Prasanna: Handloom Activist

Prasanna is a well know theatre personality and a self-confessed Gandhian who has been campaigning for the revival of handlooms for many years. He believes handlooms are the fabric of the future.

In 2017, Prasanna and a few other activists went on a hunger strike to persuade the government to exempt the artisanal sector from the recently introduced GST (Goods and Services Tax), a common sales tax for the country. Its introduction had been disastrous for the unorganised rural sector that had already been affected by the demonetisation of banknotes in 2016 and was in an unsettled state. Depending on the article, a tax of 12% or 18% was imposed on the selling price of handloom and handcrafted artisanal goods, which would have priced the products out of the market, and probably killed this sector. Apart from this, GST implementation involves complex procedures and compliances, which would have been nearly impossible for craftspeople living in villages to deal with. The agitation helped to reduce the GST to a flat 5% but the movement is continuing its agitation with a demand for zero GST on all handcrafted village produce.

Prasanna continues his activism through his writings, and padayatras around Karnataka, to spread awareness about how the village industries can be strengthened and sustained as he believes, this alone will improve the lives of artisans.

In 2019, Prasanna launched a new movement called the Sacred Economy, which refers to a system of production that creates the maximum number of jobs with minimum investment in capital, and the least damage to the environment. To promote this movement, he coined the slogan, ‘Create Jobs: Protect Nature’ and went on a hunger strike in Bangalore from 26 September 2019, calling it off only after the government gave him an assurance that they would look into the matter.

Activist Medha Patkar supports the movement and says, ‘Sacred Economy is an economy of justice and equity. Today’s economic system favours the corporates and industrialists, and only works to satisfy the needs of the city dwellers. Their agenda is profits, and this is got by exploitation of groups that have become marginalised. Corporates and industries use the services of workers who produce goods but these labourers and workers have no job security. Factories and industries close down at will, leaving lakhs of workers unemployed. These big powers have a nexus with political powers as well and have been arrogant enough to have taken the lands of farmers for development projects that won’t benefit the poor people who have been displaced.’

Prasanna believes in promoting Gandhi’s economic wisdom and J. C. Kumarappa’s dream of the economy of permanence, and calls for the inception of this sacred economy ‘by marrying the best in the city people with the best in the village’.