Jamdani's Struggle to Survive

Jamdani sarees have a huge popularity among Bangladeshi women. Sadly, th Jamdani industry is a declining one. With a shrinking market and the long hours of labor required to produce the sarees, jamdani weavers are losing interest in the trade, so proudly nurtured by their forefathers. At the jamdani village in Dokhin Ruposhi in Demra, just outside Dhaka, weavers are busy at the looms in spite of the drenching rain outside. Most adult weavers work as long as 18 hours a day with breaks for meals or prayers. The work itself is very laborious and requires extreme concentration. From the middle of the 19 th century, there was a gradual decline in the Jamdani industry. A number of factors contributed to this decline. Use of machinery in the English textile industry, and the subsequent import of lower quality, but cheaper yarn from Europe, started the decline. But, nowadays, people are buying more and more jamdani sarees for various occassions. The demand for jamdani sarees is spread all over the world.