Crafting Craft – Asia InCH – Encyclopedia of Intangible Cultural Heritage

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Craft practices are an integral part of any cultural setting. They provide an identity to the people belonging to a particular culture. India has a vast variety of cultural settings resulting in diverse craft practices. At the beginning, craft items were produced by different cultural groups to serve specific purposes. Later, with time and changes in society, function of these products changed and at times they were used as items of household decoration; that is moving from function to aesthetic. And now is the time when craft is considered as ornamentation with high price for a particular class of the society. Craft practices in most of the developed economies are almost stopped. Fortunately, in India, craft practices are still alive. However, the craft sector is facing a lot of challenges with new technologies and changing life styles. Many steps are taken by the Government of India to support the craft sector but a lot is yet to be done at different levels of society.

CHALLENGES FACED BY THE CRAFT SECTOR:

There are many issues, however, all of them overlap with each other.

Falling Demand of hand crafted products: With time our mindset changes resulting in changes in our surroundings and taste. After Industrial Revolution our life style has moved into a higher pace. Today we are so impatient that we find it difficult to wait for our computer to boot when we start it or we are much faster when using keys ...