Most houses in Srinagar’s Nawa Kadal area used to be abuzz with the whirring noise emanating from charkhas and spindles. Introduction of machines to bypass hand-driven processes for manufacturing shawls and carpets muted these houses, with hundreds of women artisans forced to discontinue. However, the move to tag handmade shawls and carpets with Geographical Indications (GI) labels is finally bringing women artisans back to charkhas and spindles.
Nazima Jan from Nawa Kadal in the old city was a third-generation pashmina artisan and quit pashmina spinning 10 years ago. “The hand-driven processes like dehairing, spinning, and weaving almost vanished in the past three decades due to the introduction of machines. I decided to shift my daughter from this age-old family profession to become a beautician,” Ms. Jan said.
