Sad demise of a friend, Supporter and a brilliant Artisan.!

[enableartisan]

When I thought about the project Enable Artisan I approached many
people for support, and there was one person among the first few who
extended not only financial but their moral support to this cause
which kept the fire going in our heart to keep up the spirit of
artisans.
We write this to pay a tribute to that person Raghunath Nama-Not just
an artisan, more than a friend.
Raghunath Nama - A spirit of innovation, a desire to combine all the
traditional printing processes of India to keep up with the hand
printing and dyeing practices , and along with small machine makers
create equipment which would remove the dreary and harmful processes
involved in printing and dyeing.

Everything about him was round- from his big stomach to his curly hair
to his twinkling eyes. Tenth failed - ”Angrezi ne maar diya”- (English
killed me! ) he used to say. The only son to survive out of four that
were born to his mother. An only brother to seven sisters. Born in a
family of traditional printers and dyers “Chhipa” , in Kaladera , a
village in Jaipur district of Rajasthan, he grew up with cotton
fabrics, dabu (mud-resist) , wooden blocks and printing pastes. He had
an ongoing affair with natural printing, tie-dye, dabu, discharge,
maleer (printing of Barmer and Kutch with multani clay) and shibori
(the Japanese art of tie-dye) which was self taught from books. He had
an infinite curiosity about traditions and modern society and the
place of rural individuals, especially artisans. He had done hundreds
of workshops but was a pragmatic production manager. We’ve seen him
dyeing with his bare hands in a hot dye bath, one drop of which would
scald the skin of people like us.
Despite being a successful entrepreneur he never looked down upon
physical labour. He created more than fifty tones of natural dye
shades for us, but as he always said “Haathi ke daant,dikhane ke
aur,khane ke aur”-( Elephants have different teeth for display, and
different teeth for use ! ), Where are we going to find hundreds of
kilo of onion peels to dye pink! Practically, for regular production
less than ten colours are possible in natural dyes. There will be
infinite tones though, as each time the tones are different! He had
enough confidence in his ability to read people, to share his
knowledge of printing and dyeing techniques with us completely even
though he got flak from his community for doing so. He was
unconventional enough to embrace our knowledge and share with us his
own with complete trust.
He used to say that if the Government mandated Khadi as a uniform
in organisations like the Railways, why would Khadi die? He shared
with us the rampant corruption in weaving cooperatives, and the huge
wastage in the unending stream of workshops organised by the state,
shared between master artisans and craft bureaucrats. Despite this he
always partnered with Government bodies for any project which he
thought was useful, and officials in local Rajasthan craft marketing
organisations gave him respect as Raghunath thought from all sides,
the customer, the producer and the government. He gave equal thought
to fair retail prices, wages, margins for retailers and wholesalers,
and business practices along with quality of the product. Despite
coming from a disadvantaged background he was neither bitter about
people in power nor unfair to his workers. He was truly a trustee of
his craft.

Raghunath did not want to remain just a job-worker for boutiques. He
wanted to create his own brand and be visible as a designer-artisan-
entrepreneur. He used to say that his desire and practice for
innovation and experimentation would be like a free laboratory
providing research and development to his community of “Chippas”. In
the beginning, his own community laughed at the orders he took (of
single sarees and 18 meter fabric print runs) as they only took orders
of hundreds or thousands of meters of cotton fabric in one print, one
colour for exporters. Raghunath worked for the local Indian
boutiques and small retailers doing very small orders. He knew that
the diversity of his customers gave him protection from the boom and
bust cycle of exports and huge rejections due to problems of
infrastructure that artisans face in rural India and due to which they
often cannot deliver on time. In bucket dyeing, maintaining regular
colour tone is very difficult and patchiness too results in rejection.
There is also immense competition between Chippa’s to under quote each
other and lower the workers’ wages. Raghunath refused to lower prices
to self-exploitative levels. He always said that if a skilled artisan
cannot make wages equivalent to an unskilled construction worker,
practicing craft was of no use to him. Today his dabu sarees and suits
are copied by artisans in Bagru, Akola and Balotra, in fact the Surat
textile industry is also making screen printed copies on their mass
produced synthetic sarees.
Raghunath visited us regularly in Delhi to experience the big
city. He wanted to see movies, theatre, big retail, explore and give
his opinion on everything from the inedible-ness of a McDonald burger
to interesting comments on “Full Monty”. He never let his rural
background and inability to speak English create awe or make him lose
confidence. He was gloriously himself- sharp witted, perceptive and
having his own unique sociological and political perspective.
He bought his wife expensive saris from other weaving and printing
traditions from Ikats to Ajrakh. He said that if he did not support
other artisans who would? He freely shared his marketing and branding
experience with other artisans and wanted them to be successful like
him too.
Raghunath was a classic “Jugadu” problem solver. He bought a 15 year
old Maruti Gypsy and tried first to run it on LPG and then installed
an old submarine diesel engine which gave him great fuel average. He
continuously spent money, time and energy on new experiments in
dyeing, printing and appropriate machinery.
Raghunath started his morning in the village with a 5 a.m tea at
the village chai wallah with all his village friends from all castes
and said that that was the best newspaper he knew. Rarely did he
refuse any of them monetary help. He created an immense network of
weavers and fabric suppliers from Kashmir, to Champa in Madhya Pradesh
to Vidarbha to Kota. I saw a whole India that is entrepreneurial,
artisanal and continuously experimenting with him. All of them
utilising state and NGO resources where possible and doing hardcore
mainstream wholesaling to thousands of businessmen all over India,
from Indore to Mumbai, from Bhubaneshwar to Surat.
On Raghunath’s death, so many of his artisan friends from all over
India, suppliers of dyes and fabric came to his family to reassure
them and promise support and cement relationships with his sons .
It clearly showed he had built relationships not business dealings.
From ultra rich ladies from the big cities where he exhibited and sold
his sarees, to a poor “kabadiya”(metal and waste recycler) all spoke
fondly of him to his family and us.

It was not just an artisan, but a friend who had passed away who was
the right idol and inspiration for all the artisans who would love to
see the traditional craft get back its lost grandeur.