Celebration of the First Handloom Day and launch of India handloom Brand in India on 7th of August, 2015 by the PM of India Shri Narendra Modi at Chennai is a significant event aspiring development in the relaunch of Indian traditional textiles and in the world of textiles.
Ancient Bharatiyas were the masters of life having great knowledge about everything from adhyatma (spirituality) to the aesthetics. It is not unknown that the world looked at India for its finest quality textiles and spices, and that India was invaded for the same for several hundred years. Hence probably ‘Swadeshi Movement‘ was developed by the freedom fighters like Dadabhai Naoroji, Gokhale, Ranade, Balagangadhara Tilak and G.V. Joshi uniting common Indians. Later, the Swadeshi thought was shaped and Swadeshi Andolan was launched by M.K Gandhi on 7th August 1905.
Today, on completion of 110 years of Swadeshi Andolan by M.K Gandhi, we are celebrating the first National Handloom Day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched “India Handloom” brand at a mega event in Chennai on this historical day. The celebration was special as ‘Santh Kabir Award’ and ‘National Award for Handloom Weavers’ were given to the deserving weavers. There was an informative exhibition of traditional Indian textiles from all over India. I was happy that I knew a few names among them. PM gave a message to the fellow citizens to buy more handloom textiles while addressed the gathering and also said that a boost to handloom industry will strengthen the weavers economically. He also stressed that handloom textiles must also look into the matters like design updating and becoming more fashionable.
India Handloom Brand Logo Launch by PM Shri Narendra Modi
Image Courtesy: DD News
Glimpses of the handloom exhibition – photos by PM on Twitter
Former president of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, who left us recently had always encouraged us to dare to dream. I have such a dream, to travel across India and to know every traditional Indian textile. I know, it will take my lifetime to to this as there are hundreds of them. But, dreaming is not a sin!
May Indian traditional textiles and handloom industry prosper. May this be true for all the traditional textiles all over the world. Singing off wishing you all a Happy handloom Day!
Hi Sindhu.. Nice to see your post.. I love them and they are always very relevant. I was excited to see that today is handloom day. I posted lots of handloom photos of facebook that I took in Paramakudi – place that lives on handloom
Hi Preethi, happy to have you here! Nice to know that we share similar view about handloom products 🙂 I would like to know more about Paramakudi, glad you shared the info. Even I was preparing to post since the day before but BESCOM gave a lot of trouble with surprise power cuts till late evening. By hook or crook, I wanted to post it and succeeded before the calendar changes to the next day 🙂
Happy Handloom Day! TC! Keep smiling 🙂
Great post Sindhu. I hope your wish comes true, “may Indian traditional textiles and handloom industry prosper. May this be true for all the traditional textiles all over the world.”
Oh it’s good to read about a handloom festival. I find handloom items quite cool and they have a nice casual feel.
Thank you Sindhu.
(I am catching up on reading your posts, Sindhu 😉 ) It is wonderful to see PM Modi supporting hand weaving. India of course has a proud and distinguished history of creating beautiful textiles. I think it is so important to nurture old traditional craft methods, wherever we live, so that they are not forgotten. Thank you for posting about your National Handloom Day – fascinating to learn about it!
Best Wishes, Peggy 🙂
Hi there Sindhu Devi awaiting your next post ?? best regards.
Really nice article on handloom industry. Great job done indeed. Thanks for sharing…. 🙂