Indian Crafts For Senior Secondary (Classes XI and XII)
Indian Crafts
Introduction : India is the only country in the world with a unbroken, living vibrant tradition of crafts. While agriculture employs the largest number of people in India, the crafts sector is next and sustains over 20 million practitioners. The wide geographic spread embraces all of India and covers a huge gamut of widely differing work structure and cultures. Crafts communities, using similar materials that range from clay to precious metals, work with widely differing techniques and technologies to create a rich variety of forms.
Acknowledging the importance of handicrafts in India the National Curriculum Framework – 2005 sought to integrate it into the school curriculum and formed a National Focus Group on Heritage Crafts. The Focus Group submitted a position paper that includes several recommendations and concluded that Indian craft and its mi llions of practicing craftspeople are a huge and important resource of traditional knowledge and indigenous technologies that could add value to the educational system in a number of ways. It was suggested that Indian Crafts should be taught as a theoretical social science with a strong component of field study and applied creative activity.
With the learning of crafts traditions many skills could be developed among the students. These include the consideration of relationship between the student and his/her environment and the inter- ependence of: societal skills, information processing skills, reasoning skills, enquiry skills, creative skills, entrepreneurial skills and a work related culture.
The Objectives: To impart an all rounded and holistic education that equips the Indian youth of today to face challenges of a global and rapidly changing world, while preserving their own cultural assets, traditions and values this new subject area will be introduced for senior secondary level in schools with the following objectives:
- To understand the critical role of the crafts community and its integral
relationship to the Indian society.
- To enable students to understand the relationship between economics, culture
and aesthetics,
- To enable students to explore the linkages between environment, craft
traditions and society through field studies,
- To develop a respect for the diversity of Indian craft traditions and to
uphold the dignity of its practitioners by understanding the difficulties that
they face,
- To introduce Indian culture through the crafts, so that school students
appreciate the variety of skills and expressions of the Indian artist
- To provide students a creative aesthetic experience of the unique visual and
material culture of India and develop values of conservation, protection of the
environment, resources and heritage of the country,
- To enable students to understand the relationship between tradition and
contemporary trends, form and function, creator and consumer.
- To understand the processes of creating a craft object from start to finish,
- To equip students with the tools to extend craft traditions to wider
applications through applied crafts,
The syllabus : The subject of Indian Crafts will consist of three
components in each year (classes XI and XII):
I. Theory 40 marks
II. Field Study 30 marks
III. Applied Crafts 30 marks
I. Theory 40 marks
The theory part of the syllabus will have Two Units;
Unit I will consist of a general introduction, an introduction to the crafts
traditions of India, details about the different crafts, their classifications,
regional distribution etc. Each of these topics wi ll incorporate aspects such
as the
i. Philosophy and aesthetics,
ii. Materials, processes and techniques,
iii. Environment and resource management,
iv. Social structures,
v. Economy and marketing and
vi. International examples.
Unit II of the theory will discuss all these aspects in detail. A textbook will be required which will have the print material with maps, photographs, illustrations, anecdotes and case studies in boxes and the book may be supplemented with a CD having slides, video-clippings etc. showing different crafts traditions and their processes.
UNIT I
Introduction
This chapter will be an exhaustive part of the textbook, which will include different dimensions of the Indian crafts traditions, such as the history, philosophy, sociology, economy, environment and resources etc. in general. To introduce the subject, teachers may have a few brainstorming sessions with students about their perception and understanding of crafts and what crafts actually are. They can initiate or orient themselves with their home first, where they could look for objects created by traditional crafts persons, bring them to the classroom and discuss them. A general introduction to the seven major issues related with crafts traditions, identified as core areas will be carried out here. These issues will be repeatedly referred to during the two years of theory and project work, as well as during the applied crafts component of the syllabus. They will also cut across the chapters on various crafts traditions. These crafts related issues are: i. Crafts Traditions, ii. Philosophy and Aesthetics, iii. Materials, Processes and Techniques, iv. Environment and Resource Management, v. Social Structures, vi. Economy and Marketing and vii. International Examples.
1.1 Crafts Traditions: A historical overview of crafts traditions from ancient and medieval, to modern and contemporary periods would be required in order to situate them in the cultures that produced them. The associations between living practices and temples or hunting traditions, nomadic journeys, ritualistic practices, ceremonial occasions, customary beliefs, would all in some way or the other become part of the study of the culture of crafts. The history of a particular craft tradition, its geographical distribution, myths and legends associated with different i nfluences on the craft and patterns of patronage etc. may be discussed.
1.1.1 Clay : Being one of the most basic materials found in every corner of the country, clay has been used for making earthen ware, figurines, bricks, tiles, beads etc. Terracotta objects are one of the earliest artifacts found during excavations of archaeological sites as early as the chalcolithic period and continue to exist in the present times. This chapter will deal with the different practices, techniques and distribution of pottery and terracotta crafts in India. 1.1.2 Stone work Another basic material that does not need much processing and technology is stone. Different types of stones from the most common ones to region specific ones to precious gems have been used in different ways from architectural construction, to sculptures, to making jewelry and so on. One would need to discuss different aspects of stone works that have existed through thousands of years.
