Dear Editor,
Apropos the news item published in this daily on 29 August, wherein the Governor BD Mishra and Textile & Handicraft Minister Tumke Bagra stressed the need to revive the indigenous tribal looms and handicrafts to boost the rural economy.
While applauding the ideas and commitment of the minister and the governor to revive the indigenous tribal looms and handicrafts, I would like to offer some suggestions for kind perusal of the state government, so that their commitment to revive the indigenous tribal looms and handicrafts to boost the rural economy may be realized and strengthened.
The practice of loin looms, looms, weaving and other handicrafts are not a new concept among our local tribal people. It has been practiced since time immemorial. But they don’t become profession or means to raise the rural economy of our tribal people because they don’t get sustainable avenues, scope of marketing, and government policy to back them up.
Tribal looms and handicrafts only become a matter of exhibition during festivals and during local rituals, but not sources of rural economy and sustainable avenues. Our local people are experts in weaving, loin looms, and handicrafts, but they don’t get marketing scope, due to which they cannot make it a profession and source of income.
If the state government really wants to strengthen the rural economy by providing indigenous tribal looms and handicrafts as a means to sustainable avenues, self-employment and entrepreneurial development, the state government has to first of all provide marketing scopes for all these local indigenous products.
For that I would suggest to the state government to legislate a law that makes it compulsory to wear tribal costumes and traditional attires during a particular day of government-regulated time in government or government-aided institutions like offices, schools, government-aided private schools, colleges, etc, and compulsory hiring or supply of handmade furniture and other local-made utilities in schools, offices and government quarters.
This will not only encourage the industries of local tribal looms and handicrafts but will boost the rural economy to a certain extent.
Our local people will be self-employed, self-reliant, and dependence on government jobs will be minimized to some extent. On the one hand, it will help preserve the practice and identity of the local traditional customs, culture and identity, and on the other hand, it will boost the rural economy by providing self-employment and making the local people self-reliant.
Sincerely,
Mamin Nalo,
Daporijo