ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the bamboo and rattan subsector, which has emerged into much prominence at the international level and in India. The importance of rural crafts, and of the bamboo and rattan subsector in particular, as a model of flexible specialization, arises from their importance in the development of a number of Asian countries. At the base are the large number of crafts people, some of whom belong to organized production units, who work mostly at the cottage level. Many Indian crafts offer a potential for adopting a strategy of permanent innovation, accommodation to ceaseless change, adoption of new techniques of production and better forms of production organization and marketing. An extension of fordism on the international level would mean a greater disparity between the advanced and developing countries and a greater exploitation of the most vulnerable sections of the labour market such as women, backward communities and tribes.
