Pashminas are well-known and well-worn around the world, a style statement in the rarefied social circles, bought at exorbitant prices. Yet Ladakh the high mountainous region in the northernmost part of India and part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir has hardly ever benefitted from this almost rare resource that is part of their landscape. But an enterprising project initiated by an Indian Administrative Officer (IAS) and his wife is trying to change all that so that the benefit of the Pashmina wool actually travels back to the Ladhakis.
The shepherds of Ladakh who traverse the high mountains with their goats over seasons to find green pastures live a tough life. Yet at their hands lies the precious resource of the fine wool that makes Pashima the fashion statement that it is. But the pashmina wool which is sheared from the goats raised by the nomads from the high plateau region of Ladakh has been for centuries shipped out to Kashmir. Here expert artisans fashion the famed Cashmere sweaters and shawls which are then handed over to merchants who are the ones that make the big killing. Hence, most of the profits that arise from this scarce resource are in fact in the hands of the shippers, merchants and weavers – everyone seems to manage a bit of the Pashmina pie except for the Ladakhi who is the very source of it.
But things seem to be looking up for the Ladakhis with a path-breaking cooperative by the Ladakhis who train women in the villages to weave the fine wool into exquisite products that have an international market.
It all began as an IAS officer’s brainchild. G. Prasanna Ramaswamy, the former Deputy Commissioner of Leh, and his wife Abhilasha Bahuguna developed the idea for the cooperative after a chance encounter he had in the remote village of Chumur, located in the Changthang Region of Southeast Ladakh bordering Tibet. While visiting the village the officer was presented with a luxurious pair of knitted socks by a Changpa woman who was a member of the local Ama Tsogspa, one of the mother’s collectives that have been formed by Ladakhi women. The socks, in fact, jogged the officer’s mind on why these local women cannot be in charge of this resource and use their innate skills to better their livelihoods by making use of this fine wool.
Soon along with his wife Abhilasha, he went about to build a weaver’s cooperative which would give employment to the Ladakhis in their own homes and would also stop the flow of migrants from remote villages looking for employment in the bigger city of Leh.
Prasanna soon found the ideal man to take charge of the budding project in Dr Tundup Namgyal which they called Project Laksal and the cooperative was evocatively named the Looms of Ladakh. The idea behind the cooperative was based on sound business sense. After all one Pashmina goat yields about 250 grams of wool, one-quarter to one-third of which is enough to weave a shawl that could fetch about Rs15,000 (US$236) on the market. If the women could process the wool and produce the finished shawls themselves, the herding families could retain a lot more of the profits from their goats.
Within a month, the founders began testing a pilot project in Stok and Kharnakling, two villages near Leh, the capital of the Leh District of Ladakh. Then, the founders began a training programme in those villages and in Chuchot and Phyang, also near Leh. During the following winter of 2016/17, training programmes were extended to women in Chushul, Merak, Parma, and Sato, and other more remote villages in the Changthang area.
The cooperative also roped in the services of a design expert Stanzin Pazo who trained 40 women in the Leh area. She went about her training in a very methodical way by first inculcating the value of the wool that these women were going to handle and the importance of the skills the women already possessed. Next, she made them understand the importance of design, size and finish. The village women also came to appreciate the importance of effective branding under the tutelage of Paslmo, who also designed the logo for the Looms of Ladakh. Their first store with that name opened in the main market district of Leh on May 12, 2017.
In fact, many members of the cooperative have about 70 to 80 goats while some even have more than 100. They take the goats to be sheared after which they distribute the wool to the other members. While there was a time when these innocent people did not know the value of the Pashmina wool now they all know its worth and how it is going to benefit them.
It did not take long for the Looms of Ladakh to grow, though it could have done much better with a little more detailed and better planning. However, in the first six months itself, the cooperative recorded sales worth Rs 23 lakh or US$362,000. The effort had paid off and the cooperative was showing positive results.
The products are bar-coded and packaged and every individual is able to make as much as nearly 38 per cent of the sales made. Out of the total sales, 41 per cent is kept aside by the cooperative to purchase raw materials for the upcoming season. The remaining funds are used for administrative costs of the organisation, utility bills, marketing, skill development, and other expenses. The organisation also keeps a percentage to develop a welfare fund for participants to use for health expenses and schooling of their children.
Earlier, all of the nearly 450 quintals of untreated Pashmina that was being produced in the Leh area was sold to traders in Kashmir and others in the international market. No wonder the most value of the Pashmina was controlled by those higher up in the supply chain. By breaking this chain the cooperative was able to earn benefits for the locals who were traditionally deprived.
The cost of Pashm or the raw wool after de-hairing (the process of getting rid of impurities like excess fibre) was Rs 7600 per kg in 2016 but in 2017 it took a little dip to Rs 7000 per kg. In the international market, the price of Pashmina is generally dependent on the production in Mongolia, China and Ladakh, alongside its global demand. There is little or no price stability at all. But Pashmina once finished carries the class of fine taste and exclusivity. It sits on the shoulders of the high and mighty and yet little thought is ever given to the hardships and the struggles of those people who rear and breed these goats to produce such fine wool.