ERODING OF LAMANI HANDICRAFT

Abstract
In current scenario, the lamani handicraft in India is diminishing
day by day, there are many reasons behind this, I personally
visited the tandas(place where the lamanis live) to know the
economic condition, and understand the problems which they
are facing for living there livelihood and problems faced by
them for handicrafts. In this article i want to share my
experience of visit to the tandas. The article covers both
positive and negative points which was experienced by me.

Introduction
In broader sense ,lamani handicraft means, handicraft prepared
by lamanis(also known as banjaras).Though there is a decent
demand for lamani handicraft in India or abroad, but the
problems faced by these craftsmen is horrible. There are many
reasons for diminishing of lamani handicrafts but mainly the
lack of Government support is the main reason for this.

Positive aspects
According to my observations i have noticed that they are
interested in making handicrafts ,but due to lack of support
from their own community and lack of support from the
government, they all are getting into other activities such as
agriculture or any other labour work.
The work done by them is mainly encouraged by foreigners,
because they love Indian handicrafts and mainly handicrafts
which is prepared by lamanis. Also the culture in lamanis is not
decaying, there are some lamanis who still were those
TRADITIONAL DRESSES, they celebrate the festivals in very
traditional way. The unity which was seen in the tandas was

speechless, they were very kind among themselves. There were

some tandas where the economic conditions of lamanis was
very good but the reason behind this was unknown, because
when we asked about it, they were silent but for sure the
handicraft is not the reason for their good economic condition.
The education level is much improved among lamanis, the
lamanis nowadays are much educated, there are some lamanis
who are IAS officers. It was also good to see that that there are
some NGO's are working for the welfare of lamanis.

Negative aspects
It was seen that the young generation is not at all interested in
doing handicraft, it was shocking to know that there are some
lamani families who don't know anything about lamani
handicrafts. The economic condition of some lamani families is
worst, they are not able to get the basic requirements, they
work for daily wages and they spend that money the same day
and thus no savings. They usually sell their products to agents
and they earn a nominal amount money and then the agents
sell in market in double the rate and earn huge amount of
profits.
The lamanis are much conservative, this may be because they
feel unsecured . The environment in which they live is also not
good. The education in some tandas is very low, there are no
schools in some areas. The support from government is very
less and this leads to lack of motivation and encouragement
among them.

Conclusion

From above it may be noted that the decrease in lambani

handicrafts is due to lack of interest of lamanis and also lack of
support from Government and society.