India as a nation has always been famous as well as appreciated for its textiles. The importance and history of Indian textiles can very well be dated back to the Indus Valley Civilisation, and has since then been synonymous with beauty and vibrance. “India’s textiles were so central to its identity abroad that in ancient Greece and Babylon the very name ‘India’ was shorthand for ‘cotton’,” according to the Google Arts and Culture page. The importance and reach of Indian textiles was all because of the materials and colours that were produced from the land, and international trade enabled Indian artisans and textile workers to propagate their work to a very large number of admirers, spread across the globe.

Phulkari has a global demand due to the beauty and the graceful look it presents. Today, phulkari embroidery is used in a variety of places, like fashion, decor, furniture, murals and many more. The amazing art done with images of flowers and other geometric shapes has often caught the eye of many people, therefore it is no surprise that the global demand of phulkari has been on the rise. To meet the constant rise in the demand, people started adapting mechanical work instead of hand work, as traditional phulkari with all its detailing took around six to twelve months of work. In some cases, the family would hire an artist who would specifically make them the phulkaris. It was also seen that the traditionally used khaddar fabric, which was typically home grown by the weavers themselves, was replaced by foreign fabrics, such as chiffon and georgette, as these were easier for suppliers to procure.

So how did this change in attitude come about? To start with, the Britishers sought to earn money from the sale of phulkari crafts. On observing the handicraft industry of India, Britishers noticed that there were no profits from the sale of the handicraft, nor was there any demand being created for the same. The Britishers, therefore, exploited the resources as well as the people for manufacturing phulkari for the outside world. The Britishers noticed that the majority of the weaver community are poor, and so they decided to pay the people for their services, effectively becoming the middlemen in the transactions between the producers and the consumers. They would charge high prices for the product but would give the bare minimum amount to the producers for their hard work. Part of the problem was that the Punjabi women did not have much money with them, hence the women became ready to sell handwoven phulkari for whatever they can get.

Within a short amount of time after the British left, machine manufactured phulkari dominated the market, with a large number of production units in the cities of Amritsar and Ludhiana in Punjab. Many NGOs have been making sure that regular employment is available for local artisans as well as marginal and landless farmers, therefore people are encouraged to work in these places. In the modern day, phulkari ensures jobs to poor women, who do not spend much time on a singular phulkari. The creation of phulkari by hand in the modern time involves dyeing the cloth, and then using printing for the designing of the cloth. This process has made making phulkaris easier but has effectively robbed the women of the chance to explore their creativity. The patterns that are to be made aren’t decided by the women, but by the shopkeepers who will buy the product from them at a lower price and sell it off to the consumer at a higher quoted price. The middleman often makes more money than the women who create the prints. Besides this, the manufacturing industries use the phulkari patterns on sarees, drapes, shoes (jutti), bed sheets, etc, whereas in the early days, they were only meant for clothing items such as the dupattas. With the assistance of computer-aided designs (CAD), there has been an increase in the production of machine-made phulkaris. The patterns making is now easier, which encourages people to use more design-oriented software for the making of designs, as the CAD patterns are preferred by the producers for their speed, flexibility, versatility and creativity.

However, due to the continuing demand for more traditional form of phulkari, the commercialisation of the craft hasn’t completely destroyed the phulkari hand work; in fact, it has increased it. The machine-made phulkari, due to being made of cheaper materials, often fall apart faster. The construction of garments with phulkari embroidery done on it doesn’t ensure that it could be used for a long period of time. People who want to buy phulkari, often want to buy it from the original source. Many people are ready to pay more for the actual product than a simple machine replica of the same. Numerous artisans are engaged in crafts work on part-time basis (Syed Khalid Hashmi, 2012), which can aid with the production of traditional phulkari. This would benefit the producer, the consumer as well as the market in the long run.

Nevertheless, the meaning of the phulkari craft has undergone change post-commercialisation, which has compromised on the quality as well as the durability of the craft. The richness of the rural art was happiness which was transferred to the cloth while singing folk songs (Rajinder Kaur, Ila Gupta 2014). Phulkari grew as a mode to express one’s creativity through the art of embroidery. A girl puts her entire dreams and aspirations on to the surface of the base cloth of phulkari. Nowadays, the ritual of ‘trinjan’ has completely died out, replaced by the urgency to earn money. It is true that the craft survives to this day because of organisations like NABARD that help marginal farmers with their livelihood. However, the aspect of culture that was deep-rooted into the craft has almost died out completely. People are no longer concerned to save the sanctity of the craft.

Commercialisation of the craft is also the reason why many artisans are losing their livelihood to automation. As discussed before, traditional phulkaris are still there in the market due to their higher quality, but at the same time, the machine-based phulkari is catching up to the hand-made phulkari standards. With the introduction of technology into the craft, the designs and patterns have been diversified, and are giving people the chance to explore their creativity even further with the drawing of concepts. An increase in the demand for phulkari, as well as the shift in the attitude of the embroidery being seen as a mode of income instead of an aspect of a culture that needs to be preserved, has been observed at large by the community.

Another big issue that has been rarely addressed in problems like these is the fact that gender inequality still exists in India. There are many different areas in our country that have been affected by the staggering gap between the wages as well as quality of life between the men and the women of the country. Literacy rate has been less for women when compared to literacy rates for men: 54.2 against 75.9, which is a huge gap between the two genders (Bidisha Mohanta, Purusottam Nayak 2009). The situation is worse in rural and remote areas, such as villages and local towns, and these are the areas where the maximum number of phulkaris are produced, as it is very much practiced in the villages of Punjab.

The majority of handicrafts produced in India are actually made by women, and phulkari is no exception. The result of excessive physical and mental pressure on the lives of women in Punjab will contribute to lower quality of work being produced, as well as a significant reduction in the demand of phulkari in the market. Hence, to keep the craft surviving, the handicraft artisans need to be paid on a regular basis to sustain themselves as well as their families.

The cultural significance of the craft spreads wider than the place of its origin, and plays an important role in the lives of people, especially the women of the north. Phulkari, in the beginning, were made for the basic purpose of being gifted to new-born girls and young maidens on the day of their marriage. The sanctity behind the creation of a phulkari embroidery is quite high among the Punjabi people, as it was only meant to be used as a memento of celebration in the Punjabi household, and it stayed that way up until the Britishers arrived in India, who saw profits in selling the handicraft to the buyers in the international market.

From being a craft that was practiced among the Punjabi folk women when a girl child was either born or married, to the commercialisation of the handicraft, as well as increasing the number of people who are interested in it, phulkari has been at the centre of handicraft industry of India for all the correct reasons. Although it was almost discontinued by the local artisans post-Independence, numerous organisations have been successful in preventing the art form from completely dying out, as well as supporting the people who practice the art form. Throughout the history of phulkari, it has remained a symbol of elegance and grace among the people of Punjab, Haryana and parts of Rajasthan, where the embroidery form is practiced.

Today, regrettably, phulkari, like other handicrafts, has been dying due to rapid industrialisation and changes in the attitude of people. What started as a beautiful relationship between the women of the family and their own aspirations, stories and creativity has now transformed into a source of earning for the marginal and poor people. Though this is commendable, it comes at the cost of losing the cultural importance behind these crafts. Phulkari once solely used to be a way for the women of the household to engage themselves in activities, as well as exploring their own selves on the cloth that they worked upon. However, with the rapid advancements around us, it will be difficult to carry on the traditions of past into the future.

Moreover, there are many different problems—like being unorganised, poor exposure to the market, as well as lack of education—regarding the sale of handicraft goods in the international market. A good way to tackle this problem is by ensuring that the marginalised women are taken care of while they work on the phulkaris. In other words, their basic requirements should be taken care of. Already we have witnessed many programmes that seek to make sure that more people become a part of this art form, and events like the Surajkund fair in Haryana is a good place to showcase the talents of the local artisans. So, required steps need to be taken to ensure that the cultural aspect of this graceful handicraft does not vanish from this world.