MALKHA: Redefining Khadi

The Hyderabad based, Malkha project was started in 2003 by Uzramma, a handloom revivalist. Malkha derives its name from a combination of the first three letters of the words malmal and khadi. According to Uzramma, ‘the vision was to put the whole cotton cloth making chain back in the hands of the people who did the work, and to make a complete chain of cotton growing, cloth making and local markets'. Malkha is pure cotton cloth, using the raw cotton that grows in the vicinity, and it stands for a decentralized, sustainable, field-to-fabric cotton textile chain, collectively owned and managed by the primary producers, the farmers, ginners, spinners, dyers and weavers.

The 19th century brought about radical changes in cotton farming by putting an end to the diversity of the indigenous cotton, which was the strength of traditional Indian fabrics that were appreciated the world over. Mass production also needed mass transportation and the efficient packing of cotton. Since the mills were located in England, they had to carry cotton from India and America all the way to England. They could not transport large bags of fluffy cotton, so they steam pressed and compressed it into rigid blocks. Once the consignment reached England, the bales were opened and the cotton went through a reverse process, using strong blowers to loosen the fibre for spinning, which further weakened the inherent qualities of the cotton fibre. Cotton is a delicate fibre, and baling the lint destroyed part of its springiness, elasticity and natural lustre. Unfortunately, this compression and decompression of cotton lint, the practice of baling and unbaling, continues today, considered the most convenient way of transporting cotton.

The move away from baling cotton was at the heart of the Malkha project. Although weavers in villages are surrounded by raw cotton, they almost always have to get their cotton yarn from spinning mills located miles away. Farmers too face a similar problem; there are handloom weavers all around them, but they end up selling their raw cotton to ginning mills, which then sell pressed bales of cotton to distant spinning mills. The cotton thus travels from the village all the way to the spinning mills for conversion into yarn, and then travels back to the weavers in the villages. If the raw cotton produced in the village could be converted into yarn locally, both farmers and weavers might benefit greatly.

The malkha yarn is delicate, not as highly twisted as the mill-made yarn. To strengthen the yarn for the warp, it is treated with starch and oil to make it stiff and smooth enough to withstand the rigour of weaving. Bamboo or millet stalk reeds are used for the weaving, which is gentler on the yarn than the metal reed used for mechanised production, and allows the uneven, natural slubs in the malkha yarn to come through in both warp and weft. This gives the fabric its unique tactile quality so that it has the touch and feel of handspun and handwoven, khaddar fabric. Natural plant based ingredients are used for dyeing, which causes no environmental pollution.

Malkha fabric is a coarse, mostly 30s count pure cotton, which has a beautiful tactile quality and the fabric retains its softness as the cotton has not gone through the mechanised processes of baling and unbaling or harsh chemical treatments. The fabrics are yarn dyed, available in plain shades and shot colours and a range of fabrics in stripes and checks, using natural, organic dyes, while efforts have been made to keep prices affordable for the urban middle class. The fabric becomes softer, more absorbent and comfortable to wear with every wash, and has a low carbon footprint. Malkha has become more than a mere cotton fabric. It is rooted in scaling up sustainable, ecologically friendly formats of processing cotton and yarn and seeks the ultimate goal of linking producers directly to buyers.