Yellow metal blues
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COMMENTS 
Despite being employed in the glamorous billion-dollar gold industry, India’s gold jewellery workers work long hours in inhuman conditions and are barely able to make ends meet. Indeed, many gold workers in Kolkata have left their trade in disgust to become rickshaw-pullers and vegetable vendors. Is this the end of the road for this traditional craft?
Sanatan Pal is a depressed man. His daughter Ruma is all set to get married this August but Sanatan is not sure how he will get the money together for the bhari gold chain that the groom has demanded. This is not an unusual situation for parents in India who are forced to run from pillar to post gathering resources for their daughter’s marriage. What is unusual in Sanatan’s case is that he is a jewellery worker who has spent over 25 years working with gold to earn a living.
“Neither my wife not anyone in my family have ever owned even a bhari (approximately 11 gm) of gold. We barely have enough to live,” Sanatan says. His wife Tara seconds him, adding that while gold is a sign of wealth, gold jewellery workers, in most cases, live a life “worse than beggars”. “It is not only the case with my family; my brothers too are goldsmiths in Sinthi and they are as poor as we are,” says Tara who comes from a family that has been in the trade for five generations and is originally from Ghatal in Medinipur). “However, in my family, my husband will be the last one. I will never allow any of my sons to enter this profession and live a life of penury,” a determined Tara says.
Several lakh goldsmith families like Sanatan and Tara live a life of poverty and hardship despite having worked with the precious yellow metal for all of their lives. Says Tagar Poddar, general secretary of the West Bengal-based goldsmith union, Bangiya Swarna Shilpi Samity: “The life of a goldsmith reflects the adage that the darkness is the greatest just below the light of the lamp. Gold jewellery might be coveted by the rich and be a symbol of wealth, yet most goldsmiths barely manage to survive.”
In Kolkata, the average salary of a medium-scale goldsmith is between Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,500. This is not a fixed salary; it is calculated based on the amount of work done. If there is little work, the goldsmith earns less. To earn an average salary, a goldsmith usually needs to put in over 10-12 hours of work every day. The work is usually carried out in a small cramped room with hardly any ventilation. A small 8 x 10 room could house around six to seven workers, some as young as 16.
In most cases, a gold jewellery worker barely earns enough to feed a family of four. Many are therefore forced to hold down two jobs at a time. Nikhil Karmakar sells tea from 5 am to 9 am at a local railway station; at 11 am, he proceeds to his workplace in Boubazar where he works until late at night. “I have learnt this trade with much love from my forefathers and so I cannot really leave it completely,” he says. Some like Banshi Pal are disgusted and have left the trade altogether. “I now work in a zari factory as work is guaranteed and there is better payment there,” says Banshi whose family business for the past 100 years has been goldsmithing.
Although the gold jewellery business is organised and has its own manufacturing facilities, in most cases jewellers do not employ workers but outsource the work to them. Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) Chairman (East) Pankaj Parekh says: “Except for certain branded jewellery, none of the gold jewellers have their own factories or workshops. In fact, across India, most gold jewellers outsource their work to Bengal’s gold craftsmen who are renowned globally for their mastery of the art.” One report says that the Indian gem and jewellery sector is poised to become a $26 billion industry by 2012.
According to standard industry practice, kilograms of gold with the required designs are handed over to goldsmiths who proceed to craft the jewellery. This is then sold by the jewellers in their shops. “The usual making charges they will eventually charge for the readymade ornament will be thrice as much as they will pay to a gold jewellery worker,” says Poddar. “But there is nothing wrong in that! We are here to do business, and getting cheap labour or reducing costs is what every businessman does. The gold workers are in a pitiable condition, in many instances, but it is not the jeweller’s responsibility; rather, the government should do something about it,” said one well-known jeweller on condition of anonymity.
Poddar believes the gold workers’ condition has worsened post-1990s, after the signing of the GATT treaty allowing trade liberalisation. “It is true the history of gold workers has always been full of ups and downs. However, in the last 15 years it has taken a turn for the worse and I am afraid that in the next 10 years this entire skilled trade will be wiped out,” he says.
The industry suffered a huge crisis when the Gold Control Act was enacted, limiting work on gold. Between 1963 and 1968, over 267 goldsmiths in Bengal committed suicide, the first being that of Sunil Karmakar in Boubazar, in 1963. Later, things began to look up and the trade stabilised in the 1980s when the industry saw many new recruits and people began to feel honoured being in the trade.
After the signing of the GATT treaty and the introduction of large players and mechanisation in the jewellery-making business, there was another decline in fortunes. “The trade is now being entirely controlled by jewellers who are basically middlemen; they take all the money and leave us in the lurch,” says Sadhan Shil who has been a goldsmith since 1944.
Poddar claims that the industry, which attracted around 15,000-20,000 new recruits every year in the 1980s, has not seen a single new recruit for the last three years. “Like the muslin sari weavers of India, we are on the verge of becoming extinct. The government has failed to notice us. Today, even a bidi worker receives aid from the government, but we fail to get any sort of help that would allow us to stick to our trade and make a decent living,” says jewellery workers association member, Biswajit Pal.
The Bangiya Swarna Shilpi Samity, with active encouragement from Parekh, has been trying to establish an artisan hub in Belghoria that will house around 30,000 gold jewellery workers in a clean and hygienic environment. Conceding that most gold jewellery workers work in pathetic conditions, Parekh says the artisan hub will bring some respite as it will not only have spacious workplaces but facilities such as an effluent treatment plant, healthcare services, specialised machines to reduce costs and labour as well as a showroom where people can buy authentic items crafted by Bengali artisans. The hub will also offer training facilities where senior artisans will pass their skills on to new ones. “We have identified some unused land belonging to Mohini Mills. Talks are on with the government, though things have not yet been finalised,” says Parekh.
(Ritusmita Biswas is an independent writer who writes on topics of social and human interest for several national and international publications. She also runs her own entrepreneurial venture Wordsmith Writing Services from Kolkata, India)
Infochange News & Features, May 2010