Crafts of Madhya Pradesh – Indian handicrafts
Alluring Legacy

Introduction
All over Madhya Pradesh, craftsmen spend their days in a whirl of activities. The materials that are used may have changed over the years and the articles that are produced may be on a wider utilitarian range, but a long heritage of tradition continues to add a highly distinctive, individualistic touch to the crafts of Madhya Pradesh. Thousands of craftsmen practice hand printing, generally with vegetable dyes at a string of hand printing centres-Jawad, Bhairongarh, Mandsaur, Umedpura, Burhanpur, Bhopal, Indore, Gotampura, Sohawal and Tarapur.

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Textiles
Garments, bedspreads, tablecloths and curtain material are produced at Umedpura and Tarapur in nandana prints. The prints were once in vogue amongst the villagers of the Nimar plain. From Bhairongarh came printed quilt covers, lungis, odhanis, jajams (floor coverings), bedspreads, and tablecloths. Tie and dye chunaries are the speciality of Tarapur and Mandsaur.

Textile weaving in Madhya Pradesh is as refined as the hand printing craft. Soft, subtle shades in delicate weaves come off the looms in Chanderi, near Gwalior. Here, silk is used as the warp and cotton for the weft to produce the famous Chanderi saris. Some saris have gold checks and these combined with the traditional rich gold border along with two gold bands on the pallav, give each sari a special touch.

Maheshwari saris are woven at Maheshwar. The Maheshwari craftsmen have perfected the art of weaving a wide variety of checks. Madhya Pradesh’s craftsmen are equally adept at producing tassar silk handloom fabrics.

Skilled craftsmanship is also on display in a variety of zari-embroidered articles. There are zari wall hangings, handbags, saris and splendid brocade borders. Even though the number of zari workers-mostly women-has dwindled in recent years, Bhopal still remains an important centre for this specialised embroidery.

Carpet Weaving
In the princely fort city of Gwalior the carpet weaving made a late debut in 1902. The fine quality of weaving in imaginative designs soon earned Gwalior’s carpet industry an excellent reputation. Today, more than a thousand looms are in operation in and around the city.

Other Handicrafts
Gwalior is much more than a carpet-weaving centre. It is, in fact, a veritable Mecca of crafts. In the shadow of the imposing old fort, craftsmen hew and chisel marvellously delicate stone jails (perforated screens). And in the narrow, teeming lanes and bylanes of the old city work the craftsmen, who still savour memories of a glorious but not too distant past when their crafts were renowned even far beyond the borders of India.

The craftsmen at Gwalior produce striking papier-mâché articles, coloured lacquerware, glass beads, wood, shell and white metal jewellery, terracotta figures and containers, rag dolls, and toys. Gwalior’s Batto Bai dolls, named after a craftswoman, measure some four to five feet in height. Made of bamboo, paper and rags, these dolls are extremely popular.

However, these crafts are not the monopoly of Gwalior alone. Coloured lacquerware, for instance, is also produced at a number of other centres such as Ratlam, Rewa, Sheopur and Bhopal. Rag dolls are crafted at Khandwa, Indore and Burhanpur. Striking papier-mâché articles are made at Indore, Ujjain and a few more centres. In addition to crafts that are common to a number of specialised centres, there are others that are the monopoly of a particular area and there are still others where craftsmen lend to their work a highly distinctive touch.

Bell metal casting in the lost wax process has long been practised in places such as Datia and Sagar. Tribal deities, votive lamps, some items of tribal jewellery are amongst the bell metal articles that are produced through the lost wax process.

Perhaps the greatest number of craftsmen and workers in Madhya Pradesh are engaged in crafting the most beautiful of bamboo ware. Leather toys, generally of wild animals, are also a speciality of Madhya Pradesh. At Bhedaghat, craftsmen fashion decorative items from the soft marble rocks found in the area. And in places such as Indore, Bhopal, Ujjain, and Alirajpur, craftsmen work patiently on woodcarvings. There are carved boxes, panels, furniture and figures in various sizes.

Tribal designs and motifs are the interesting features shared by a large number of crafts in Madhya Pradesh-from fabrics to papier-mâché, wood, bamboo and bell metal articles. But perhaps the greatest appeal of the crafts of Madhya Pradesh lies in their strength of tradition and the beauty, sometimes subtle, sometimes stunning, that permeates each craft and inspires the craftsmen to refine their skills.