Threat to Muga

Threat to Muga

The Muga silk cottage industry of Assam has been on a firmer footing ever since the Geographical Indication (GI) tag came its way, but challenges are looming ahead. It was a touch and go affair for Assam, considering the efforts by Central Silk Board to encourage sericulture farmers in States like West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh to produce muga silk. While muga, eri and paat are produced in Assam, only muga is strictly indigenous to this State. There has also been the threat of fakes flooding the market — powerloom-made Banarasi silk products masquerading as Assamese silk. This threat was serious enough for silk town Sualkuchi to erupt in violent protest in March 2013, so much so that the army had to be called in to restore order. There were allegations of a section of Sualkuchi weavers joining hands with unscrupulous traders from outside the State to push these imitations. Finally, approval came from the Centre in 2016 for an official trademark for silk products made in Sualkuchi, though the trademark was only inaugurated last year. The situation has improved and a generation of Assamese silk designers are eyeing the international market. Specifically for muga, there is an ongoing Muga Mission by the Assam government since 2017-18 for which Rs 460 crore will be spent to raise output. Schemes by the Union Textile ministry to develop this sector are being implemented; plantation of muga and eri host plants, rearing of silkworms and equipment support to sericulture farmers are being funded by the World Bank in districts like Kamrup, Lakhimpur, Biswanath, Jorhat and Sivasagar. Output of raw muga has been steadily rising — 157 metric tons was produced in 2017-18, compared to 139 metric tons in the preceding year. But this year may yet prove to be difficult for the industry, with ground reports coming of muga silkworm and larvae dying in large numbers due to a combination of factors. The problem stems from the extremely sensitive nature of the muga silkworm which thrives only in Assam; the larvae feed on the leaves of Som and Soalu trees and their protection and rearing by tribal communities is a traditional skill. The cocoons are harvested in Upper Assam districts like Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Charaideo as well as in Kamrup, Goalpara and Garo Hills of Meghalaya; however, the muga weaving industry is concentrated in Lower Assam. The biggest threat to the muga industry is the same global warming and extreme weather changes that are ringing the death knell of many life forms and activities around the world. These wrenching changes are coming atop other local threats to silkworms — including indiscriminate pesticide use in nearby tea gardens, gas flaring in oil wells in the vicinity, frequent pest infestations and continuing deforestation. So far, the Assam government has hardly taken any initiative for conservation of muga silkworms; there is little support, including crop insurance cover, for sericulture farmers. Yet this is a cottage industry with which the fortunes of around 60,000 families are tied. Researchers at IIT-Guwahati have been decoding the muga silkworm genome — such work needs to be supported for potential in creating more robust and resistant silkworm strains. Researchers in countries like China and Japan are discovering novel applications of silkworms in tissue engineering, skincare, fighting viral infections and much besides. Instead of remaining limited to GI tag, trademark, branding, skilling and market access, the State government needs to take a larger view at the factors imperilling the very existence of muga industry in the long run.

Women’s Lot

The world is growing more economically unequal in the 21st century, and the gender divide ensures that women continue to get a raw deal compared to men. Not only do women draw less pay than men for the same work, the unpaid work they do is worth 10 trillion dollars globally. Released in the run-up to the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meet at Davos, a report by Oxfam also draws a very unflattering picture of India which ranked 108th on WEF’s Global Gender Gap Index last year. With the gender pay gap in India standing at a deplorable 34 percent, households relying primarily on female earners tend to be poorer. Worse, women in India are less likely to have paid work vis-a-vis men. As for unpaid work done by women looking after home and children, it is worth as much as 3.1 percent of India’s GDP; on average, women in India daily spend 312 minutes in urban areas and 291 minutes in rural areas on unpaid work (men spend just 29 minutes in urban and 32 minutes in rural areas on unpaid work). The burden of unpaid work on women is such that they find it very hard to go out in search of paid work, as brought out by Oxfam in a 1,000-household survey in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Over half of those surveyed said it was all right to ‘harshly criticise’ a woman if she failed in caring for children or sick adults, preparing meal for the menfolk, fetching water or fuelwood, or taking permission from the men to go out of the house. A sizeable number of respondents also felt it was acceptable to beat the woman for all these reasons! The study underlines the fact that women’s ability to undertake paid work ‘is not merely determined by economic considerations but also by social norms’. In this context, it has called upon countries to tackle economic inequality on war footing and to invest on public services, particularly education and healthcare, so as to improve women’s lot.

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