A company in Kashmir

SUMITA GHOSE

The Noor Aari Producer Company, located in Noorbagh, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), is a jewel among our success stories. Noor means light, and the exquisitely named Noorbagh has come to be a garden of light, a place where women artisans are crafting their own futures.

Rangsutra began working in Noorbagh in 2018. We took up an assignment as the implementing agency in The Jhelum and Tawi Flood Recovery Project (JTFRP) — a World Bank-funded initiative launched in response to the debilitating floods that struck J&K in September 2014, devastating people’s homes and livelihoods.

Having mobilized and organized artisans in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, to ensure sustainable livelihoods through local crafts, J&K with its incredible craft heritage seemed a natural place for Rangsutra to work next. Did we have apprehensions, given the political situation? Well, there were certain things we had to do differently — like getting life insurance for team members travelling there, and being careful about where we stayed and who we hired to drive us around, but most of these precautions were applicable for women travelling anywhere in North India.

Our small all-woman team planned our travel with excitement and a degree of trepidation. We had to start from scratch on a clean slate. Armed with a couple of phone numbers, and with the active support of some enthusiastic officials of JKI (JK Industries Department) we met people. They included artisans, some of whom we were to work with closely over the next six years, professors and students of the Craft Development Institute (CDI), a premier institution for the promotion of crafts in the state, and, of course, most importantly, the women of Noorbagh!

As in any new place we start work in, the first important task is to find the right people.  On our second visit, we interviewed potential candidates and found our Project Coordinator. Despite usual advice to the contrary — oh, it’s better and more practical to select a male, he will be able to travel and not face restrictions — we chose a young woman, and then another, to lead the project. The team of two was a powerful one, both in their twenties — like the two in our team, accompanying me to Srinagar. Bonds were formed quickly and work began with zeal. In the interests of transparency, we placed a notification in the newspapers, describing the project, inviting artisans interested in aari work or crewel embroidery to sign up.  We received hundreds of applications!

Artisans, almost all women, and a few older men, came to sign up for the project at the training centre in Safa Kadal across the road from Noorbagh, where the flood-affected community lived. After the initial settling-in period, the project took off on an enthusiastic note. The biggest hit among artisans was the co-creation or design workshops we engaged in with them. They were given a chance to explore their creativity, work with different colours and different materials. Some of them got a chance to showcase their work in Delhi at an event where they were encouraged by the positive response to their art, beautiful cushion covers and table runners that evoked the beauty of their state.

We were successful in procuring orders for the products and this meant that many more artisans were able to get work for the next few months. The group expanded, neighbours and relatives walked together to the training centre, and worked together, managing production and quality by pooling in their respective strengths. Our insistence on each artisan having a bank account in which her earnings would be deposited, was initially met with resistance — and this is the case in any new place where we begin work — but gradually everyone got used to it and appreciated the fact that in this way they could save some of their earnings, unlike cash income which gets spent in no time.

Everything came to a grinding halt a year later, when, first in May 2019, Article 370 was revoked and communication channels cut off, and then later in October J&K became a Union Territory. But the women of Noorbagh were not cowed down. It was difficult for them to go and work in the training centre, so one of the artisans offered part of her home as a space for the women who were keen to continue to work to complete the orders in hand, and make samples in the hope of new orders.

Not many months later, in 2020, the Covid pandemic overtook our lives. But the beauty of handwork, which does not require a factory-like set-up, made it possible for artisans to continue to create and produce their craft. Their resilience, commitment and perseverance, supported continuously by Rangsutra teams from Bikaner and Delhi, saw them through the pandemic and helped them register their own company — the Noor Aari Producer Company — with directors and managers from amongst them.

Like all new organizations, Noor Aari faced teething problems but they were overcome with grit and grace. Gradually, they have managed to have their own centre, a two-storeyed place where more women can come together to work, and plan their next course of action.

Of course, there have been several challenges — struggles for leadership, financial problems, political disturbances, health issues during the pandemic, market uncertainties — but the women of Noor Aari continue to come to their centre. It’s not just a workplace, but one where craft, tradition, social and economic change converge, offering opportunity, serenity, and a new future to those who wish to have a say in crafting it. 

Sumita Ghose is founder-director of Rangsutra Crafts