Weavers sit idle in Kannur's heritage village as handloom industry struggles

The Hindu

7 hours ago

The handloom heritage village of Azhikode, once alive with the rhythmic clatter of magghams (frame looms), stood eerily silent on Thursday. Even as the nation marked National Handloom Day, most weavers in the village sat idle.
Azhikode's weaving legacy dates back to the 16th century when Kolathiri Raja invited the Saliya weaver families to settle here. Their arrival created weaving streets across Kannur. The industry peaked during the 1960s and 80s, when Kannur crape fabric became popular in western markets.
However, Azhikode and many other such villages in Kannur are today a pale shadow of their past.
'Today, most houses have abandoned weaving and only a handful still retain looms, often lying unused. Had it not been for the heritage village board put up by the District Tourism Promotion Council, the identity of the place would have vanished,' says Sasidharan Thekkan, a weaver, who now runs a grocery shop,
The board was formed after the handloom village project began on January 5, 2015 under United Democratic Front government.
Prabhakaran Badi, 65, recalls the time when several companies and societies employed weavers here. He lost his job over ten years ago after the Rajarajeswari Weaving Mill, where he worked for over two decades, downed shutters.
'I still spin some yarn, but it mostly lies idle. If I spin a kayi (local unit) of thread, I get ₹16. That takes an hour. How can we survive on that,' Mr. Badi asks.
Pavithran, who worked in the sector for 50 years, now runs a single frame loom at home for export orders.
'Youngsters prefer jobs that earn them ₹1,000 a day instead of ₹400 after 10 hours of weaving,' he says His son, C. Arun, an engineer working in Mangaluru, says there is no respect in this job. 'Poor pay will only push us into debt.'
'The heritage village tag has brought no development or benefit for the weavers,' he adds.
A.V. Gopalan, 74, who started weaving at 14 years of age and still works in the Karivellur Weavers Society, says there has been no change and the traditional handloom sector is facing issues due to lack of employment, wages, and benefits.
K.V. Santhosh Kumar, secretary of the Kannur District Handloom Societies Association, says Kannur had 65 societies but only 35 survive now. 'Of over 10,000 weavers and workers earlier, only 2,800 are working now, most of them women. Besides wage arrears is an issue in the sector,' he says.
He says the government's school uniform project now makes up half the output of most societies.
'Wages of four months coming to ₹4.5 crore are pending for workers in Kannur,' he says adding that his society, Kalliassery Weaver Industrial Cooperative Society, suffered a loss of ₹60 lakh producing 70,000 metres of uniforms.
He says GST has further strained finances of the societies. 'Earlier there was no GST. Now, 5% GST on uniform fabric production in unrecoverable, burdening the societies,' he says. He claimed that HANTEX, the apex handloom cooperative, owed ₹10 crore in dues to societies.
The sector fears further setbacks with the United States imposing 25% tariff on Indian exports