IN THE NEWS
Winning ways of a pioneer
P.S. SURYANARAYANA
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Chanda Shroff is the first Indian to win the Rolex Award for Enterprise, for her work promoting Kutchi artisans and embroidery.
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Recognition of hard work: Chanda Shroff (right) with Mira Nair at the awards ceremony in Singapore.
IN this age of "business @ the speed of thought", a time-consuming craft form, the Kutchi embroidery, has found favour with a multinational firm, a watch-maker to be precise, for being promoted as an avocation at the grassroots level.
Seventy-three-year-old Chanda Shroff is the first Indian to win the Rolex Award for Enterprise since it was instituted 30 years ago. Ms. Shroff has, in particular, won recognition for "empowering rural women" regardless of their religion or caste or class in the Kutch region of Gujarat. The award, which she received at a festive function in Singapore on October 26, cites her future plans in the same domain as much as what she has accomplished so far.
Rare distinction
She is among the five Rolex Laureates for 2006. Only two other Indians have been chosen, earlier, by the company as Associate Laureates. Another Indian, Mira Nair, who conducted this year's awards ceremony in Singapore, was the first to be recognised by Rolex a few years ago as Film Mentor in that category of excellence.
Frail and soft-spoken, Ms. Shroff wasted no words as she received the award. She said the prize money of $1,00,000 would be spent to propagate Kutchi embroidery, to further "inculcate a spirit of entrepreneurship among the craftswomen" willing to stay the course. The art form is already "interwoven into the daily lives of people" in that region, and she would now strive to "help enhance individual creativity [and] preserve the heritage of this beautiful crafts tradition."
No less important, Shrujan, the trust she had founded and managed to keep afloat, would now "document not just the process of this craft but also the linkage which exists between [this] embroidery and society and culture," she said. A related project would be a "mobile resource centre" that would help the craftswomen learn contemporary trends and stay one step ahead of the market, Ms. Shroff's associate said later.
Ms. Shroff, relatively unknown outside her domain, has spent nearly 40 years reviving hand embroidery as a creative skill and making it a sustainable source of income for Kutch women. Regardless of such recognition by Rolex as a pioneer in the category of cultural heritage and in a region often hit by natural disasters, she is averse to the condescending mind-set of classifying these craftswomen as "poor people". In her view, all that they need is genuine empathy and some help to overcome their "hardship".
Tommy Koh, Singapore's Ambassador At Large and a member of the Rolex Awards 2006 Selection Committee, praised her work as an aspect of "universal enterprise". What appealed to the jury was how she sought to "preserve an endangered and intangible heritage" and how, at the same time, she strove to "empower rural women" in a conservative social environment. As for the appreciation of an activity outside the mainstream areas of enterprise, Prof. Koh said the Rolex awards often went to "niche areas" where no other prizes were generally given.
As a person who spent her childhood in a rural setting, later marrying an industrialist in metropolitan Mumbai, Ms. Shroff first turned her attention to Kutch in the wake of the 1969 drought there. Supported by her family and friends from the beginning and not encountering obstacles from the political or bureaucratic circles, she soon founded Shrujan as a trust. Personal funds, donations to the trust and some government grants helped keep the endeavour going. An expansion of activities was decided upon, more recently, under the principles of "pride and enterprise". The Rolex prize was applied for and won in this evolving context, Ms. Shroff and her associates narrated in a conversation in Singapore after the awards-presentation ceremony.
Recounting their "excitement" of working with the Kutchi craftswomen, Ms. Shroff said: "You give them money. They can't count it. You give them cloth, and then they will do some theorem and come up with embroidery." The end product would be "like computer-designed, but feels a lot better than machine-made" output.
Over the years, Shrujan is said to have "worked with 22,000 women" from diverse ethnic backgrounds, and nearly 120 villages in Kutch have been covered.
Equal partners
The concept is one of "working with the artisans" rather than "training" them. And, with 16 different kinds of Kutchi embroidery in vogue now, Shrujan has started arranging the export of small quantities of the end product to niche markets covering museums and those on the look-out for "unique wardrobes". Richard Franklin, former head of design at the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of Asian Art, has been quoted as saying that Shrujan's "collection of panels is a breathtaking testament to the aesthetics and vision of the artisans who created them and the tradition they embody."
Outlining the involvement of Rolex, "a responsible corporate citizen", in the promotion of innovative and socially useful projects in science, technology, or cultural heritage and other fields across the world, Rebecca Irvin, Awards Director, said the winners would not be expected to serve as the company's brand ambassadors. Given as "seed money" for the selected projects, its utilisation would be monitored but "not in a formal, regimented, way. The no-strings awards, somewhat akin to the grants by the U.S.-based Ashoka Foundation for the promotion of social entrepreneurship, have been given to over 60 persons so far, Ms. Irvin said.
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