It happened in 2001 and no one knew. No one, except the one's
who had it in them,the power to exploit the situation and take
political mileage were waiting. It was the end of a beginning.
We were, as the whole country was,lost in our own trivial
problems. Back then, i must confess we were also not aware of
the happenings in our state or our country, let alone be moved
by what i call " a series of unfortunate misplaced events" that
led to the spate of suicides in the remote village of Sircilla,
across dry and neglected Karimnagar District.
It took 7 years with suicide counts and changes in the goverment
for us - 6 youngsters to touch base at this village with
revelations brutally honest and politically confusing. We came
to know here, that mudslinging happens everywhere..no one is
spared...
We started our trip with the knowlege on the Handloom weavers of
Sircilla limited to few detailed mailers from the Frontline
tabloid. These articles were a fodder for the magazine at that
point of time and had all the makings of a breaking news slot.
We boarded a bus to Siddhipet, a municipality under the
Karimnagar Zilla parishad. The group was diversified as the
subject of the trip itself. Me and my cousin being program
writers for software product companies, one of them being a code
writer for a software firm and one being creative designer for a
movie based firm. Out of the remaining two, one was a son of a
farmer and had keen interest and awareness on rural farming and
the later was a Sales manager for a Pizza outlet..a fast moving
one for that matter......
With each one of us from different backgrounds and a common
perception about the handloom craft, the trip took us on a
suprising visit to the darkest realities of rural artisans and
the neglected tribes.
Hadloom weavers of Sircilla have been in peace for 30-40 years.
The trouble brewed with the Indian government amending the
National Textile Policy to reflect with the then government's
push towards liberalisation and globalisation.
The Maharashtra and Gujarat governments knew that most of the
textile was being bought from Sircilla. A spate of proactive
measures incluing the training of local handloom weavers on
Powerlooms and Jetlooms and also not being stringent on the
Handloom Reservation Act resulted in the development of a strong
weavers community forming in these two states with produce
significantly larger than the one produced in Sircilla and of
lower cost and better quality.
The Sircilla weaving community was caught unawares, with both
government not helping them to upgrade to Powerlooms from
conventional handlooms to compete with their predessors and also
their stock worth tens of crores lying idle in godowns and not
fetching them orders for which they have already commited
themselves.
What resulted was no less than a genoside. The desparate weavers
started commiting suicides. This caught the fancy of the then
politicians and what followed was a new era of vote bank
politics. It happened in 2001, 2004 and 2008.
This was news hard to digest and too interesting to ignore.
Our trip had hardly begun and we started to have already form a
picture of the ghosts of 2001.
We were of course in for a suprise...
To know what happened next....keep a watch on this post....
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