How the changing climate is testing Indian craftspersons

The intense rains that follow extreme temperatures have lengthened the entire process by many weeks. At times the washed product simply doesn’t dry due to cloud cover and humidity. “The rainwater is also highly acidic, which harms the natural colours, kaam ruk jaata hai (work stops),” says Khatri, who has been noticing the changes in temperature and rain patterns for a decade or so. Last year, the rains started in May and ended in November, as opposed to the regular monsoon cycle of July to September. This is an extension of changes taking place in Kutch’s climate patterns over the past three decades, according to a Mongabay report from 2023, with the average seasonal rainfall in Kutch increasing from 378mm in 1984 to 674mm in 2013.

Khatri’s words are significant as craft communities are now beginning to acknowledge the impact of climate change—or a long-term shift in temperatures and weather patterns caused by a combination of natural and man-made factors—on their lives and livelihoods. “Mausam bilkul badal gaya hai (the weather has completely changed),” is a common refrain heard across craft clusters. According to a report by Down to Earth, India experienced severe weather events on 360 days in 2025, damaging at least 17.41 million hectares of cropped area. This year too the country has witnessed severe pre-monsoon heat waves with temperatures crossing 45 degrees Celsius, severe flooding in Assam, landslides and flash floods in Kerala and Uttarakhand.

The impact of this phenomenon can’t only be gauged through statistics and scientific reports. Rather, it is important to delve into the lives of potters, dyers, weavers, toy makers and farmers in order to understand the human cost underlying increasing incidents of floods, heatwaves, cyclones and forest fires. As kapaas and mulberry trees—integral to cotton and silk weaving, respectively—succumb to the rising heat, or flash floods wipe away looms, “you get a sense of a quieter kind of loss—of wisdom, intergenerational knowledge and skill among those who have long lived so close to nature,” says Minhazz Majumdar, Dehradun-based curator, writer and educator who specialises in indigenous art and craft traditions.

Plants flowering too early might seem like a small change to some of us, but it marks a significant shift for those who work with process-oriented crafts involving fibre, dye and pigments, which are extracted from shrubs and flowering plants. Invasive weeds have started to spread in the forests, impacting the productivity of the ecosystem. In such a scenario, any craft that is dependent on forest produce is affected. “The extreme climate events are impacting availability of natural material, resources like water, and processes such as pre-loom preparation,” she adds.

In India, with a large number of artisan and weaving communities living in ecologically fragile areas in Assam, West Bengal, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Kutch and Kerala, to name a few, it is astonishing that there is barely any discourse around the effect of climate change on craft livelihoods. The imprint of unpredictable weather patterns can be seen differently for each craft. A 2023 report, Craft in the age of climate crisis, published by the British Council and Fashion Revolution India, pegs the number of craftspersons in India at around 200 million—women comprised 56.13% of this demographic—facing varying degrees of risk from climate change, directly or indirectly.

Akriti Tyagi, Director—Strategic Communications, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), an independent public policy research institution, argues for greater nuance in how we understand climate vulnerability of artisans instead of treating craft communities as a single homogenous category. Questions need to be asked about what climate vulnerability can mean at an individual level and then at a community level. For instance, for someone working in a small workshop at home, extreme heat can reduce the number of hours in which they can work safely and productively. “A weaver, potter, puppeteer, folk musician and bamboo craftsperson may all be vulnerable to a changing climate, but not in the same way,” she says.

There are several instances of increased temperatures and changing rainfall patterns leading to the scope and scale of the craft changing—the report by British Council and Fashion Revolution India, for instance, mentions the dwindling availability of local aale mara (Wrightia tinctoria) used as the wood base of toys in Channapatna, Karnataka, or the curtailed access of potters in Rajasthan to clay due to irregular monsoon and extended droughts.

CHANGING ECOLOGIES

Acclaimed jamdani weaver Jyotish Debnath, who is based in Kalna, a historic temple city in the Purba Bardhaman district of West Bengal, is known for weaving fine 500-count muslin. Traditionally the sari is woven from a unique indigenous cotton variety called phuti karpas (Gossypium arboreum var. neglecta). However, both Debnath and his son, Rajib, are worried that 25-30 years hence, this quality of jamdani might not exist with the yield and quality of the kapas on a decline. “The plant is not producing the long-fibre cotton nowadays due to changes in temperature and humidity. Raghunath Basak, a respected weaver from Tangail, Bangladesh, told me the same thing,” says Shubhamay Banerjee, who has been conducting customised tours in India for writers and craft conservationists on post-independence architecture, textile and craft traditions for over three decades.

These kinds of shifts are palpable in Ladakh as well. Monisha Ahmed, co-founder, The Ladakh Arts and Media Organisation (LAMO), a centre where people can learn, create and engage with local arts and cultures, has noticed an increase in the number of floods since 2010. This year, the region has seen three floods in Kargil, Pangong and Zanskar. Such events impact several crafts, including papier mache and brick-making, which requires sunshine at a particular stage for drying, and the production of pashmina textiles. The long dry spells have led to reduced grasslands for yak, sheep and Changra goats, which means that livestock don’t get enough pastures to graze on, impacting the quality of wool.

In Keralam, many changes have taken place after Cyclone Ockhi in 2017, which has been followed by floods and landslides almost every year. One or two spells of extreme rainfall during the monsoon season are now followed by a long dry spell. “This is not just because of climate change but also human activities that have led to deforestation and rampant urbanisation. You see the impact of manmade intervention in Assam as well but not to such an extent as in Keralam,” says Akshit Sangomla, senior correspondent, Down to Earth, who writes extensively on climate change. He also cites the example of Uttarakhand, which is warming at a far more rapid pace than the rest of India. “There the ecology, including the treeline, is moving upwards. The spring season has shifted and become shorter in duration. This has a direct impact on craft livelihoods,” he adds.

Meanwhile, the 2018 floods in Keralam were particularly catastrophic, severely impacting Chendamangalam weavers, famous for their fine muslin dhotis and kasavu saris, causing damage to looms and yarn banks. Delhi-based Ritu Sethi, foundertrustee of Craft Revival Trust, was part of a UNESCO-instituted team of experts that travelled across Keralam after the floods to assess the damage to intangible cultural heritage besides infrastructure, tools, performance spaces and other aspects of living heritage. “That was one of the first instances in India when living heritage was part of a post-disaster needs assessment to understand how relief could best be disbursed,” says Sethi.

She suggests that states, institutions and craft experts look beyond major climatic disasters to smaller unknown stories as well about communities trying to deal with the unpredictable and the unforeseen. For instance, in the Chhota Udaipur region of Gujarat, members of the Dhanak indigenous community fashion terracotta utensils out of local red clay. “They coat the inside of the utensils with natural lac. With trees being cut, are they getting enough lac for glazing? Are they allowed easy access to forest produce? These are stories worth looking at to understand the impact of climate change and prepare a roadmap for the future,” she adds.

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH

Craftspersons, often hailing from marginalised communities, rely on nature for livelihood as well as sustenance. Failed harvests combined with short production cycles for their craft impact them mentally as well as economically. There is also loss of intergenerational knowledge as youth in many of the communities are moving away from the craft traditions and migrating to other cities. Sethi is seeing how artisans are adapting every single day to cope with resources that are no longer available. Some are opting for machine-made yarn or getting natural fibre from a greater distance. “All of this adds another layer of insecurity. If there is too heavy rainfall, their tools get destroyed, they don’t get clay; if there is a drought they don’t have fibre or grass—these are just a few instances. As a result they feel it is easier to leave the craft and follow a profession that is less insecure. For the craft it is a tragedy, for them it is survival,” she says.

Neither the causes nor the impact of climate change can be viewed solely from an ecological lens. Many aspects come into play, ranging from haphazard development, deforestation, inadequate structural measures and burning of fossil fuels. Studying the impact of climate change on craft livelihoods seems to be at a nascent stage. Some like Ahmed of LAMO have started documenting changes through small surveys. The team studied 32 villages in Nubra, and put together an exhibition, Along the River: Walking through the cultural landscape of Nubra, last year in Leh. “We always think of a village as a static entity. However, when we started researching, we realised that some villages in Nubra have moved at least three times due to the floods,” says Ahmed. The team studied the ruins of former settlements and oral accounts as well.

They recently also mapped two villages in Chumthang and their textile traditions. These surveys conducted over the years have offered several insights into the manner in which craft is being practiced. In a place like Ladakh with limited resources, artisans specialising in metal or wood work would primarily make things for the local community. The scale of production was smaller. “Only now labels such as Jigmet Couture have stated that craftspersons have started catering making things on commission. A lot more women are now heading out of the house to weave at units by textile brands like Lena, Utpala and Namza. These studies are important documents of change to both tangible and intangible heritage,” says Ahmed.

CLIMATE-RESILIENT FUTURES

What if there is a time in the future when no one knows ways of extracting natural pigment or recognises the right kind of fibre for weaving? Will there be a craft future at all if the next generation turns away from traditional skills—how will they learn how to adapt to newer climatic challenges if they are not versed in the wisdom of the past? To ensure the transfer of such intergenerational knowledge, LAMO has introduced workshops at Wanla village where skills such as wood carving and the stories behind them are being passed on. “One of the ways forward to imagine a sustainable craft future is to work with the artists from the region itself,” says Ahmed.

Another way forward is to reimagine the role of the craftsperson itself, wherein they get greater agency and control over how they approach their skill set—adapting to conditions as they go along. Khatri, for instance, is stepping outside of blockprinting workshops to galleries where he can present his work as an artist. An ongoing show, Looking Back. Looking Forward, at 47A Mumbai, is his first solo show. Presented by mentor and researcher, Satish Reddy, who has been working with craft communities in Kutch since 2012, the exhibition seeks to recentre craft as an authorial art, “linking the Kachchh ancestry through to today’s art practices to understand the emergence of the modern artist as a custodian of tradition”.

In the show, he expands the block print tradition by using tonal gradations of natural dye to express the density of a metropolis’s architecture, eroded surfaces, and its restlessness. He breaks away from repetitive patterns by treating ajrakh as an open canvas. Khatri, who learnt the skill from his uncle, enrolled at Somaiya Kala Vidya in Meghpar, Gujarat, to further his education. There, he started creating art based on specific themes suggested by the mentors “Khalid has always wondered why there is a gap between artist and artisan. Someone else suggests a theme and tells craftspersons to work on it. Why not the reverse,” says Reddy, who introduced him to artists like Mark Rothko and S.H. Raza. Khatri has started drawing inspiration from epigraphy, calligraphy, architecture and portraiture. Combining them with his craft heritage, he is creating a vocabulary that is truly unique to him.

For certain crafts, the way forward is to adapt by changing the scale. According to Hema Singh Rance, director arts India, British Council, in the North-East, for example, artisans have turned invasive water hyacinth into products such as baskets, bags and yoga mats, creating new livelihood opportunities while addressing an ecological challenge.

Meanwhile, on the island of Majuli, Hem Chandra Goswami is a well-known name. A master mask maker, he received the Padma Shri in 2023 for preserving and promoting the traditional Assamese mukha shilpa, which was endangered before that. The craft though continues to face challenges because of the changing climate with rising temperatures and unpredictable rain making the drying of the masks difficult. This craft of mukha shilpa started in Majuli way back in the 15th century when saint-social reformer Srimanta Sankardeva introduced religious folk theatre and dance-drama as part of a neo-Vaishnavite movement. During bhaona performances, stories from epics would be enacted, and the masks helped the audience recognise deities and demons.

Goswami learnt the craft from his father Rudra Kanta. He has, over time, experimented with techniques to reduce the weight of the masks so that they are easier to make and also comfortable for the performers participating in the traditional bhaona performances. He has also broadened the scope of the craft by making the masks available as decorative pieces. However, they can only be bought from Samaguri Satra, where his centre is based. At his gurukul, he is passing on his wisdom to the next generation of mask makers, who are learning how to balance tradition with practical sustainability to take on the vagaries of the weather. Aditya Saikia, 21, began his tutelage under Goswami in 2016 and has since created masks for dramas, as gifts and decoration pieces.

“There are no private companies or organisations in our hometown that offer employment. People from the village had started heading out to other cities for work. Guruji wanted to preserve the skill while offering sustainable employment opportunities to youngsters like us,” he says. Today, Goswami’s centre gets students from Haryana, Maharashtra, France, and other places. On an average, each batch has 30-35 students.

It is important to look at the past to see how crafts have coped with uncertain times, and whether those learnings can be applied today or not. Take the example of the Baluchari sari, made of tussar silk, which had been woven in Bengal’s Murshidabad district for centuries. It also received patronage from the nawabs in medieval times, but the craft declined during British rule due to political reasons. It became endangered and weavers were forced to relocate to Bishnupur. “The Murshidabad ones featured ornate borders and scenes from the nawab’s durbar. However, in Bishnupur, the visuals drew from local myths and legends, terracotta craft, and more,” says Banerjee.

Even in its new home, the cost of weaving the Baluchari, with its time-consuming jala technique, turned into an expensive proposition. In the early 20th century, artist and intellectual Subhagendranath Thakur suggested a new way of weaving the sari, which was once again facing a threat. He introduced the jacquard technique, which was easier than the jala and led to faster production. That style is followed even today. “The original technique made in pit looms is very rare now. If you order such a sari you will have to wait for six months and it will cost you upwards of ₹35,000,” adds Banerjee.

However, the speed of adaptation has to keep up with the scale of climate change. Assam, for instance, has a history of floods and farmers had gotten attuned to that cycle. “Earlier, the elderly would know when a flood would come and prepare accordingly. However, this year, the waters surged in Assam due to the swelling up of rivers coming in from Nagaland and Manipur, which rarely flood. This took people by surprise. These changes in the climate have occurred only in the past decade or so. The time frame to adapt has been very short, which is a huge challenge,” adds Sangomla.

It has become even more vital to draw a roadmap—both short-term and long-term—for climateresilient craft futures, and the key is to listen closely to the artisans themselves. For most surveys, teams of researchers and experts usually venture in and out of craft clusters, treating each initiative as a project. Of course, the scientific and technical knowledge that emerges from these endeavours leads to better understanding of a craft’s trajectory.

“Such surveys should have an underpinning of equality. We need to listen to craftspersons on how they coped in the past,” says Sethi. For instance, how did communities of itinerant people learn to prepare bamboo to separate yarn? How has that practice changed with bamboo forests being cut down in different parts of the country? Or why did the traditional practice of using jawbones of boal fish to clean and comb raw cotton fibres in Dhaka muslin stop?