India- Jobless weavers joining hands with Maoist rebels

Obra (Aurangabad): In this agro-based district where unemployment forces the youth to migrate, thousands of skilled weavers trained by the Centre are facing penury as the government and netas seem to have lost interest in them. Unable to cope with poverty, many of them have also taken to Left-wing extremism by joining hands with Maoist rebels who have a sizeable presence in the district, Incidentally, Aurangabad has the distinction of giving Bihar its first deputy chief minister-cum-finance minister Anugraha Narain Sinha.
As Obra and five other assembly constituencies of Aurangabad district are set to go to polls in the second phase on October 16, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar visited the Mehfilen Kaleen Prathmik Bunkar Sahyog Samiti Limited centre, some 10 km from Aurangabad, and promised to revive it. Weavers, however, realise the futility of the poll rhetoric. “We have been crying hoarse before the government to pay attention to the plight of carpet weavers, but to no avail,” said Raj Nandan Prasad, manager-cum-secretary of carpet weavers’ society.
Prasad gets a meagre Rs 4,000 per month and finds it difficult to make ends meet. “Though my son has received training in weaving, I will send him somewhere in Surat or UP where he will have better prospects,” he said. Established in 1986, this carpet weaving centre used to be a beehive of activity with hundreds of weavers, cutting across caste and community, working there and also in surrounding villages. “Our products were also in demand in the export market,” said Anirudh Prasad, a weaver from Kuraipur village.
What, however, changed the scenario was the advent of synthetic carpets in the mid-90s. “While we used to sell carpets for Rs 300 per square feet and best ones between Rs 4,000 and Rs 5,000, the synthetic ones were available in the market for as cheap as Rs 100 per square feet. Gradually demand for our carpets nosedived and that was the beginning of the end of the weavers here,” said the manager. It all started three decades ago when Md Ali Mian, a local carpet weaver, received the National Award and drew the attention of the then Union textile ministry for setting up a centre here. In 1986, a cooperative was formed and villagers were trained in weaving under Training Rural Youth for Self-Employment (TRYSEM) scheme of the centre.

“Those days we used to get bulk orders from Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh, also known as the carpet city,” recollected Rajnandan. Dhurries or rugs were also made here. “If the government wants, it can also give us huge orders for supplying these rugs to government schools where children are made to sit on the floor,” said Manoj Paswaan, another weaver. Left with only 30 looms and equal number of workers at the centre who are paid Rs 175 per day for nine hours of work, the weavers have lost interest in the election process. “Except the chief minister, none of the candidates have bothered to visit us yet. We are yet to decide, but we will certainly not support any of the parties as they have allowed us to die pre mature death,” a weaver said with finality in his voice.