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| Machine made shawls flood markets, bring bad name to handmade shawls | | | Mudasir Tariq
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Jan 29: The introduction of machine made shawls have virtually put a break on the sales of Kashmiri hand-woven shawls (stoles or scarves) known all over the world for its demand in national as well as foreign markets. As on date the handmade shawls are facing great threat from the machine made shawls.
Due to the alleged apathy on part of the government to check the fraudsters who sell cheap shawls at superfluous rates, the world famous art is facing a great threat of extinction in absence of any takers in the market, much to the concern of the local artisans and art lovers who are associated with this generation old profession.
"Authorities are not checking the fraud marketing. People sell machine made shawls in the name of handmade Kashmiri shawls. This way they are bringing a bad name to the valley," said Manzoor Ahmad Shah, a shawl dealer here.
Manzoor has been in the generation old profession of crafting, designing and selling these Kashmiri shawls. He expressed concern over the cheating of customers in the name of famous Kashmiri shawls.
"We have been associated with this art from generations. We work hard day and night for several months to produce these shawls. Unfortunately several industries running in many states copy the famous designs of Kashmiri handicrafts and the same are sold in the name of Kashmiri handicrafts to the people. These shawls flood to the valley markets too and the tragedy is that they are sold under the Kashmiri brand," he said.
Owing to the mushrooming advance of machine made shawls in the markets, many artisans and shawl traders believe that this heritage industry has reached verge of extinction.
"People have little knowledge about the real brand of Kashmiri shawls and majority of the customers can't differentiate. Machine made shawls look exactly identical and they are sold at lower rates then our handmade shawls. We are losing our market," said Khursheed Ahmad another shawl dealer.
Meanwhile, realizing the growing market of machine made shawls reportedly many Kashmiri trades people have joined the race and sell machine made shawls in the name of Kashmiri shawls and are deceiving people.
"Many businessmen in valley have started to sell machine made shawls in the name of Kashmiri handmade shawl and deceive locals as well as tourists," said Razaque Sheikh, who sells Kashmiri shawls at Lal Chowk from 50 years.
The shawl dealers lament that they have several times raised the issue with the higher ups but till date nothing has been done.
"The authorities are watching as mere spectators and no action is being taken against these people. The need of the hour is to realize this problem properly. The authorities need to catch hold of these people because they are a threat to the generations old heritage of Kashmir," said a group of shawl dealers. |
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