Artisans deserve better facilitators than NGO, govt | Economic Times

I don’t envy Sabyasachi Mukherjee much. On one hand, this has been an extraordinary year for him. In January, he sold 51 per cent stake of his designer label to Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail to mass-manufacture his clothes, accessories and home décor. On August 12, his long-awaited capsule collection for retail behemoth H&M was launched, making him one of only 20 designers worldwide the clothing retail company has collaborated with, and the only Indian in this platinum club.On the other hand, the Bengal-born and -based fashion designer has got several of India’s crafts clubs all hot and bothered. In a response to the Sabyasachi × H&M collaboration (it was sold out in less than five minutes in India), they have collectively written an open letter to him on their social platforms critiquing him for a ‘missed opportunity’ his collection has had for artisan livelihoods, as the range had not been made by craftsmen or benefits them.Sabyasachi, for his part, has responded saying just as there is a trickle-down effect, there is a trickle-up effect too, and today’s high street customer is tomorrow’s luxury customer, with the implication that all luxury items are created by craftsmen. It must be painful to be celebrated the world over, and to be pulled down in one’s own home.Besides, he’s hardly the first designer to mass produce. Textile crafts pioneer Ritu Kumar has two ready-to-wear labels that sell dresses for as little as Rs 2,000. Anita Dongre has two apparel labels that brought her a few hundred crores, before she relaunched herself as a sustainable crafts advocate doing notable work in the Kutch.And, India’s biggest sustainability showcase, the Lakmé Fashion Week, is owned and managed by Reliance, the country’s biggest petrochemical company.But that is not my concern here.Last year, perturbed by the images of countless migrants returning to their hometowns and villages across Covid-wracked India, I looked for an answer to one question: why, almost 75 years after Independence, couldn’t we lift India out of chronic poverty? Why did the poor have to remain poor for generations? Why did only those who were born to money get richer?Partners in GrimeThere should be two partners who create a garment, instead of an accident of birth determining the other’s take-home pay. One brings the veritable hand-skills required to make the garment. The other brings a refinement and an organised network, both a result of privilege and quality education.I have known NGOs that have advised against giving artisans ‘too much money’, or they would apparently waste it on alcohol. One NGO requested for money in their own bank account, as they hadn’t even managed to open a free bank account for those they claimed to guide. Another requested for the donation so they could pay the salary of a marketing manager, or pay rent and keep their office running. Funds are actually better spent on an artisan buying himself a decent camera phone or a motorcycle, so that he could create his own marketplace. Even Ritu Kumar says the only way an artisan can change his destiny is if he gets on the internet himself.In her 2000 World Bank essay, Deepa Narayan writes in ‘Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us?’ (bit.ly/2W33bhF), ‘Poverty is pain. Poor people suffer physical pain that comes with too little food and long hours of work, emotional pain stemming from the daily humiliations of dependency and lack of power; and the moral pain from being forced to make choices — such as whether to use limited funds to save the life of an ill family member or to use the same funds to feed their children.’The poor have little trust in governments or NGOs. It’s just a new person to ask for dole from in the face of rudeness and stonewalling. Their immediate crisis is lack of food, interwoven with a lack of adequate pay for the work they do, and only when they are ‘given’ work. Lack of food makes them powerless, voiceless, dependent and filled with humiliation.Wage a War on WageThe poor give NGOs mixed ratings, mostly because they are not good listeners, according to Narayan’s study, and because they lack scale. A producer group from Ladakh, Looms of Ladakh, recently wrote to me of an NGO that bargained and purchased shawls for a mere Rs 4,000 each, to sell them for several times over in the US.There is no one way to alleviate India’s poverty crisis or create work for artisans. There is no one gatekeeper who can dictate the method of aid, especially since they are struggling to get it right themselves. There are ways to ethical capitalism, to stir the rural economy, to encourage social entrepreneurship. Let’s just start with paying better wages.