Chikan work, an embroidery form that Lucknow is famous for, is now facing a Chinese invasion.
“China has brought in a machine-made cheap imitation of chikan embroidery. Hundreds of thousands of metres of embroidered cloth, often with very similar designs and forms to chikan embroidery, have flooded the market.
These are comparatively much cheaper to chikan embroidery garments and are making a dent in the chikan business,” says Ashok Kapoor, a wholesale chikan businessman.
The basic difference between original chikan work and its Chinese imitation is that chikan embroidery is done with cotton thread while the Chinese version uses silk thread and is, therefore, smoother.
Chikan embroidery is done mostly by Muslim women in and around Lucknow and the majority of them earn as little as `35 per day. It takes about 10-15 days to embroider a chikan sari but the Chinese manufacturers produce hundreds in a day.
Manufacturers employ close to 200,000 women from in and around the city —most of them illiterate. The pay is not much — those registered with Sewa get a minimum of `35 a day.
In many factories around Lucknow, the embroidery-makers are paid as little as `20, or sometimes even less for a day’s work.
“It is a strange situation. On one hand, chikankari has caught the fancy of fashion designers, particularly those connected to the Hindi film industry, and on the other, the local and domestic market is being devastated by a Chinese invasion,” says Haroon Mohammad, a chikan supplier.