Stitched By Her, Sold Without Her: Women Kantha Workers And The Economy Of Invisibility In West Bengal
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 28
- 2 min read
Ms. Shamayeeta Dey, LLM (Human Rights), AIALS, Amity University, Noida. Uttar Pradesh
ABSTRACT
The Kantha embroidery tradition of Bengal, one of the oldest surviving needlecrafts in South Asia, has historically been the creative domain of women. What began as a domestic practice of recycling old cloth into quilted textiles has, over the past few decades, transformed into a commercially valuable craft feeding both domestic and international markets. Yet the women who sit behind this craft stitching for hours in poorly lit rooms across Birbhum, Murshidabad, and North 24 Parganas remain conspicuously absent from the profits, recognition, and legal protections that their labour generates. This article examines the socio-economic and legal dimensions of the invisibility faced by women Kantha artisans in West Bengal. It critically analyses the inadequacy of existing labour frameworks, the exploitative role of middlemen, the hollow promise of Geographical Indication tags, and the gendered erasure built into the craft economy. The article argues that without targeted legislative intervention, enforceable wage standards, and meaningful inclusion of women artisans in policy-making, the Kantha economy will continue to thrive on the backs of women it refuses to see.
The article further critically analyses the inadequacy of existing labour frameworks, including the Factories Act, 1948, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, and the more recent Code on Wages, 2019 and Code on Social Security, 2020, in reaching home-based women artisans. It further interrogates the exploitative role of middlemen who control market access and pricing, the hollow promise of Geographical Indication tags that protect product names but not the makers behind them, and the gendered erasure built into a craft economy that celebrates tradition while systematically devaluing the traditional craftswomen themselves.
Keywords: Kantha, women artisans, West Bengal, labour rights, handicraft economy, Geographical Indication.
