9 DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

THE twenty-first century has brought with it accelerated

change in every sphere of life, dependency on machines
and excessive consumption of natural resources in a
manner that is no longer sustainable. In the past the
crafts sector had been rejected by many as an unviable
economic activity for the twenty-first century.
Artisans still make up twenty million of India’s
working population. Therefore this sector has to be
developed in such a way so as to offer sustainable
employment to millions of skilled artisans. Crafts
producers cannot be economically viable unless their
product is marketable. The product can only be
marketable if it is attractive to the consumer, i.e., if
the traditional skill is adapted and designed to suit
contemporary consumer tastes and needs. Design does
not mean making pretty patterns—it lies in matching a
technique with a function.
In the field of traditional craft these two aspects of
design and development are not always synonymous;
design can lead to development, and development should
be designed. However in the field of design and
development a conflict may arise between function and
responsibility. Whose creativity will be expressed—the
developer’s, the designer’s or the craftsperson’s? Who is
the client—the consumer, who wants an unusual and
exciting product at the most competitive price; or the
crafts community who needs a market for its products
as similar to the traditional one as possible, so that it
does not need constant alien design interventions, or is
at conflict with the social, aesthetic and cultural roots
from which it has grown?
120 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The crafts community has several priorities such as

food, clothing, shelter, education, health and economic
stability. The craft development sector needs to be
sensitive to these very real concerns of the crafts
community.
Therefore, craftspeople must be involved in every
aspect of design and production and understand the
usage of the product they are making. Voluntary
agencies or designers must also understand and study
the craft, the product and the market they are trying to
enter.

CHANGING PROFILE OF THE CRAFTSPERSON

In Ancient India, every individual had an implicitly
defined role in society, ordained by birth. Craftsmanship
was a heritage that evolved over centuries of arduous
apprenticeship in chhandomaya (the rules of rhythm,
balance, proportion, harmony and skill), controlled and
protected by the structure and laws of the guild. In the
guild the master craftsman, the raw apprentice and
the skilled but uninspired jobsman all had a place and
purpose. Today’s craftsperson has to be all things in
one, including his/her own entrepreneur.
The craftsperson had the status of an artist. As a
member of a society with strict rules and hierarchies,
both within the guild and the outside world, the
community and its products were protected, and the
quality was controlled. Patrons were well known to the
artists, customers were close at hand, their lifestyles
not too markedly different from the artists’. Whether
the craftsperson’s skills provided simple village wares
or jewelled artefacts for the temple or sultan, it was a
supportive inter-dependency based on a mutual need,
understanding and appreciation.
The craftsperson was his/her own designer and
the embellishments came only after the shape was
perfected to the function. The aesthetic and the
practical blended in a natural rather than artificially
imposed harmony.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 121

WHY DESIGN INPUTS ARE NEEDED

Today most craftspeople practising traditional skills are
vying with machines, competitive markets, mass-
produced objects or consumers’ craze for foreign
fashions, and are no longer protected by guilds or the
enlightened, hands-on patronage of courts or religious
institutions. Crafts communities are increasingly faced
with the problems of diminishing orders and the
debasement of their craft.
Crafts communities are making products for lifestyles
remote from their own, and selling them in alien and
highly competitive markets. Their own lives and tastes
have suffered major transformations alienating them
further from their skills and products. A traditional jooti-
maker may still embroider golden peacocks on a pair of
shoes, but he himself will probably be wearing pink
plastic sandals! Consequently, craft has degenerated
today. For instance, the metal diya, a traditional ritual
object of worship has been turned into an ash tray that
sells on the pavement for just ten rupees.
122 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

DESIGN INPUTS: FROM INSIDE OR OUTSIDE?

Do craftspeople with centuries of a skilled tradition need
outside interventions? In the past no deterioration of
crafts has been caused by interventions, however well
intentioned, from the outside, from agencies outside the
crafts community.
However, tradition must be a springboard not a cage.
Craft, if it is to be utility-based and economically viable,
cannot be static. Crafts have always responded to
market changes, consumer needs, fashion and usage.
Today with the distance growing between the producer
and the consumer, craft cannot respond to change with
the same vitality that existed in the past. It then
becomes the role of the designer and product developer
to sensitively interpret these changes to craftspeople
who are physically removed from their new marketplaces
and new clients.
There are professionals with
formal art, design and marketing
education who have the technical
expertise and tools to assist crafts
communities in the process of
design, innovation, understanding
foreign or urban markets and
contemporary marketing practices
that can protect the interest
of the artisans. Working with
craftspeople, the design consultant
has to dampen his/her own creative
flame in order to light the
craftsperson’s fire. He/she can
provide a sample design range to
inspire craftspeople to do their own
further innovation, not just force the
artisan into passive replication. The
crafts community must be at the
centre of the crafts development
process and at every step
craftspersons must be taught to use
their minds and imagination as well
as their hands.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 123

A Fridge That Uses No Electricity

Mansukbhai Prajapati, a potter living in Wankaner, Gujarat,
has invented a refrigerator called ‘Mitticool’. Here is how he
made it: Mansukhbhai mixed several kinds of mud in a churner.
Once the mud was mixed, the slush was filtered and then made
to dry. Then the raw material i.e. chunks of dried clay were
simply modelled in a vertical shape and baked in the furnace.
The upper part of the ‘Mitticool’ can store about 20 litres of
water, while the bottom cabinet has a separate space for storing
fruits, vegetables and milk. This brown fridge has an inlet for
water, which is circulated through internal piping that keeps
the temperature cool. This keeps vegetable and fruit fresh for
around five days, while milk can be preserved for three days. His invention is unique,
inexpensive and emits no Cholro Fluro Carbon (CFC)!

– Young INTACH, Vol. 6., No. 3,

July–September 2009

There is a need to see product design and marketing

as the catalyst and entry point for integrated
development in the crafts sector. There is a growing
demand for these services from craftspeople all over
the country, who wish to learn more about their new
clients and customers, of new trends so that they can
play a significant role in contemporary life.
Many well-meaning, income-generating projects by
by the government and NGOs suffer because they have
not taken into account the need for design and
development of crafts products and the well being of
the community in a holistic and integrated manner.

CRAFTS AND INCOME GENERATION SCHEMES

Many government and non-governmental agencies
have discovered that traditional crafts can be a vehicle
for income generation. Such schemes have not always
been accompanied by sensitivity to the needs of the
craftsman, consumer, or an analysis of the market.
As the tourist and export demand for Indian crafts
have grown, middlemen and traders, many of them
exploitative, have begun craft production and sale.
This has resulted in the loss and disappearance of
many of the more intricate and unusual art forms and
skills. Traders and middlemen demand quick production
124 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

A Tussar Story
Good ideas and good intentions alone are not enough to ensure the desired results. Some
years ago a funding agency commissioned a talented young designer to do a design project
for an NGO working with tussar weavers. She developed a stunning range of high-fashion
Western garments which were showcased at a high-profile exhibition in Delhi.
But the producer group—tribal women who were part of a Gandhian Ashram in rural
Bihar—were unable to fulfil the orders as they didn’t have the requisite tailoring skills
and the whole investment of over four lakh rupees turned into a disaster.
The Ashram women continued to participate in melas and bazaars trying to discount-
sale the stock piles of unsold samples, all now out-of-date, crumpled and shop-soiled, and
finally the programme folded up altogether.

of cheap objects so that their margins of profit are large

without regard for how this may affect the craft tradition
and the community.
Techniques, skills, motifs and usages distinctive to
particular communities or areas have been merged in
the production of new items today. Each region of India
once had its unique and authentic design whether in
the textiles or the pottery it produced. In order to create
products for an international market, traders often force
crafts communities to amalgamate designs that are
known to be popular in another state and region.
Patchwork and Ikat have been introduced into places
where the skill never existed.
India produced a wide range of utilitarian crafts for
everyday use in the home. This sector has also suffered
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 125

as artisans are forced to produce more eye-catching,

ornamental products for customers outside their own
community.
The opposite is also true. Inexpensive skirts and
dresses sold on the streets and at melas under the
generic brand name of ‘mirror-work’ and ‘Kutchi bharat’
bear little relation to the extraordinary embroideries
various Kutchi communities make for themselves, or
their potential customers. This is not just aesthetic
disaster, but bad economics as well. Thousands of
women with high-level skills and earning power are
reduced to breaking stones for a living, while the antique
pieces their grandmothers made sell in city boutiques
for a fortune.
At a Crafts Council of India seminar on crafts in 1991, Reema Nanavaty recalled the
inception of SEWA’s project in drought-ridden Banaskantha: “But even before water, the
major problem of the women was work. Whenever you talk to the women, the first thing
they ask about is work. Everything else is secondary.” Today the old embroideries they
were selling off their backs are the design inspiration for contemporary garments that
earn the craftswomen incomes of `1000 to `1200 a month.

People often ask why Indian craftspeople don’t make

the same beautiful things they used to? The reason for
this is craftspeople cannot afford to keep and preserve
samples and so have never seen what their forefathers
used to make. Study, documentation and research of
the crafts, the creation of Design Centres, the
development of a craft data bank are what are needed
for craftspeople to delve into their past to draw
inspiration for the future. The motifs and usage of a craft
tradition cannot and should not remain static. But
changing them requires knowledge, sensitivity and care.
126 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The NID students’ documentation of crafts programmes

and the documentation exercises of this course can be
an invaluable reference source. An essential
requirement for craft development is that motifs,
designs and techniques be documented and are
accessible.
What the artisans have is only in their minds and
fingertips. If an artisan gets a large order to paint Mickey
Mouse on hundreds of papier-mâché boxes instead of a
Mughal rose, eventually the memory of the rose will
fade away. A craftsperson does not have the confidence
to say ‘no’ to a trader or middleman. He desperately
needs the order because the livelihood of his family
depends on it.
Therefore, the role and responsibility of the NGO or
craft developer should be to enable crafts communities
to study their own heritage—to access museum
collections and reference books and sensitively interpret
to the craftsperson his own tradition. This is our
responsibility.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 127

Project in Madhubani
Mithila in North Bihar—one of the poorest, most backward parts of India—is an example
of changing the function, changing the design, and finding an appropriate though radically
different usage for a traditional craft through the process of documenting its motif tradition
of Madhubani painting.
Discovered in the 1960s, the votive paintings of Mithila were transferred from village
walls to handmade paper, and became an instant success. The paintings rapidly became
popular in contemporary urban Indian homes. Village women of all levels of skill and
artistry were persuaded by eager traders and exporters to abandon farming and to take
up the painting brush and mass-produce Madhubani paintings on paper.
Inevitably there was a surfeit, and the market was flooded with Madhubani paintings
of every size and colour. By the 1980s, twenty years later, Madhubani painting as a
marketable commodity was dead. Women painters who had tasted economic independence
through the sale of their paper paintings, did not know what to do. New ways of tapping
this creative source needed to be found. The decorative motifs, the floral borders, the
peacocks and parrots, the interlocking stars and circles that embellished their artwork
provided a rich directory of design motifs and decorative elements that could be used on
products of daily usage and wear. They painted on sarees, dupattas, soft furnishings, and
tried to support their craft in imaginative ways.
– PUPUL JAYAKAR
The Earthen Drum

PURPOSE OF CRAFTS DEVELOPMENT

The ultimate objective is the all-round development and
self-sufficiency of the craftsperson.
= The development process must be matched with the
existing skill levels of the target crafts group.
= The designer must work with one or more master
craftspersons to ensure quality of production.
= Successive sampling workshops over the years must
be organised to gradually upgrade skills and design
sensibilities in the community.

In the Craft Centre project in Ranthambhore, Rajasthan (see

page 112), the women who started working were almost
unskilled—their hands more used to wielding the scythe than
the needle. The first patchwork products were made up of
vivid and unusual combinations of colours and prints that
disguised the crudity of stitchery and simplicity of design.
These simple products sold well and gradually the women
have been trained to improve their skills, create finer work
and develop new products.
128 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

NID Problem-solving Method

A community of weavers in South India experienced great suffering when their
traditional skills had to compete with mill-made mass-produced textiles. Additional
problems arose because their equipment and technology was dependent on
outdoor spaces. This meant that the weavers were idle during the long season of
monsoon rain.
The design solutions identified for this community was one of product
diversification to reach new markets, the revival of traditional design in new
applications. Secondly, they had to redesign tools, implements, workplaces and
production techniques so as to move the looms for weaving indoors and thus
facilitate year-round activity.

EFFECTIVE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT INPUTS

Creating a simple but effective design, using a small
budget and limited resources, is an exciting test of a
designer’s skill. Seeing the growth and confidence of a
newly emerging crafts community successfully selling
products they have made themselves for the first time,
using skills they never knew they had, is even more
exciting. These are the main principles for crafts
development:
1. To make the product competitive in price, aesthetics,
and function
2. To so empower and train the craftsperson that he/
she becomes independent
3. To provide ideas and stimuli for creativity and
innovative product design by the crafts community
4. To explain the rationale behind items developed and
guidelines laid down by market forces
5. To develop a product range that incorporates the
different skill levels of all members of the group
6. To keep the product usage and price applicable to
the widest possible market and consumer
7. To harmoniously incorporate traditional motifs,
techniques and shapes into the design of new
products
8. To ensure the development of aesthetic sensibilities
so that craft designs no longer mimic or remain
static, but constantly evolve by mingling tradition
with innovation.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 129

SEWA, Lucknow
The design intervention from outside the community was by trained designers working
with the community. Their inputs were as follows:
= Documentation and revival of traditional stitches, embroidery motifs and tailoring
techniques, developing a contemporary cut of a kurta, and introduction of sizing and
application of a new embroidery buta.
= Skill upgradation of craftpersons of this community.
= Introduction of new kinds of raw material (ranging from kota to tussar)
= Addressing aspects of marketing like costing, quality control and production
planning—and an alternative marketing and promotional strategy that would enable
a small NGO to gain complete self-sufficiency.
130 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

QUALITY CONTROL AND MARKET FORCES

Craftspeople are increasingly the marginalised and
forgotten people—trapped between their past and their
future. Investment in research and development, raw
material, credit and infrastructural development that
is automatically given to any other sector of the economy
and industry, is not always available to them.
Crafts-making, especially by rural or tribal people,
are often dismissed as outdated, with only ornamental
and, hence, short-term use. Often, it is not really the
look of the product that causes the customer to reject it
in favour of the assembly-line, industrial alternative,
but the quality of the materials used—a factor beyond
the craftsperson’s control. Colourfast threads, rust-proof
hinges and buckles, seasoned leather, fabric that does
not shrink, are not available in rural markets for the
crafts community to use in production. There is an
urgent need to address this problem and provide
infrastructural facilities, basic raw materials and
quality goods. Otherwise, one day, India may have no
crafts left at all.
It is equally important for designers to keep in mind
some salient features of change in the tastes and
requirements of consumers, especially in the export
market.
1. The generally high price of handcrafted goods is
sometimes an obstacle to their sale. Items in
various price-brackets should be designed to secure
maximum sales. The effort should be to get the best
unit prices for handmade products.
2. Excessively ornamented surface decoration without
structural strength is unsatisfactory. Though there
is always a small demand for fine decorative pieces,
especially antique reproductions, a contemporary
consumer would prefer less elaborate patterns and
simpler forms.
3. The contemporary consumer is not often either
sensitive or responsive to religious themes and
symbols that usually dominate traditional craft
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 131

design. The consumer wants beauty as a

supplement to utility; hence the increasing demand
for good-looking, well-designed functional items.
4. There is today much less insistence on the use of
expensive materials. Thus, well-styled imitation
jewellery often replaces pure gold and silver ones.
At the same time there is a growing interest in
natural materials such as clay, grass, stone, wood,
and leather, and handicrafts made from these
should be in great demand.
5. Modern designs, in some cases, are preferred by
discerning consumers; this would also provide
encouragement to designers and crafts communities.
132 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO
CRAFT DEVELOPMENT
Design and product development are an essential input
for the survival and economic empowerment of
craftspeople. Craftsmanship is a form of communication—
one person’s way of interpreting the needs of another
and transmuting creative impulse and skill into fulfilling
that need. This communication cannot succeed if rural
Indian craftspeople are not taught the language of today’s
contemporary urban consumer. Once learnt, however,
the language of good design can help them to re-design
the development, not just of their craft, but of their
lives as well.
As Rabindranath Tagore has reminded us, “The mind
is no less valuable than cotton thread”.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 133

EXERCISE
1. Develop an integrated plan to raise the standard of living of a
particular crafts community in your area.
2. Why are design and development so important for the survival
of the crafts sector?
3. Develop a strategy to promote craft products for the growing
‘Bollywood’ industry.
4. Enterprising entrepreneurs are reaching out to global markets
through innovations. For example, three shops in Chennai
supply Bharatanatyam dance accessories to the growing
number of dancers around the world. As an entrepreneur of
a craft production and marketing unit, outline your dream
project.
5. Research ‘Needs and Requirements of Contemporary Life’.
How can crafts products be designed and marketed to meet
those requirements?
134 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Annexure

TREASURE TROVES OF INDIAN CRAFTS

National Handicrafts and Handloom Museum
Established in 1972 in New Delhi’s main exhibition ground,
Pragati Maidan, the village compex in popularly known as
Crafts Museum. The
Museum is a homage
to the artists and
craftspersons who have
kept alive the artistic
traditions of India
through the centuries.
The small-scale replicas
of village houses from
different parts of the
country, the display
galleries of textiles, masks, etc. and the crafts demonstration
area are some of the salient features of this muesum.
[Link]

Ashutosh Museum of Indian Art

This museum, named after a great educationist, Sir Ashutosh
Mukherjee, was set up in 1937 within the university complex
in Kolkata and its focus is on the crafts of the State of West
Bengal through the ages. Apart from art objects from the past,
the museum also holds an exemplary collection of craft items,
some of which are still produced and used in Bengal. The
collection of craft products displayed consists of toys and dolls
made in West Bengal. Along the walls are painted scrolls,
Patachitra, once used by story-tellers. There are some samples
of textiles for which West Bengal and Bangladesh are famous.
[Link]

Calico Museum of Textiles

This is one of India’s finest specialised museums. It was
founded in Ahmedabad in 1949 by Gira Sarabhai who initiated
the collection of rare, historical and exquisite fabrics from
different parts of India. The State of Gujarat, with Ahmedabad
as the capital, has been a major area for textile production.
[Link]
DNNEXURE
A ESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT 135

Salar Jung Museum

In the mid-nineteenth century the Nizam of Hyderabad
appointed a prime minister to whom was given the title of Salar
Jung. Salar Jung’s son, Salar Jung II, and grandson Salar
Jung III, were also selected as prime ministers by later rulers.
It was these three men who contributed to what is now called
the Salar Jung Collection in this museum in Hyderabad. In
1958 the collection was donated to the Government of India
and in 1968 the museum was transferred to its present
building. The museum is famous for its European art collection
and Indian art selection of great variety and quality. There are
excellent collections of jade, weapons, textiles and metalware,
which are significant as they provide a glimpse of post-Mughal
court life and are suggestive of the grandeur and wealth of the
rulers.
[Link]

Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum

The museum in Pune contains the collection of a dedicated
lover of Indian art, the late Dinkar Kelkar. He spent 60 untiring
years travelling and purchasing objects from the remotest
villages and towns of India. Kelkar’s passion and sense of
humour are reflected in every item of the collection, and his
contribution to the study and preservation of art has already
become a legend.
The Kelkar museum and its collection of about 21,000
objects focus on the art of everyday life in India—pots, lamps,
containers, nutcrackers, pen-stands, and such objects that were
found in the homes of the village landlord, farmer, merchant
and shopkeeper.
There are a variety of things made out of wood, from carved
doors to toys. There is a range of metalware—from locks, to
ink pots, ritual bowls, hookah stands, nutcrackers and lamps.
There is an assortment of oil lamps in a variety of materials
from clay to brass, each with its own form and shape. Lamps
in India can be broadly divided into two categories—those used
for ritual purposes–arati for ‘worship with light’ and those used
purely functionally, to provide illumination in the home. The
lamps are usually small open containers, to hold oil or ghee
and the wick made from rolled cotton. Sacred emblems like
the peacock, the goddess Lakshmi, elephants and birds are
136 CRAFT TRADITIONS OF INDIA: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

most commonly used for decoration. There are hanging lamps

suspended on heavy, ornate brass chains, and standing lamps
used in the temple and the home on view at this museum.
[Link]

Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya

Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Madhya
Pradesh, one of India’s largest states, has many regions still
inhabited by tribes and it is only recently that due honour and
importance have been given to folk and tribal art forms with
the establishment of this museum of anthropology in Bhopal.
Here in a complex of many acres are tribal houses from every
part of the country representing the different tribes which their
members themselves have built. There is a covered museum
with samples of tribal homes with everyday household objects.
The hand-crafted objects range from bronzes, terracottas, toys
to ritual objects. The art of everyday life in India, as it is even
today, is especially interesting, for there is a freshness and
spontaneity about it that anyone can enjoy.
[Link]