Cheap saris or cheap embroidery was never the target of NGO's or activists or design people. We have all looked at best quality practices and tried to work with the top end. The street stuff being sold in Janpath or in Goa is not of interest to most of us. And its at that level of skill the Chinese are hitting at. Low priced synthetic saris or machine embroidery copies of Kutch are not just coming from China but Bastar sculpture copies are done in Jodhpur and mills in India have been printing traditional block print motifs since 80 years. It’s not the Chinese to blame, it’s us.

The mass market is not of interest since its low quality and not about high traditions of the craft. Left to the interest groups we would only have traditional prints and saris. The printers of Rajasthan have survived on exports of not high quality printing but effects of Dabu and combination with chemical dyeing and printing on bedcovers. The low end is completely screen and traditional printers shifted to screen printing.

So here one has to think about the great mass of weavers who are not master weavers or supply to the design market. The wedding saris will always find a market. Its the mass low quality synthetic mixes which need support. In which I do not believe any of us have skills. This needs a Reliance style input. Large scale sourcing of synthetic yarn dyed in bright colours with large marketing inputs through India wide distribution. It’s a mass product. We have not worked on how to create a big infrastructure for 95% of quantity only 5% of upper end product line. To create synthetic cotton mixes and create a whole range of saris, suit pieces and fabrics using traditional skills. There needs to be a special body constituted to link large retailers with weaver coops or wholesalers. Big Bazaar should get into this as should the state. How much is all this because some big traders moved in and got China to produce so they could sell well packaged cheap saris to Rural India for Rs. 300 or less. Powerlooms could do the same in India as they already sell cotton fabric at 11-20 rupees a metre. So either a strong intellectual property right regime is put into place which is non existent in India, but for that first we need to have Indian options available, for if people want a cheap banarasi copy they will get it from somewhere. Boutique level craft types are not equipped to do this. They can only make themselves happy by showcasing 10 weaver families as bearers of tradition.