Berhampur Handloom Weavers Fight A Lost Battle As Threads Of Glory Grey Into Strands of Despair
Behind Berhampur Patta sarees of Odisha are stories of artisans forgotten by the market, taken for granted by cooperatives, and barely noticed by the state.
By Kasturi Ray
Published : September 16, 2025 at 4:39 PM IST
|Updated : September 17, 2025 at 11:43 AM IST
Berhampur (Odisha) : Frail hands seem to be at work in almost every household in Ganesh Nagar, Berhampur, the hub of weavers who produce beautiful handwoven Berhampur Patta (silk handwoven) sarees. As the afternoon sun falls on the streets, weaver couples are seen busy segregating colour-dyed threads into the warp beam in front of their houses. Before stepping into any random house, you can hear the rhythmic and repetitive symphony of clacks, thuds, and creaks created by the shuttle’s movement, the beater’s impact, the heddles’ shift, and the treadles’ action.
Inside modest homes, old men and women sit with their legs tugged into the dug spaces under the weaving planks, their bodies slightly bent with age, movements slowed but precise. Spectacled eyes focus on the fine threads stretched taut across the loom, straining to catch the delicate play of warp and weft. Wrinkled hands, knotted with veins and years of labour, run the shuttle, weaving silk into intricate dotted threads and borders of temples (buti and phoda kumbha pattern) motifs - and that is how a Berhampur Patta saree is born.
The rich weaves in vibrant colours, pristine white strikingly woven as a border on a vermilion base or an orange and violet combination in intricate patterns and luxurious texture immediately capture the attention.
But the despair of the weavers seems as dim as their homes, with some shafts of sunlight slipping through tiled roofs. Most weavers, ageing and many in their sixties and seventies, weave because that is what they know best and is their identity. Evident on their faces is the dilemma of who next would carry forward this art, as their children have left for cities in search of steady jobs, unwilling to toil for the meagre Rs 500 a day their parents earn, wages they call no better than daily labour.
The weaving stops the moment 69-year-old K Bhagyalakshmi is asked since when she has been doing the work. “Seems like ages. I learnt the process at my paternal home and when I got married, the work continued naturally. But over a period of time, the work has started to feel like labour for wages,” says Bhagyalakshmi.
A loom ideally needs two to three persons to work, that includes two partners on either side and one for special tasks to facilitate the interweaving of threads. For Bhagyalakshmi, if a saree costs Rs 6000, and it takes a minimum of 10 days to make, in a month, she earns Rs 18,000. Of the amount, she has to pay the other weaver Rs 500 per day for 10 hours on the loom and the rest becomes hers.
“We get thread from the cooperative society free of cost. They also give us acid, colour for dyeing, and other inputs required. But once a saree is done, we cannot bargain for the cost, it is previously and uniformly decided for varied patterns,” says Bhagyalakshmi, adding, “We do not have an option also. I cannot go anywhere to sell the sarees we weave. I have none in family to pair with me to weave, I get my neighbour to help because my children have gone out.”
Though demand for the Berhampuri patta sarees is on the rise, not many weavers are doing the work. “Ideally, we need three persons for seamless weaving, but that too is not available,” she adds.
Though there are about 105 weavers in the area, around 65 are affiliated with three cooperative societies. These organisations take care of the silk procurement and supply it to the weavers.
In lieu, the weavers slog like any wage earners who get a paltry sum for the hard work they do. “Our weaving community now has people only in the higher age bracket. Not one person in our families from the present generation is into the vocation. Our children have all left for other places to work and do not have any inclination to come back or keep the heritage alive,” says 60-year-old T Ganapati.
Nothing has changed in the condition of weavers in the past few decades, still there are many like Ganapati who say they are safe selling to cooperatives. “We trust the society even if we get less than the price the society sells it outside. Because customers also trust the society product. We might get more if we sell independently, but there is no guarantee, we could also land up selling at a lesser price,” he reasons.
Happy to work only on the basis of labour cost, he also says that the threads society gives are of the best quality. “There are three types of silk we get - Bengaluru silk, Malda silk and Ladi silk and the best among all is the Bengaluru silk. While sarees woven with Malda thread sell at Rs 4000, the Ladi ones fetch Rs 3500 and the best quality from Bengaluru thread sells at Rs 6000,” he explains. The saree he currently weaves has Bengaluru thread on the weft and Malda on the warp.
His only son has shifted to Bengaluru for work. Ask who after him will carry forward the legacy and Ganapati says pessimistically, “none.” He feels, despite demand, the Berhampur looms will fall silent in some years as the current generation has chosen other professions.
“We weave so we have value, the day we stop there is no value in our life. No development can ever change the destiny of weavers like us. One of our community members died of cancer during Corona, his family did not receive any support from society or the government. It is we weavers who collected money and gave it to his family who sold everything and left the area,” he says with a sense of despondency on the plight of weavers.
His house leaks in the rain and he says he has no money even to repair it. “The government says we need to shift to Padmapur if we want houses. But all our lives we have stayed here and now we are not ready,” he says.
The price weavers are paid varies from ‘Jodas’ for men to sarees. As K Bhimaraju, Secretary of Berhampur Patta Handloom Weavers Association, says, the 8x4 metre joda (a longer version of dhoti which is used by men during sacred religious purposes), woven in four days by three artisans, earns them Rs 3,800 in total, while it is sold in the market for Rs 8,000.
Similarly, for a 9x5 free size (which is 6.5 metres), it takes about six days to weave and all that the weavers get is Rs 4,400. But the market value of the woven piece is Rs 9,500.
But in the case of sarees, it depends on the design and colour. Two to three weavers take anything between eight and 12 days and get Rs 5000 to Rs 6,000. These sarees are sold at Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000.
“There are three cooperative societies in Berhampur under which about 65 of the 105 weavers are registered. When they become members, they pay a one-time fee of Rs 5000. And all their life, they get quality silk thread provided by the National Handloom Development Corporation (NHDC). We also provide the other materials like colour dyes,” says Bhimaraju.
Half of the weavers who are not registered with the societies work for independent master weavers or designers.
But Bhimaraju expresses dissatisfaction with the state of affairs for the handloom weavers. Neither has there been any affirmative step taken by the government, nor are the weavers interested in the vocation, he feels.
“Most people in the community do not have homes and stay in rented accommodations. We have been trying to get them houses under some scheme since the last 10 years but nothing has happened so far,” he says, adding that there is no hope of reviving the handloom legacy from where it is today.
“Now the government is chalking out plans to encourage the community, but there is no point now. The weavers have lost interest. Their younger generation has left for better prospects elsewhere. No effort can prove to be a turnaround now as nothing was done when the sector was vibrant, way back in early 2000,” says Bhimaraju.
He recalls 2003 when the entire weaving community, of about 300 people, were together churning out masterpieces. “Then the government ignored us. Now, even when we are being lured with training facilities or access to accessories, it does not hold meaning. Most people have left and clusters are empty,” he states.
Acknowledging that the craft is on a downslide, Berhampur MLA K Anil Kumar said the demand is still high for Berhampur silk weaves. “But we are late in addressing the issues of the weavers. The production has come down, the weavers’ community is choosing other professions, the labour cost the weavers get is less, and there are problems galore. The people are poor and do not have a house. They also do not get rented accommodation as they ask to dig a hole in the floor to facilitate the loom functioning. Unless we take care of their betterment and ease the market linkage through a platform like Boyanika, the craft, I am afraid, will be lost,” he said.
As the voices of angst keep hitting you in Ganesh Nagar, some middle-aged weavers still keep tying and untying the silk threads and drying them under the sun before the weather plays truant.
“A single drop of rain will spoil the entire bundle. So once we see the sun, we start drying and bundling,” say a couple J Rajeswar Rao and Maleswari Rao who were working on threads on a copper sulphate base with dual-coloured borders in orange and purple. Happy with what they are busy doing, they give renewed hope that the years-old legacy have tinges of brightness though the elderly do not look optimistic.
Berhampur Patta is an ancient weaving legacy which the government is keen on reviving, said Punam T Guha, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Handlooms, Textiles and Handicrafts. “I have directed the Ganjam District Collector to prepare a report on the number of weavers in the district and send it to the department. After the database is prepared, a fund will be created to give them financial incentives and assistance provided on that basis,” she stated.
As hope hangs like a pendulum between Bhagyalakshmis, Ganapatis and couples like Rajeswar and Maleswari, it remains to be seen whether these threads of glory can be rewoven as a story of revival, or finally wrap up in dust under the burden of indifference.
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