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By Ranjan K Panda
After enjoying several years of prosperity and success, the weavers of Orissa's famous Sambalpuri sari (former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's favourite attire) have fallen on hard times. Government apathy and the closure of cooperatives that ensured the weavers stability and a good price have forced many weavers into seeking a living pulling rickshaws or working as farm labour
 Western Orissa’s weaving community, creators of the famous nine-yard Sambalpuri sari, have been fighting a multi-pronged battle for survival. They are being forced to move to alternative less-paying jobs, thanks to the government’s apathy that has led to the collapse of the cooperatives. It’s a unique case where the product is in great demand, but the producers are struggling to save their livelihoods.
A recent visit to Sagarpali village in Orissa’s Sonepur district exposed the relics of a once-thriving community that’s desperately waiting for the boom period to return. The village appears prosperous, with brick houses lining both sides of the wide road. But it’s a facade. Slowly, poverty has been creeping into the houses through poorly-maintained doors and broken clay-tiled roofs.
Roughly 16 km from the district headquarters, Sagarpali is a big village hosting around 500 bhulia (weaver) families. This is, in fact, one of the largest weaving villages in western Orissa, a bastion of the famous Sambalpuri sari. Here, weavers wove magic out of cotton and silk threads from their mongas (handmade weaving machines). The exquisite saris they produced found their way into practically every home in the nearby towns and far-off metros like Delhi and Mumbai.
In the 1980s, the Sambalpuri sari became an international brand, thanks to substantial non-governmental support and the setting up of weavers’ cooperatives. Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi became a sort of ‘brand ambassador’ of the Sambalpuri sari -- it was her favourite attire. Newsreaders on India’s national television channel, Doordarshan, turned this sari into an unofficial uniform.
The boom ensured employment and dignity to lakhs of weavers in Orissa. Some 50,000 weavers in over 60 villages in six blocks of Sonepur were traditionally engaged in weaving Sambalpuri saris.
The cooperative societies would provide raw material like thread and colour to the weavers. Later, they marketed the finished product. Demand for Sambalpuri saris all over India and overseas ensured a high turnover for the cooperatives. Sambalpuri Bastralaya of Bargarh alone used to do business worth Rs 15 crore a year.
After a while, however, these societies were hijacked by politicians through stage-managed elections, and government funds meant for the weavers were siphoned off. Eventually, in the mid-'90s, steeped in debt and suffering huge losses, the cooperatives began to close down one by one, leaving the door open to middlemen who began offering the weavers thread and colour. But, they also bargained for higher margins for themselves. Soon the middlemen began to prosper at the expense of the weavers who had to be content with lower incomes.
Competition amongst middlemen attracted outside businessmen to the villages, and the rates of the saris further declined. This meant more income cuts for the weavers.
This unhappy situation forced many weavers to move into other occupations like rickshaw-pulling and farm labour.
Tulshi Ballav Dash of MASS, a civil society organisation working for the uplift of the weavers, says: “With no wage guarantee, due to the collapse of the cooperatives, the weavers turned pauper even as the middlemen prospered.” “Some weavers have given up weaving and left for Sambalpur to pull rickshaws,” says Putia Meher of Sagarpali, who recently opened up a general store to supplement his family income. Narayan Meher, a relative, says: “Earlier we used to get between Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,500 to make a sari, and we made four saris a month. Now we get just Rs 500 per sari. The monthly income has reduced by more than half.”
It’s the same story in the two nearby villages of Dasrajpur and Nimna, also known for their Sambalpuri saris. While Sagarpali produces medium-range saris costing between Rs 2,000 and Rs 4,000 each, weavers in Dasrajpur and Nimna produce the more expensive variety. Saris from these two villages cost around Rs 15,000 each. Here too, income cuts have become a major problem for the weavers, as they take about a month to weave a single sari. And there’s another problem: declining demand for expensive saris both in the national and international markets. Nehura Meher of Dasrajpur says: “In the past I have woven saris costing Rs 30,000 a piece. However these days I rarely get orders to produce such saris.”
What made matters worse for the weavers is the influx of cheap cotton saris from south India. These saris resemble Sambalpuri saris but cost much less. “Fall in demand for expensive Sambalpuri saris in metros like Delhi and Mumbai are also a result of changes in fashion trends in the cities,” explains Dash.
Pradeep Mohapatra of Sonepur, a sympathiser with the plight of the weavers, says everyone involved in the making of the Sambalpuri sari, including the weaver community, must be held responsible for the present crisis. “Everybody must accept the trends in the market. Product diversification is a must, otherwise we will be finished,” he says. Mohapatra believes low-cost Sambalpuri saris do not face too many marketing problems, it’s the expensive ones that do. And, he says, as the cooperatives no longer exist the weavers must try to produce more saris every month to compensate for their income losses. They should diversify into making dress material, bedsheets and shirting.
D Nanda, assistant director, Textiles, Sonepur, says there is a move by the Orissa state government to revive the cooperatives by offering them a one-time settlement of their loans. The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) is also set to launch a programme in Sonepur aimed at creating better infrastructure to market the weavers’ products. Several civil society organisations are already working to help the weavers.
Still, not much has changed. The pace of development in Orissa is so slow that before another boom period comes along, the weavers could well have been forced out of their villages and onto the streets of nearby towns and cities. The Sambalpuri saris may have stood the test of time. But will the weavers be able to do the same?
(Ranjan K Panda is an independent writer based in Orissa)
InfoChange News & Features, January 2005
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