Kashmiri traditional connects the early history of the shawl industry with the two most revered figures of medieval Kashmir. The saint and missionary Syed Ali Shah Hamdani, from Iran, who visited Kashmir in the later 14th century, is said to have revived it after it had died out. And it is often asserted that Zain-ul-Abdin (reigned 1420 to 1469) laid the foundation of the shawl industry by inviting weavers from Central Asia to train the local craftspeople.
The most circumstantial account of the origin of the shawl industry is given by Haji Mukhtar Shah, representative of an old shawl- manufacturing family, who wrote an account of the business and its history in 1887. He gives credit to Mirza Daughlat (cousin of Babur—the first of India’s Great Mughals) who conquered Kashmir in 1540’s.
“It is impossible”, remarked a British administrator about 1860, “not to admire the felicitous conjunction, in the same region, of a natural product so valuable and of workmen so artistic,”1 . The natural product Pashm, one of the finest fibres ever put to the loom. The shawl’s journey, repeated year after year for centuries, was long and arduous. It started on the windswept pleatuax of Tibet where the Pashm was produced and finished in shawl-dealers establishments in the bustling marts of cities both east and west Suez. Growing on the bodies of goats reared by nomadic herds people in an ecological niche that only they could fill and harvested at the onset of summer, the fibre was carried by Ladakhi and Kashmiri traders down from the high- altitude pastures, over the rocky trails that passed for trade routes through the mountains to Srinagar, Kashmiri’s capital. The emperor Akbar had such fondness for the Kashmiri shawl that he gave it an affectionate nickname: Parm-narm, “supremely soft”. In India the fleece of the Tibetan goat, from which the classic Kashmir shawl was woven, is usually called Pashm, an Urdu word originating from Farsi, that can be applied to the raw fibre of any of the down-producing animals of high Asia; when the term is used without qualification goat-Pashm is understood. Pashmina is the yarn spun and the material woven from Pashm. Apart from the Kashmir fabric, the only other internationally known textile made from goat- fleece before the 19th century was the Orenburg shawl, knitted in an infinite variety of patterns, of yarn spun from the undyed fleece of goat reared in the Ural mountains; these exquisite shawls, documented since 17th century, are produced even today.
From the Shetlands and Merino breeds are in the range of 16.5 to 25 microns. Toosh (tus) from the Tibetan antelope (Pantholaps hodgsoni), also known as the chiru, is the finest of all, at 9 to 12 microns. In today’s international market, the standard for cashmere to be made up into the finest quality knitwear is 15.5 microns and high-end manufacturers look to purchase material measuring 16 microns or less; but across the board the micron count can vary between 13 and 19, the higher counts being suitable for woven fabrics 2 . When these fine fibres are spun into thread, a multitude of microscopic air-pockets are formed; it is these that give the material its extraordinary warmth and softness.
The most recherché of Kashmir’s shawls were woven not from goat pashm but from the even more delicate fibre, toosh, the pashm of chiru, probably the finest animal fibre ever put to the loom 4. Although it may take an expert eye to distinguish between toosh and the pashmina fabric, microscopic examination shows a clear difference in the structure of the fibre, as well as the lesser micron- count.
The two main determinants of quality in textile fibres are fineness ( fibre diameter) and staple- length, both of which will affect the feel or ‘ handle’ of the finished product. Colour is another important consideration. Fibre diameter is measured by the micron, or 1/1000 of a millimeter. For comparison, a human hair has a diameter of around 70 microns, and the finest sheep’s wool.
In wear, the toosh shawl’s luxurious combination of lightness, softness and warmth is incomparable. Toosh comes in white and shades of brown, depending on the part of the animal’s body it plucked from. White, from the throat and belly of the male, is at premium and may at certain times have been reserved for royal or imperial wear- hence the word coined —Shahtoosh.
Contrary to the myth that this exquisite fibre is harvested from natural moult caught on the ‘rocks and bushes’, it is in fact acquired only by killing the animal. The chiru’s meat is reported to be particularly delicious and originally the fibre may have been collected as a byproduct of slaughter for meat by the Tibetan nomads. Only a limited quantity of the pashmina reaches to Srinagar, estimates putting that 450 kgs per annum which results killing of 1600-4000 animals killed in a year. The impact was immediately felt, a survey carried out in 2003 found that of some 10,600 workers in toosh most of them reverted to pashmina.
Historically, only limited quantities of raw toosh reached Srinagar, estimates putting the amount at about 450 kg per annum in 1823 and 200 kg in the second quarter of the 20th century. The next 40 years saw critical changes, with increased pressure on the pastures due to political and social developments. As a result of the Sino-India war of 1962, 37,500 square kilometers of northeastern Ladakh were occupied by the Chinese resulting loss of pastures.
The Trade in History
The state of Jammu and Kashmir, with its three district regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, was created in 1846 by the Treaty of Amritsar between the British government of India and Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu. As a ruler of the new state, in acknowledging the supremacy of the British Government, pledged an annual tribute of ‘one horse, twelve perfect shawl goats of approved breed and three pair of Kashmiri shawls . Thus the shawl industry was recognized as the issue of primary importance in the state. The treaties of 1842 and 1846 had removed the pashm trade from political controversy and the next 25 years saw Kashmir’s shawl industry at its peak. The trade in its ancient form staggered to an end in the 1950s, as a result of the increasing stranglehold of China on Tibet and after the complete closure of the border between western Tibet and India in 1962, the Srinagar shawl industry had to rely on the pashm produced in Ladakh. At the same time, changing social and political conditions radically altered the dynamics of the trade between Ladakhi Changthang and Srinagar.
The increased demand for Ladakhi pashm, after supplies from Tibet were cut off, led to an immediate rise in its price. Whereas the highest price for pashm in western Tibet quoted for the period before 1962 was Rs 30 per kg, by 1970 the price of local pashm had risen tenfold to Rs.300 per kg8. In 1995 the Government set up the All Changthang Pashmina Growers Cooperative Marketing Society, with the objective of getting the Changpa a better price for their produce and enabling them to sell directly to the shawl manufacturers as well as to the big companies in the Punjab and Delhi, thus reducing the role of the middleman.
Harvesting and Preparation of Pashmina Fibre
The harvesting of the fibre starts around the beginning of June. The removal of fibre is mostly done by the men, but women help out when necessary. The whole process is usually over by the first week of August; it concludes with a prayer ceremony and it is obligatory for all Changpa that he removal of fibre be completed before this ceremony.
The Pashm is removed by combing. During winter, it lies close against the goat’s body, providing insulation against the bitter cold. The Chingpa say it is only when winter is over and the goat eats the first new grass that the pashm rises above the surface of the animal’s body and can be combed out easily. The old style combs were locally made from yak horn or wood. Today, however, these traditional combs are seldom made; instead, combs made of steel are used. The comb consists of heavy wires bound together by finer wires and each tine is curled at the tip into a hook. The Pashm as it is combed out contains an admixture of coarse hairs as well as dirt and the animal’s body secretions. The women who clean the fibre in Kashmir reckon that on average the quantity of pure fibre in a given lot of raw pashm is no more than about 35 percent by weight. After combing, the animal’s shaggy outer coat, made up of coarse hair, is cut with metal shears.
The Chingpa claims that while the shearing of that wool does not hurt the sheep, which remain quiet while they are being shorn, the combing out of pashm does cause the goats pain. They know this because when being combed the animals bleat and yelp.
The basic processes of manufacturing shawls have changed little since they were documented by William Moorcroft in 1823. The first stage in the manufacture of each and every one of the several million pashmina shawls produced in Kashmir from the 17th century to date, was the tedious and painstaking work of picking out from the raw fibre the admixture of coarse hairs from the goat’s outer coat, hair by individual hair, entirely by hand. It is estimated that hand dehairing of 50 g of pashm takes up to eight hours. Next, the wool’s natural oil and other impurities are removed by rubbing fine, slightly damp rice flour through small pads of fibre, which is then straightened by passing it gently through a comb set upright on a stand. A length of hollow paddy-straw slipped over the spindle serves as a replaceable bobbin, and later the yarn is wound off the straw onto a large reel or swift ( Kashmiri pritz).It is then doubled and twisted, again using the wheel; finally it is wound into standard size hanks with the help of a single device into it at a fixed distance apart. The yarn in every hank is counted off into bundles of 20 threads, each tied with a length of sewing cotton, for ease of calculating the amount, both for the payment due to spinner, and for getting the correct quantity. The yield of finest quality fibre is about 35 per cent of the original, by weight. As it was explained to Moorcroft, six units of raw pashm by weight yielded tow of first quality fibre for the finest yarn, and rather less than half a unit of shorter, second quality fibre for the slightly coarser yarn that was dyed and used for patterning.
From the third decade of the 19th century, the Kashmiri shawl faced completion in its traditional Indian and West Asia markets from inexpensive Europe- made imitations. It also suffered from social and cultural changes leading to the adoption of western sartorial norms, especially for men. By 1900, Kani’s great days were over. In the mid 1890s output was reported to have been reduced to a small production of ‘Jamawari and butadars’ for Persian market. These shawls found their market in Iran, Afghanistan, Hyderabad and Bengal.
Aristocratic demand in north India remained buoyant in the first quarter of the 19th century; then it all started to decline. The end of the Maratha Wars saw a slump in the demand. The Kashmir entrepreneurs were well aware of the impact on their business of events elsewhere in India. Thus by the end of 1850s, the culturally driven demand which for 150 years or more had made the Kashmiri Shawl one of the principal items of north Indian trade, had shrunk drastically. Around 1860, nearly three- fourths of the imports from Kashmir into the British territory consist of Pashmina fabrics and chiefly of the finest shawls. Of these fabrics only about one lakh’s worth is sent to Hindustan, the remainder goes to Europe via Bombay. As late as 1890, none of the roads into Kashmir, or even within the Valley, were fit for wheeled traffic. A century earlier, the mountain trails were reportedly too rough and steep even for pack animals and the shawls, made up in oblong bales, and were transported down to the plains on men’s backs. In Ladakh, well into 20th century, traders and transporters continued to conduct local and long-distance commerce in a pre-modern mode, using pack animals.
