Thaindian News

By Shailendra Sinha

Raipur, Dec.4 (ANI): That Jharkhand is a land of immense natural bounty, of mineral wealth, populated largely by tribal communities is known to many. What is not so well-known is that it home to a thriving silk industry, producing bales of the wonder yarn, this organic fibre.

Silk production is a wonderfully ‘eco-friendly’ industry. It leads to the growth and maintenance of rather than cut them. This is what the silk worms feed on. Basically the silk worms from which emerge the cocoons need plenty of greenery, the right temperature to breed. In Jharkhand it is in the heavily forested regions where groves of Saal and Aasan trees provide this nourishment to the silk worms.

‘Silk’ actually is the generic name within which you have varieties depending on the silk worms and the trees they feed on. In Jharkhand it is the ‘Tussar ‘ production, which has caught on as viable economic activity, not only as a product generation but providing of livelihoods to hundreds of ‘adivasis’ in the villages. It is essentially labour intensive, a cottage industry which in effect feeds the ‘mill’ or ‘factory’ model of production ‘Tussar’ has a muted lustre, more like a ‘matt’ rather than a ‘glossy’ finish and is highly coveted by the garments and fashion industry across the country and abroad.

The government has been pro- active in enabling this industry to grow. It launched a programme called ‘Resham Doot’ which has a mind-boggling 40 pilot projects for tussar production, which engages around 60,000 families many of them women who earn upto Rs.4, 000-5000/- per month. For the adivasis who are happiest in the forest, it is a home-grown industry which does not displace them. Jharkhandi Rai of Saraiyahat, Dumka district, says “I planted Arjun plants on about two acres of land. And then I bred Tussar worms on these plants. The cocoon or ‘Kokun’ as it is called in the local tounge on these plants have grown. Today, businessmen visit villages to buy Kokun.” Rai’s five children have been raised on the earnings from these Arjun trees!

Muhammd Mustafa Ansari is another silk producer and he has direct access to the market. Ansari, produced 13,500,00 quintals kokun in his first crop and there has been no looking back. Then there are women like Chunni Kisku and Saraswati Devi who have got good returns for their labour. They have ingeniously combined it with other agricultural work, which provides their bread and butter with the silk production work providing the jam! The converse could be true as well. Essentially both these activities flow into each other in terms of agricultural seasons, not crossing each other’s paths, coexisting as it were. Women say that they do this work after rice plantation during rain, at the end of Aghan or Poos month. What has worked for them and indeed many of the other silk breeders in the region is the availability of technical training for commercial worm breeding. Thus from merely being ‘hands’ in the industry, they have become ‘entrepreneurs’.