This is the traditional woodblock-printed Kalamkari textile art of Andhra Pradesh.
Artists use natural ingredients like jaggery, indigo cake, and pomegranate peel to bring these colours to life.
But this century-old art form is struggling to survive. And the trade of black jaggery, the prime ingredient used, is to blame.
In Kalamkari art, black is considered the ‘mother of all natural dyes’.
In the past few months, a number of black jaggery merchants have been arrested. They are accused of selling the black jaggery to the manufacturers of illicitly distilled liquor. In May, merchants in Andhra Pradesh’s Pedana and Machilipatnam towns declared that they would not sell black jaggery anymore.
This has affected the Kalamkari artists.
