By helping local embroiderers in the Kachchh region of India sell their textiles to other markets, Chandaben Shroff has helped countless families escape poverty.
Chandaben is one of twenty Indian women highlighted in "Daughters of India" (Abbeville Press), a new book by Stephen Huyler
| Chandaben Shroff arrived in Kachchh in 1969 as a volunteer for the Ramakrishna Mission to provide drought relief. She was the wife of a prominent, wealthy chemical industrialist living in Mumbai and she wanted to do something productive and meaningful with her life. The Kachchhi people had suffered from a major drought for several years and many were starving, but they were too proud to accept charity. In her first days there, Chandaben noticed the remarkable embroidery ornamenting the blouses, skirts and veils of local village women. For thousands of years, Gujarat—and Kachchh in particular—had been famous for remarkably refined textiles. As demand for these exquisite embroideries diminished, the only remaining ornamented textiles were those created by the women as emblems of identity and as parts of their trousseaux. In Kachchh, these ornamented clothes were still worn every day by all the women that Chandaben met. As she began to question them about their craft, she had an epiphany.
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In 1969, Chandaben befriended a talented village embroiderer, Parmaben. Joining their expertise and vision, they worked together to build the network of artisans known as Shrujan. | In the textiles she saw in Kachchh, Chandaben recognized a creative talent that could be redirected into new and innovative products for the urban fashion market. This vision was remarkably ambitious: it would require re-educating urban sophisticates and redesigning traditional Kachchhi textiles to fit urban tastes and styles.
“When I first came to Kachchh, all government aid was based upon hiring the impoverished for manual labour: low wages for back- breaking and often demeaning jobs. My project allowed women their natural dignity, they received good wages and were still able to maintain their traditions by working at home while caring for their families.” Chandaben had been trained as an artist and had good business acumen. But she realized that she needed someone from within the community to facilitate her vision: a close liaison with village women. She sought a person who could understand her goals, find craftswomen, help train them, and reinterpret traditional designs for a contemporary market. She found her perfect partner in Parmaben, an older woman of the Ahir (cowherd) caste, who showed insight and originality in the beautiful embroideries she created. | Although illiterate, Parmaben had a highly trained mind and a capacity for understanding an innovative market. Chandaben took her to Mumbai and exposed her to the world of high fashion and then hired her as site supervisor, teacher and design manager. Back in Kachchh, they set up their first workshop, hiring and training 30 women in Parmaben’s own village, Dhaneti. Their organization, Shrujan, was born. Together, Chandaben and Parmaben designed clothes that combined traditional designs and techniques with contemporary fashions. 
In the final stages of her tutelage under Chandaben and Parmaben, a village woman uses tiny stitches to create a masterpiece.
| Gradually the business grew and began employing more women. Parmaben set up training workshops in other villages. As each community in Kachchh was known for its own style of textile ornamentation, Shrujan took care to incorporate an embroiderer’s hereditary designs into her new work. But in order to meet the demands of sophisticated clients, it was essential that Shrujan monitor quality control. That high standard of craft production was rare in the India of the 1970s and 80s. According to Chandaben: “Shrujan functioned as a bridge between the rural and urban, not just transferring money as donations to aid the poor. Urban women were happy paying for this high quality and rural women were getting the opportunity to earn. It was a natural symbiosis.”
By the early eighties, Shrujan had expanded to provide work for 400 women in 22 villages. By 1990, Shrujan employed 800 women in 63 villages. She comments: “Because Shrujan was behind them, and the women knew this, they could manage their homes with self-respect. A woman whose husband was ill could take a loan with confidence that she could repay. We taught the women that tangible goods such as | livestock, property and useful equipment might have more value for them than money in a bank and they began to spend their incomes more wisely. Gradually, they became more and more economically resourceful, and the gender balance began to shift. If a daughter required money to create a trousseau, she could now turn to her mother, not only her father, for help.” Shrujan’s emphasis on letting artisans work at home meant that the transfer of power was much more graceful and less threatening to men than the alternative of women working outside their traditional environment.
Over the past decade, Chandaben has assembled 1100 embroidered textile panels, each unique piece created by a master craftswoman. Together these panels form a design bank that is taken from village to village to demonstrate to local women their textile history and to encourage them to participate in this endangered and lucrative craft.
| Shrujan's new centre - a collaborative by traditional artisans, university-trained artists and professional designers—has created a remarkable legacy. The new design bank is built around a unique collection of masterpiece prototypes, panels of a uniform size, each of which represents the very finest examples of specific styles in the most intricate embroidery. Over the past decade, this collection has grown to include 1100 pieces representing 10 different cultural groups and 15 different stitch types!
| On January 26, 2001, the massive Gujarat earthquake totally destroyed Shrujan’s new centre. The disaster became a springboard for major changes. The Government of Gujarat Handicraft Board loaned Shrujan 10 million rupees at a very low interest rate to rebuild and expand its employees to 3000, and to further develop the textile training programme. Today, an average embroiderer working for Shrujan makes about Rs 18,000 (US $450) per year, double the income of a labourer. A master craftswoman can make as much as Rs 25,000to Rs 30,000 (US $620 to 750) annually.
Now in her seventies, Chandaben is still bursting with ideas and ways to further develop Shrujan and benefit women. In October 2006, Chandaben received the Rolex Award for Enterprise. She is one of only 55 laureates singled out during the past three decades for their innovative efforts to improve human conditions and the world economy. Summing up these last few years, Chandaben states, “The most important part of my work, my life, is to keep this art and these artisans alive.” Through insight and determination, she is succeeding." | |
Chandaben Shroff is one of the amazing twenty women profiled (and adapted here) in Stephen P. Huyler’s new book, Daughters of India: Art and Identity (Abbeville Press). Visually stunning with insightful narratives, Daughters of India paints a portrait of Indian womanhood rarely seen by the western world. To learn more about the book, view pictures, or purchase copies visit: http://www.daughtersofindia.com.
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