Kashmir is also a land of culture and recognized for traditional crafts as well as recently named with some of the best textile work. Namda work, a elegant felting-making technique and very specialized, is very important to these arts.
In these forms of thousands-year-old Kashmiri artisanship, Namda gives artistic beauty while also providing cultural and historical identity to the area.
The same is now a common trend with many other heritage crafts. Namda work is being heavily attacked by modern day trends, and hence the livelihoods which rely on the craft is also under attack.
Namda was once making beautiful rugs consisting of large amounts of hand-pukka, felting work with wool. The craft was introduced into the Valley hundreds of years.
During the golden years of Namda, it has a huge market for both inside of Kashmir, and abroad. In fact, the domestic and foreign market demands ensured that the crafts people could make a living through the dread of their trade, and hence Namda was economically sustainable-cultural empowerment from their artisanry-that could benefit the knowledge and cultural practice of the greater cultural region.
Yet, since those times, the craft itself is in decreasing terms. There are many factors contributing to this decline. once-upon-a-time handicraft making logic, which was the most productive , have now multiplied the creations and in turn challenges
The principal challenge is a combination of modernisation and changing consumer preferences. As consumer preferences change rapidly more towards globalisation, traditional crafts are facing real hardship through the actions of larger mass-producers who can manufacture things cheaper.
The growth in Namda production needs to be considered very seriously by some skill focused schemes. These schemes need to focus on getting the new generation to train in the old methods of production and hopefully having the craft connect with the modern design sensibility to create contemporary good(s) in an established market.
One way to chase this would possibly be to look at the support schemes by government for handicraft projects of which the Ministry of Textiles is a facilitator. However, stimulating local production, through specialist training and young locals in Kashmir will be the only real way to sustainability.
The GI tagging of Namda would be work toward protecting the artisans’ intellectual property rights for any aspect of misappropriation and produce a uniquely Kashmir product.
This treasure needs to be preserved and the efforts of all suppliers, be it government or NGO, merchant, consumer should be collectively.
