This being one such exhibit https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1j75nc0/the_...
Brings back my joyous/carefree youth where I would spend summer vacations ambling around the massive temple complex.
The Western colonial imperial system never truly went away, it simply morphed into an opaque inscrutable machinery to make it palatable to its own highly refined taste. An empire of human rights.
Colonialism is when globalism? Much of Indians have no problem (I assume) with this.
It's also something that is deeply personal for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah [1] as they started their political careers climbing up the cooperative ladder - they were able to turn Gujarat from being a Congress only state to a BJP only state by co-opting cooperatives in the dairy industry [2]. And in Kancheepuram's case it's an extremely important industry in TN.
Furthemore, if Prada or Chanel buys Indian heritage artisan goods and gives it the luxury veneer, it helps MSMEs and khadi cooperatives demand better terms when wholesaling light manufactured products.
Finally, at a personal level, much of my family is associated with Khadi and Cooperative industries - they are one of the only ways to build medium or even high value industries while giving participants some degree of agency. The profits of khadi goods being sold at high margins ends up in the hands of cooperative members and cooperatives tend to re-invest in capacity building or subsidizing new entrants. This is why you see cooperative banks dot all of India.
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://theprint.in/opinion/politically-correct/rahul-gandhi...
[2] - https://scroll.in/article/858585/amul-is-now-a-congress-mukt...
Kanchipuram Saree has a rich history, and I learned so much more by reading this article.
I am intrigued by the Kanchipuram saree and have dreamed about owning one. The digital ledger is a unique idea – if authenticity is established, it would be easy to invest in this as art piece.
GI Tagging for ODOP products is taken extremely seriously as the products associated with ODOP tend to be associated with locally powerful khadi cooperatives and because this is a personal project of Modi and Shah as they started their political careers in Khadi Cooperatives and Amit Shah is the Cooperation (as in Cooperatives and Khadi) Minister, so complaints tend to be taken seriously. Additionally, textile cooperatives are extremely important in TN as well, and the TN government closely enforces it's GIs as well as building their own e-commerce platform and showrooms for selling cooperative goods [2].
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://kancheepuram.nic.in/about-district/gi-tag-product-ka...
[2] - https://www.cooptex.com/
But keep the votebank politics out of this man. Every political leader in the history of the country has espoused such kinship and love for the handicraft. Their reasons are their own.
Khadi and handicrafts have been political since before the beginning of the republic of India.
Besides, cooperatives are well-known mechanisms to launder money, and their politically "clean" image is why they are a favourite laundry of politicians.
An amusing personal connection is that my wife wore a sari for our wedding (I'm from Chennai) and I wore a sherwani that she, a graphic designer, designed with Dall-E's assistance. A friend of ours knows an embroiderer in Bangalore who then put the design to the coat. Loved it, to be honest: https://x.com/arjie/status/1855328068883353665
Saris (not quite from Kanchipuram - American fabric) and Thinking Machines!
Small multiples of a 100 are like a new flashy upstarts in the block as far as Indian traditional art goes.
i grew up in erode, a major handloom hub in tamilnadu.. so this hits close to home. research like this helps preserve and better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation.
thanks for sharing.
I recommend looking at a district's website or that if the associated ministry.
They tend to go in-depth into the history of their ODOP and GI goods, as can be seen with Kancheepuram Saris [0][1].
Visiting Khadi and Cooperative showrooms and export promotion events is also a treat - whenever I'm in Delhi I'd always make some time to visit the state and khadi bhavans in Luyten's Delhi to grab gifts and look at heritage goods.
[0] - https://www.indiahandloombrand.gov.in/pages/downloadFile/kan...
Every upper middle class woman had to have them, back in the day.
https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B3%E0...
Whenever someone says "actually", it's hard not to think of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGvw-E4OtOA
>About
> I pronounce my name as kroo-PAH-krun. In IPA it’s /kruːˈpɑːkrən/
Rules for thee, but not for me :))))
The only exception I can think of is Marathi. The 'el' in 'sakal' is roughly the same.