Tracing their origins to Lord Vishwakarma, the mythological source of all creative intellect, India's artisans evolved into a distinct social group with the emergence of settled agriculture and habitation. Excavations reveal that they were among the most productive mem- bers of the prolific Indus Valley culture. After the collapse of this civilisation, the nucleus shifted to village settlements in the Indo-Gangetic plains and the Deccan. Vedic literature depicts a society where metal craft, zari work, wood carving and hand-printing on textiles were already established crafts.

The Mauryan society (third century BC) saw the emergence of shrenis (guilds) which regulated the professions and the prices, offered artisans social status, security and provided banking services as well. Trading circuits, originally established in this period to market village produce in urban centres, expanded under the Mughals. Villages were self-sufficient. Artisans and agriculturists shared a symbiotic relationship through the jajmani system. Artisans procured most of their raw materials from the village community, and produced goods for their clients, receiving payments in grain or even plots of land. The need for self-sufficiency ensured the presence of certain primary crafts in each village. almost all of which were caste-specific.

The British diligently set about discouraging the growth of Indian m'lnufactures. As early as 1769, notes the nationalist economic historian R C Dutt in The Economic History of India. the directors of the East India Company wished the manufacture of raw silk to be encouraged at the cost of that of silk fabrics. With the birth of the forest department (1873), scientific forestry - an euphemism for largescale exploitation of forest resources to the exclusion of local dwellers - came into being.

It was a bodyblow to the village community. Peasants lost control over their resources; consequently. the community broke down. The ability of the villages to manage their resources, ensuring that raw material shortages were not of the order that could wipe out entire crafts, stood shattered. The jajmani system collapsed as well. Artisans suffered as common resources passed into private or government hands. India lost her status as a leading manufacturing nation; the intervention of colonial rule had ensured that she could not follow Europe in its industrial revolution.