Kodlahalli is a village of Padamashalis, a traditional weavers’ community famous for the Molakalmur silk saree. Ten years ago nearly 450 Padmashali families were engaged in the traditional occupation of weaving the silk saree and every house in Kodlahalli had at least two or three handlooms. But today only around 30 families continue weaving with just one handloom in their homes, says Thippakka, wife of a weaver, K. E. Nagendrappa, struggling to make ends meet although he sometimes works through dinner peddalling the handloom with his legs .
No matter how hard he works, he is not able to break even. Thippakka too spends the whole day making silk thread from raw silk and colouring it to help him weavie the sarees that once brought their village such fame. “A decade ago when I first came here after my marriage, I saw more than a thousand handlooms in the village. But today there are hardly two dozen left," she laments.
“I will not let my son take to this profession. I want to see him in a good job as I dont want him to struggle like I do,” says Nagendrappa, who is not alone in taking such a decision. Most weavers of Kodlahalli and Molakalmur, are hoping for a better future for their children away from their traditional occupation that is today fetching them no returns on account of fall in demand and the competition from powerlooms.
“It takes at least eight days to weave an ordinary silk saree and 10 to 12 days to make the kuttu-butta saree that Molakalmuru is famous for. An ordinary saree give us Rs 700 while the kuttu-butta fetches us Rs 1000 . How is possible for a family with four children to live on such money ?” asks Thippakka. Not surprisingly many are leaving, abandoning their looms in search of better prospects.
“My two sons and two daughters have migrated with their families to work as road construction workers in Bengaluru as there is no real profit in weaving these days,”, says 80-year old Thayamma who now lives alone in her dilapidated house.
Although there is no handloom in her house, she still worships the place it occupied when times were good. To the weavers' dismay, no local bank is ready to lend them money after several failed to repay the loans they received on account of the poor earnings this traditional occupation fetched them .
“Although the state government has started a weavers credit card scheme, no local bank is willing to coming forward to give us loans . Even an assurance letter from our society does not work,”says T Eshwarappa, secretary, Kodlahalli Silk Handloom Weavers Produce and Marketing Co-operative Society, regretting that although the Molakalmur sarees are as good as Mysore, Dharmavaram, and Kanchi silks in terms of quality, the state and Union governments give the weavers no encouragement to continue making them.
The schemes of the state handloom and textile ministry, the Karnataka Handloom Development Corporation, the Weavers Service Society and Central Silk Board have not come to their rescue either, according to him.
“The Centre put a Geographical Index (GI) mark on the Molakalmur sarees in 2010 to give them a distinct identity. But the local weavers don’t even know who they need to go to for this GI mark and what the yardsticks are. We don’t have a regulated market and are still exploited by middle-men”, he complains. “There's usually a hue and cry over a farmer’s death but the sucides of the weavers go unnoticed. Even a debt-ridden weaver wants to die only after paying all his dues.
“The government should understand this and come to his rescue,” says B.S. Revanna Bhandari, who gave up weaving years ago in the face of huge losses.