It's not just physical structures or social, constitutional niceties that are being dismantled. The Handicrafts Board is now history. Yes, you heard that right.
Laila Tyabji writes: "Strange things happen quietly in COVID times - without even a whisper of warning....
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Laila Tyabji writes: "Strange things happen quietly in COVID times - without even a whisper of warning....
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"The news that the almost 70-year-old All India Handicrafts Board, established in 1952 by Pupul Jayakar and nurtured by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, has been abolished came as a complete surprise. All these years on, it remained the one official forum, however watered down...
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"where the voices and views of weavers and craftspeople could be expressed directly. One place where representatives of the sector were present in considerable numbers, and were actually empowered to advise the Government in policy and sectorial spending...
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"The given rationale for 'abolishing' it (the notification is stark: it doesn’t say 're-constituting' it, or 'dissolving' it) is that the move is 'in consonance with the Govt’s vision of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance' and 'a leaner Government machinery'....
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"The spaces where people themselves can interact directly with govt, or be part of their own governance, are certainly becoming leaner and increasingly few in number. It is worrying. I’d secretly have loved to be on the AIHB, but liked the fact that those 80+ members...
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"...who were not serving bureaucrats were primarily actual makers and practitioners, who could speak with authority and real knowledge. We will miss that wealth of collective wisdom at a time when craftspeople and the sector are struggling for survival and imaginative solutions."
