Projects of the Trust

THE ENVIRONMENT

Located in the district of Bellary, the village Kaddirampura of the Hospet Taluk, is close to the site where lay the ruins of the capital of the ancient Vedic kingdom of Vijayanagara on the banks of the river Tungabhadra. It stands amidst the granite geological chaos formations. Once a powerful and rich area, populated with farmers and cattle breeders, the site was ruled until the 16th century by the Vijayanagara dynasty, who built monuments and temples over a vast area as a display of their wealth. The capital was spread on 24sqkms surrounded by lines of fortifications to protect the inhabitants, of which number raised to 500000 inhabitants at the time of their splendor. Their opulence was crossing the frontiers of the site as they were trading with the Portuguese and all major traders of the continent.During the two centuries of their ruling, the

Vijayanagara emperors had to fight against coalitions of Muslim kings – mostly from the Bijapur sultanate until their army was defeated in 1654. The capital was ransacked by the soldiers and mercenaries of the Muslim coalitions and then abandoned. At the same time, due to this mixity, many architects were of Muslim origin, thus explaining the great Muslim influence. Today, the place is classified as a world heritage site by UNESCO, and is visited by many tourists as its remaining splendor and majesty perfectly match the environing granite formations of Hampi. Today the fertile lands constituted with the silt of the Tungabhadra River provide crops of rice bananas and sugar cane cultivated on very small scale exploitation of few acres, by Kannadigas, Tamils and Lambhanis farmers. In the nearby Hospet and Sandur hills mines opened to extract iron ore, are exploited by unscrupulous owners, enrolling workers in medieval conditions.

Starting from the 15th century, the Lambhani-Banjaras settled in this area, carrying the grains for the Mogul armies. Different waves of migration followed along with the conflicts, until they were forced to abandon their nomadic way of life due to the development of trains and road links. Many settled on low grade fields, and organized their life in village called ‘Tanda’ working as laborers or construction builders. After independency, they were given lands by the government, cultivated by the community. Once powerful and wealthy, the loss of their nomadic way of life, the low quality of their lands and the pressure of the modern life are slowly eroding their standards of life.

LAMBHANI-BANJARAS HISTORY AND SKILLS:

Originating centuries ago in the Jodhpur and Jaisalmer desert areas of Rajasthan, the Banjaras were bullock transport carriers and builders of great monuments, who ranged throughout the subcontinent negotiating and maintaining expensive contracts to supply goods to important customers as the Moghal armies and the British. For centuries, they efficiently moved their enormous caravans through vast road less tracts of all India, guarantying safe conduct for grain, salt and messages. Doing so, they spread from Kashmir to TamilNadu, from Orissa to Gujarat, spilling over into Sind, Pakistan, Iran and further west. Since they wore all their wealth, they were famed for their colorful dress and spectacular jewelry, and known for their lyricism, for song, poetry and dance, and for the maintenance of a unique aesthetic in their embroidery.

With the advent of the railway and the building of a road system, the Banjaras lost their primary occupation, but retained their tradition of monument buildings. Typical of peripatetic nomads, the Banjaras maintain strong boundaries so that they can interact with surrounding peoples and yet retain their cultural integrity. Such boundaries include the separate villages called tanda where the majority of the Banjaras still live today, situated near large cities where they work as construction laborers, or in remote rural areas where they farm, raise and herd animals. Their religion very different from the mainstream one. Their myths of origin, traditional taboos and social structure. The language they use is known as “Ghormati” or “Banjaraboli”, related to Hindi, Rajasthani, Punjabi and Roma of the European gypsies, unintelligible to most outsiders, while learning, the regional languages of every part of India where they have settled. And their distinctive colorful clothing, jewelry and embroidery.

An endogamous ethnic people, the Banjaras prohibit marriage with outsiders. Among themselves, they are exogamous, marrying only with members of opposite clans, known as gotras. This Hinduized form of exogamy takes its model specifically from the cast system from the Rajputs of Rajasthan. The same gotras are used throughout the subcontinent, allowing Banjaras from distant places to identify themselves to one another by reciting their lineage.

Their religion is animistic and implies a deep respect for natural processes and a close alliance with ambiguities inherent to their life. The Banjaras have a high tolerance for irrationality, for teasing and mischievousness, for ambiguity. These dual aspects or contradictions contribute to the hostility and fear that mainstream people exhibit toward the Banjaras…. Nationwide, they trace their origin through a complex lineage to cow-herding God Krishna and his consort Radha. At the same time, they retain allegiance to local and pan. Banjaras heroes, gods, goddesses, pilgrimage sites and rites interlaced with their particular history and pattern of wandering. Banjara deified ancestors and saints are worshipped and revered, their own priests, ‘Bhagats’, interfacing with ancestors and interpreting omens, dreams, miraculous stories and magic.

Some materially wealthy or some impoverished, the Banjaras appear to feel at ease anywhere, either moving through the country side of Karnataka, or selling their wares on market day in Goa or at home in their tanda throughout the subcontinent. Synonyms for groups and subgroups of the Banjaras, usually having regional and occupational significance, include the following: banjara, banjari, brinjari, gauria, gavadia, laban, labhana, labhani, lamani, lambani, lambadi, sugali, bamania, charan, ghor, marwadi, and many other names…….

SURYA’S GARDEN IN KADDIRAMPURA:

The Lambhani-Banjaras of Kaddirampura which amount around eight hundred inhabitants (half of the population of the village) are facing the same danger of fading identity and skills. In Kaddirampura, even though they represent a large group, the Lambhani-Banjaras are not organized as a community, as seen in other traditional Tandas, they have no unity, no head or representatives, the result being that they have become quite rule less, and they fight each other instead of trying to unite. Alcoholism and marital violence are rampant throughout the community. The precarity of their lives does not allow them to send regularly their children to school and they are affected by many health problems.

Still, the women of the community are working as daily coolies in sugarcane fields, caring for the family and tanning the cattle. Another source of income is coming from low quality embroidery sold to the tourists locally or in Goa. The traditional intricacy and quality of the craft, as well as the diversity of the patterns, are slowly disappearing.

In this environment, a young Lambhani-Banjara woman “Laxmi Naik” from Hampi in Karnataka has raised to fight against the decline of her community and founded Surya’s Garden, the working unit of a trust called “SURYA LAMBHANI-BANJARA WOMEN WELFARE TRUST”, along with eight members of the same community. There, the Lambhani embroideresses mean to revive ancient skills and to produce meticulous work. Each piece is unique. The quality of embroidery demonstrates the vitality of the rediscovered motifs.

At this time, the Trust gives work to around twenty ladies of Kaddirampura and a surrounding Tanda. The Trust is providing them with materials, and patterns and most of the ladies work at home for the moment. Jan Duclos, the French husband of Laxmi, is ensuring the promotion and commercialization of the products locally or in Europe. A part of the proceeds is meant to be used to build a community workshop, a medical center for the embroideresses and a kinder garden. This will provide Lambhani women with financial freedom, a sense of solidarity as well as an assertion of their ancestral identity. The Trust is now acquiring a piece of land of around two acres, on the outskirt of the village, where foundations will be started for a community building. Apart from this employment oriented scheme, a small library of Lambhani documents related with Lambhani-Banjara culture and a systematic recording of traditional patterns has been initiated. So far, all investments were done with donations to the Trust mostly by Jan and Laxmi. The running capital is ensured by the profits of the activity.

THE PROJECT:

To build a community handicraft centre of 440sqm (see plans in annexure A)
To enroll 50 to 70 ladies
To develop a commercial network based on the tourist inflow and access to high quality product retailers.
To develop a library on this quickly vanishing culture and its intricated embroidered traditional patterns.
To set up a small dispensary for the embroideresses and their children
To set up a Balwadi for the children

THE PRODUCT OF EMBROIDERY

The product embroidered by the women and the community would target different types of clients:
- Tourists visiting Hampi looking for sophisticated, ethnic handicrafts, with high value of art. It would be sold in the Handicraft centre itself, as it is located at a distance of 1 km from Hampi. Visiting the centre would be felt by the tourist as an excursion in the local culture. Besides the Handicraft centre would promote ostensibly values of fair trade, and durable development, in its very exclusive outlets, not in basic emporiums.
- High quality outlets in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi etc.
- Textile exports or garment designers.

PHASES OF IMPLEMENTATION:

The project will be conducted in different phases:
Year 1:
- Start of the building of the Handicraft centre: Four rooms and a big veranda for embroidering, stitching,
finishing, storing and administration.
- Construction of a medical dispensary and a Balwadi (Kindergarten) for the children of the embroideresses.
- Conducting regular open air medical camp[s to identify the main pathologies bringing first aid treatments and
counseling.
- Completing training of ten more embroideresses.

Year 2:
- Construction of the second phase of the Handicraft centre: Western and eastern aisles.
- Implementing the full scale business with the thirty trained embroideresses.
- Hiring a Balwadi teacher and running Balwadi.
- Training ten more embroideresses.
- Conducting medical camps.

Year 3 & 4:
- Construction of the third phase of the Handicraft centre: Southern Wing (See Plan attached).
- Implementing business with the trained embroideresses.
- Training ten more embroideresses.
- Running the Handicraft centre, the medical dispensary and the Balwadi.
- Conducting more medical camps.