The lack of acknowledgment of the hand skills sector in India is resulting in an increasing gap between policy formulations and ground realities, a new UNESCO publication has underlined.
- The reasons for this include the lack of a united voice, absent or inadequate data on practitioner communities, and a general lack of purpose for them in the wider context of a rapidly developing nation. All these factors and more impact the many practitioners engaged in handcrafting and hand-making heritage textile traditions, which could, therefore, face issues of sustainability and sustenance in the future, the report has cautioned.
- The report has also made 10 recommendations to save handmade textiles of India.
The report: The 124-page document, Handmade for the 21st century: safeguarding traditional Indian textiles, has been published by the India office of UNESCO under a Creative Commons 3.0 licence.
- The report has also documented 47 handmade textile crafts from all over India: 11 each from the north, and south; 10 from the east, and four from the northeast. The states of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat make up the bulk of the listed traditions.