Handicraft Survey Monographs, Part VII-B, Vol-XI

PRG. 175 B(N) 750 CENSUS OF INDIA, 1961 VOLUME XI MY§ORE PART VII-B HANDICRAFT SURVEY MONOGRAPHS Editor K. BALASUBRAMANYAM of the Indian Administrative Service, Superintendent of Census Operations in JJlYMre [976 For ordinary edition Price: Inland Rs. 12-0'1 or Foreign £. 1.40 or $ 4.32 For deluxe edition Price: lnlanll Rs. 23.0() or Fureign £. 2.68 or $ 8.28 CENSUS OF INDIA 1961 VOLUME XI-MYSORE List of Central Government Publications Part I-A General Report Part I-B Report on Vital Statistics Part I-e Subsidiary Tables Part II-A General Population Tables Part II-B(i) General Economic Tables (Tables B-1 to B-IV-C) Part II-B(ii) General Economic Tables (Tables B-V to B-1 X) Part II-C Cultural and Migration Tables Part III Household Economic Tables (Tables B-X to B-XVlI) Part IV-A Report on Housing and Establishment Part IV-B Housing and Establishments Tables Part V-A Tables on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Part V-B Ethnographic Notes on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Part VI Village Survey Monographs Part VII Handicraft Survey Monographs Part VIII-A Administration Report-Enumeration ) f- not for sale Part V III-B Administration Report-Tabulation ) State Government Publications ] 9 DISTRICT CENSUS HAND BO OKS MYSORE STATE SURVEY OF SELECTE;D HANDICRAFTS, 1961 SCALE 2" 4B 72 ""I.ES q=~!~~; i ; [ ~!i!B; l 20 40 60 80 100 lNQEX TO NUMBERS (!) 8,ORJ, WARE (D POTTERY MAHARASHTRA STATE ~ CARPt;TS Of' NA\W.GuN,p (j) SILK WEAVING AT ICOLLEGJoI.. lSI .J£WEu.tlr( AT WI'! ARABIAN SEA HANDICRAFTS SURVEY MONOGRAPHS ON : 1- Bidriware of Bidar 2. Pottery of Mysore 3. Carpets of Navalgund 4. Silk Weaving of Kollegal 5. Silver Jewellery Field investigation, draft and photographs Sri s. Ramachandran, B.Sc., Senior Technical Assistant (Handicrafts Survey). Supervision and Guidance ,Sri K. Balasubramanyam, I.A.S., '", Superintendent of Census Operations 1:'1 Mysore. FOREWORD one of the first steps to be taken in the first what would on· the face of it seem a minor Five Year Plan, was the est,ablishment of six adjustment cast its heavy shadow on the nation Boards for the promotion of handicrafts. village when it was d~scovered that goldsmiths used to and Small industries : (1) The Khadi and working on ~~ carat gold all their lives fe':t sadly Village Industries Board; (2) The All-India helpless when asked to work on 14-carat, so Handicrafts Board; (3) The All India Hand narrow and unadaptable were the limits of their loom Board; (4) The Central Silk Board; skill and proficiency and so rud;mentary the (5) The Coir Board; and (6) The Small Indu tools and equipment with which they and their stries Board. forefathers had worked. This fiscal accident revealed that tools are even more important than The rapid ,expansion of the activities of these skills. Boards which concentrated not only on produc An early opportunity was therefore taken in tion and techniques, but also on organisation, February 1960 to suggest to State Census Super extension, credit, marketing, and export. consoli intendents, that the Census provided a unique dated and enlarged the position that the house opportunity for conducting and documenting a hold industries sector had so long enjoyed in the survey of this kind. As such a survey was (Illite nation's economic life. It was this fact that outside the usual terms of reference of Census forced itself upon the pr~parations for the 1961 work it was thought prudent cautiously to feel Census and demanded that household industry one's way with the thin end of the wedge of should be separately investigated for a proper what would, it was hoped, prove t.o be an exciting accounting of the nation's manpower, resources pursuit. It was therefore considered the wi.ser and its specific contribution to the national in course to wait until the State Census Offices felt come. The 1961 Census therefore asked a special so interested that. they would no longer take the series of questions in household industry input inquiry as an imposition but rather want to do it of family and hired labour, and the periods over on their own and ask for the necessary staff and which. household indust,ry is conducted. It was equipment. This office, too, in its turn, could felt, however, that an enumeration of the total make use of the interval to organise and elabo- number of establishments and their industrial ~ate the design of inquiry in order to feed the classification would he incomplete without a appetite that work in progress would serye to proper description of what they produce and how whet. Because it was a labour of love, (sought they produce. It was important to make an to be unobtrusively thrust on one's colleagues and assessment of the limits of rigidity within which because the inquiry itself was so vast that nor traditional skill operates. This could be obtained mally it would demand in any country as big a by studying the caste, occlJpational, social and set-up, if separately established, u.s the Census economic stratifications, the limitations of credit organisation itself and that over a much longer and marketing faciliti~s, the domina,nce of custom period and because it was almost a. pioneer ven over contract, the persistence of traditional tools ture, nothing like it having been undertaken since and design forms, the physical limitation of trans the 1880's it was decided to move towards a port, communication and mobility, the inability build-up by stages, to let the inquiry unfold itself to adopt new lines or adapt to changing circum-: only as fast as my colleagues chose to ask for stances. It was important also to .make an , more. assessment of the limits of flexibility that tradi tional skill is capable of because the transforma Thus, in the first circular of 18th February tion of traditional skills to modern .skills is easier 1960. it was suggested that the inquiry might be said than done and a thorough study may well conducted through the agency of the Develop reveal that it is perhaps cheaper from the social ment Department, the State Director of Indu point of view to develQP indu.strial skills from stries, the Director of Tribal Welfare, the scratch than to try to graft traditional skill on Registrar of Co-operative Societies, and other alien soil. A rather tragic case of failure to make organisations concerned with the promotion of ,,1 household industry. A draft questionnaire setting, the extent to which tradition bound him containing 30 questions in three parts Was' .ana tlie winds of change ruffled him, the extent recommended for canvassing. It was suggested of his mobility and immobility, the conditions of that jnforination on thig quest~onnaire,. village market, credit, new contacts and designs in which by village and area by area, might either be he operated, the frame of new as well as tradi. obtained through the regular departmental tional producer-customer relationships in which he channels of the State Government, or through still worked, and how far he was ready to pierce the newly set up Census organisation, or through his own caste-tribe socio-economic cocoon :md the hierarchy of the newly-created Pancha~Tets. make a br.eak through to new opportunities pro Stress was laiel on the need of photographic docu mised by the Five Year Plans. The aim was' to mentation and illustration of designs, shapes and hold up th~ mirror to hereditary skills struggling forms not only by photographs but with the help with the dialectics of tradition and change. of line drawings or sketches together with a full description of the materials used. Thus the first part of the questionnaire, pur Almost the whole of 1960 and the first half of porting to be a village schedule, sought to take 1961 \yere spent in organising and taking the account of the size and population of the village. census count, although s.everal States even during Its remoteness from or proqimity to centres of this period had not allowed the grass to grow trade and commerce, in short, the degree of iso under their feet but made exploratory studies and lation in which the artisan worked, and the re decided in their minds how the inquiry should be lative strengths of various communities in the organised. ;\ :ieries of r.egional conferences held village which would afford clues to social interde in Trinmdrum, Darjeeling and Srinagar in May pendence and the prevalence of the jajmani and June 1961 revealed much enthusiasm among system. The second part was devo~d m State Superintendents to proceed with the sur artisan communities in the village: the several vey, but the need of separate staff and equipment castes of artisans, the number of families in each. was felt nt the same tme as the realjzation dawned the total number of workers, males and females, that this was much too serious an inquiry to be the extent of co-operative activity among them, treated casually and left to be achieved through the extent of dependence upon employers and· of the usual administratiyc ,channels and State wage or contract labour. There were question. Census Superintendents pJ'oceeded to augment on the raw materials used, the means of their their staff with qualified research and inyestigat procurement, the possible extent of dependence on ing officers, technical persons, photographers, others for raw materials, the extent of the artists, draught:"mcn and other trained personnel. material that artisans can handle within the limits of their skill.

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