Raghunath Nama – Asia InCH – Encyclopedia of Intangible Cultural Heritage

YOUR VIEWS

Raghunath Nama A spirit of innovation, a desire to combine all the traditional printing processes of India. To keep up with the hand printing and dyeing practices and along with small machine makers create equipment which would remove the dreary and harmful processes involved in printing and dyeing.

He used to say that if the Government mandated Khadi as a uniform in organizations like the Railways, why would Khadi die? He shared with us the rampant corruption in weaving cooperatives, and the huge wastage in the unending stream of workshops organized by the state, shared between master artisans and craft bureaucrats. Despite this he always partnered with Government bodies for any project which he thought was useful, and officials in local Rajasthan craft marketing organizations gave him respect as Raghunath thought from all sides, the customer, the producer and the government. He gave equal thought to fair retail prices, wages, margins for retailers and wholesalers, and business practices along with quality of the product. Despite coming from a disadvantaged background he was neither bitter about people in power nor unfair to his workers. He was truly a trustee of his craft.

Raghunath did not want to remain just a job-worker for boutiques. He wanted to create his own brand and be visible as a designer-artisan-entrepreneur. He used to say that his desire and practice for innovation and experimentation would be like a free laboratory providi...