The Missing Artisan – and Their Caste – in the Kohlapuri-Prada Conversation

The Wire

8 hours ago

A sandal resembling a Kohlapuri chappal in Prada's Spring-Summer 2026 collection has sparked multiple conversations around cultural appropriation. While the violence of cultural appropriation in the context of colonisation is well understood, the discourse in the subcontinent tends to brush over a far older and more troubling question that sits at the heart of subcontinental handicrafts – the erasure of the oppressed caste artisan from the centre of any conversation around the preservation of handicrafts, and the impact of that erasure on the value of the craft itself.
Conversations about handcrafted leather in other countries often centre the skills of specific families or neighbourhoods of artisans, honed over generations, in processes like tanning, dyeing and stitching. Intellectual property concepts like Geographical Indications (GI) that seek to protect products whose quality or characteristics are tied to the location of their production also recognise that both natural and human factors can be tied to a region. While the Indian government has granted a GI tag to Kohlapuri chappals, the human factor – the artisans who make the Kohlapuri chappal – are rarely treated with the same reverence accorded to the makers of hand stitched leather goods in other parts of the world. In 2019, artisans (often from the Dalit Chambar community) in Maharashtra reportedly earned about Rs. 60 for a pair of handstitched chappals. Tanners (usually from the Dalit Dhor community) who make the unique vegetable dyed camel coloured leather used in Kohlapuri chappals are reportedly paid about Rs 240 per kilogram of hide processed.
This apparent paradox where a craft is glorified by an urban elite, but the craftspersons are not, is not unusual in a caste-based society.
Language
In a traditional caste-based society, the material production of goods – including agriculture, animal rearing, weaving, tanning and the processing of wool – was largely done by the Sudra and Dalit castes while the so called upper castes reserved to themselves fields like administration, ritual knowledge and trading. Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, in his classic work, Why I am Not a Hindu, points out how each Dalit-Bahujan caste was so rooted in its own production process that the language spoken by the caste was itself structured around that production. The Brahminical Telugu spoken by the 'upper' castes in his village did not even contain the vocabulary to describe the processes of production related to animal rearing or leather work.
While the hierarchy of occupations coded into the traditional caste system dictated that all such work be treated as lower in status, or in the case of leather work, as impure, the goods produced were still essential to the upper castes. Hence the 'upper' castes permitted themselves to use goods produced by Dalits, including leather slippers, while simultaneously terming the tanners who made the leather and the artisans who crafted these slippers ritually impure. Castes that handle leather, in many states around India, were historically treated as untouchable.
While the Constitution outlawed untouchability, this fundamentally casteist practice of placing artistic value on the goods produced without elevating the status of the artisans who make these goods has survived. Sanitising language like 'Indian handicrafts' has allowed an urban elite to wax eloquent about the beauty of these crafts while ignoring or sidelining the difficulties that are faced by the communities involved in every stage of production.
Cattle, cows and violence
Cattle traders in Maharashtra today (who are predominantly either Muslim or Dalit) remain subject to periodic violent attacks from Hindu fundamentalist 'vigilantes' while transporting cattle for slaughter. Dalit castes involved in the skinning of dead cattle have also been subjected to this brutal violence. In addition to direct violence, Dalits involved in the leather industry face the constant risk of legal proceedings and police harassment relating to cow slaughter. There is also a general lack of state support for tanneries in terms of funding, land, and infrastructure facilities with proper hygiene.
Beyond material risks and financial exploitation, deep-rooted caste prejudice ensures the work is rarely treated with the respect it deserves, to the extent that the names of some castes historically involved in leatherwork are still used as slurs. In 2008, the Supreme Court held that the use of the word 'chamar' could be a punishable offence under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, if it was used with the intent to humiliate. In 2023, Pakistani cricketer and cricket commentator Wasim Akram drew intense criticism for using the word in a derogatory manner on air.
Retailers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs
The internet has helped some makers of Kohlapuri chappals speak about their craft, reach a market directly and bypass middlemen but it has also grown a new generation of (often 'upper' caste) online entrepreneurs whose businesses focus on promoting Indian crafts, but who tend to reserve to themselves control over aspects like investment, design and pricing.
While the GI tag has been useful in concentrating attention to the specific districts of Maharashtra and Northern Karnataka where Kohlapuri chappals are made, conversations about the industry still tend to centre the voices of retailers and wholesale manufacturers who are often not from the same caste as the tanners or the artisans who stitch the slippers. From this perspective, the unwillingness of artisans to continue in this difficult line of work is generally dismissed as 'labour shortages' and the struggles faced by tanners are bucketed into raw material shortages. The caste linked barriers that prevent artisans and tanners from growing their own businesses and reaching the more lucrative parts of the value chain within the industry are also rarely discussed in the context of preserving the craft.
This is not a problem limited to handicrafts. Multiple studies have found that Dalits are significantly underrepresented among entrepreneurs. Even when they own businesses, the enterprises they own are predominantly small.
Also Read: Kolhapuri Chappals Walk the Prada Runway, Yet Local Artisans Get No Benefit From it
Aseem Prakash demonstrates that Dalit entrepreneurs are also subjected to what is termed 'adverse inclusion' in the market. Adverse inclusion is a phenomenon where a market participant from an underprivileged community reaps lower returns on their capital investment, regardless of the quality and prices of the goods and services offered. His study of Dalit entrepreneurs and the restrictions they face offers several reasons for this, including upper caste officials blocking registration of Dalit owned businesses at the behest of upper caste competitors; competitors blocking the labour supply to Dalit businesses forcing them to seek labour from further away; upper caste bank officials restricting financing by telling Dalit entrepreneurs that they are not culturally suitable to successfully run certain businesses; and physical and legal threats to the business, forcing them to sell goods at cost to their upper caste competitors.
While many Indian influencers have spoken of the failure of the government to adequately market handicrafts like Kohlapuri chappals abroad, there is a deeper issue at play. Due to the manner in which caste restrictions have seeped into modern entrepreneurship in India, Dalit craftsman or tanners are rarely placed in a position where they can become the face of the industry, decide on the direction of its growth or even explain the uniqueness of the craft, as masters of a craft honed over generations, to the world. When it comes to hand crafted goods like leather slippers, this is a particular loss.
At the heart of marketing any product is a singular question – what makes this product special? In the case of Kohlapuri chappals, it is the specific tanning, dyeing and stitching processes, each honed with knowledge built over generations. And yet, the special nature of this knowledge cannot be explained convincingly unless the artisans are given the platform and resources to explain the evolution of their skills and lauded as the irreplaceable human factor that makes the product unique. If the artisans are financially exploited, sidelined and their skills treated within the Indian market as dispensable, or worse, degrading, it is unlikely that the rest of the world will accord these skills the respect that is their due.
Sarayu Pani is a lawyer by training and posts on X @sarayupani.