Varanasis dying silk industry

Varanasi: The silk industry in Varanasi is legendary, but competition from China and lack of impetus at home could see its extinction in a decade.

One of the oldest living cities in the world, Varanasi draws millions of visitors every year. But Varanasi is also famous for the quality of silk products crafted by mainly Muslim weavers in the city’s backstreets, where saris and scarfs routinely take 15-20 days to make.

The finest creations fetch upwards of ten thousand dollars. Up until a decade ago, around 100,000 hand looms would crank away each day but the number has more than halved since then.

“We have around 40,000 now, the other 60,000 are ‘sick’,” said Amitabh, one of the city’s leading garment exporters. “When you talk about Banarasi silk we can trace the history back to the Lord Buddha whose body was draped in it.

“It’s an art, it’s a culture, it’s a heritage product but it’s a dying art.”

The biggest problem for the weavers is simple: counterparts who work in factories can earn more than double the money as they are both paid, at least in part, on the basis of how much cloth they can stitch in a day. “If you work on a handloom you get 200 rupees a day but it’s around 500 if you work with an electric loom,” said Amitabh.

“With a handloom you get one metre (of cloth) in a day and with machine-loom it’s 10 metres. It’s all about quantity.”

The Banarasi silk industry is hanging on by a thread and could be killed off within a generation unless government steps in.