do not have enough to eat three meals a day. Educating children is a distant dream for us. Sitting on a pit loom for hours together takes a toll on our bodies. Still, we cannot afford hospital bills too, so we visit registered medical practitioners (RMPs) and take over-the-counter medicines for pain relief,” she adds.

Unlike other weaves, Mangalagiri sarees can be woven on a pit loom alone, according to the information in the GI tag application. Weaving on a pit loom renders the fabric toughness and durability, the two things the saree is known for. A Nizam border is best woven on a pit loom since it requires the application of pressure to weave the edge of a saree without gaps and frays. All the looms in the sheds are pit looms, and with them comes the physical inconvenience.

The sadder part is that she has never worn a Mangalagiri saree herself. This is not just about Sri Leela alone but also about weavers in general. The products of their labour not reaching them frustrate them, but they have to do it anyway for their livelihood, they say.

“While we get ₹500 per saree, the products we create are sold at ₹1,800 each. We can never afford to buy them. When the master weaver spots damage, which is not rare, the saree comes back to us. But, we have to pay the full amount for the damaged product too,” explains G. Nagamalleswari while spinning a yarn at her home in Atmakuru village.

Her husband G. Thirupattaiah weaves the sarees while Nagamalleswari helps him with the process, such as getting the yarn ready and dyeing it, among other things. Unlike Sri Leela and Venkateswara Rao, the couple owns a house and a pit loom. Their sons, too, are not in the profession. The couple received financial aid under the YSR Nethanna Nestham.

In search of greener pastures

Nagamalleswari points out how many of her acquaintances had left for agriculture work. “Both of us could not go because we suffer from severe backache. Once you get habituated to weaving, you cannot do any other work,” she says.

Venkateswara Rao sums up their predicament in one line. “Mangalagiri is nothing but ‘peru goppa, ooru dibba’ (Except for the big name, there is nothing really great here),” he says, even as he expressed gratitude to Minister Nara Lokesh for distributing ₹25,000 to all weavers in the constituency after the Budameru floods destroyed the looms and increasing the old-age pension from ₹3,000 to ₹4,000.

In February, Heritage Foods Ltd Executive Director Nara Brahmani launched ‘Weavershala’, a Tata Company by Taneira, in Mangalagiri, to upskill weavers.

At present, there are 20 looms with advanced technologies. The seats are designed to reduce pressure on the spinal cord.

Mr. Mohan Rao said while the intent was right, such power-operated handlooms, or semi-powerlooms would bring doom on the traditional weaving.

He added that the governments introduced powerlooms in the name of ‘drudgery reduction’ and welfare of weavers by saying that powerlooms would reduce the inconvenience associated with pit looms.

“But, if they cared about weavers, they would have asked textile engineers to work out ways to reduce pressure on the pedestal instead of replacing the whole loom with a powerloom,” he says, lamenting that the successive governments failed in conducting elections for cooperative societies from 2013 in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

If the government really wants to help traditional weavers, it should encourage traditional weaving methods, stop the influx of power-operated machines, and educate people about the difference between handloom and powerloom products.

Published - November 29, 2024 11:06 pm IST