ABSTRACT
The handloom industry is in a dying condition. I took special care during my wanderings last year to see as many weavers as possible, and my heart ached to find how they had lost, how families had retired from this once-flourishing and honourable occupation.
Mahatma Gandhi in his Speech on Swadeshi at Missionary Conference, Madras on February 14, 1916 1
The handloom weaving is in a dying condition. Everyone admits that whatever may be the future of the mill industry, the handlooms ought not to be allowed to perish.
Mahatma Gandhi, in his Letter dated July 3, 1917 to V. S. Srinivasa Sastri 2
…Nature enlists and ensures the co-operation of all its units, each working for itself and in the process helping other units to get along their own too-the mobile helping the immobile, and the sentient the insentient. Thus, all nature is dovetailed together in a common cause. Nothing exists for itself. When this works out harmoniously and violence does not break the chain, we have an economy of permanence.
Shri J. C. Kumarappa in Economy of Permanence 3
How to fructify the dream of the Mahatma almost one hundred years later? Where to start?
Case Synopsis
This case deals with the business decision-making situation of Mr. Sivagurunathan from the town of Erode in Tamil Nadu, who got inspired by the sustainability and handloom revival dreams of Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhian Economist J. C. Kumarappa. Hailing from a family which was traditionally involved in handloom weaving, Sivagurunathan studied engineering in college and shifted to a job in information technology industry, like many of his counterparts from the weaving community. At some point, he realized his mission of reviving the handloom units in his home town, quit his regular job and took a plunge to start Nurpu Handlooms, with a dream to create a sustainable, co-operative society in the long run.
