How Gandhian ideals are weaving a sustainable future in these Karnataka villages

The road to Heggodu winds through the green folds of the Western Ghats, past areca-nut trees and open paddy fields. The villages here hardly pay attention to the outside world, or to matters concerning them—such as the severe drought this year or talk of a controversial report on the Western Ghats. Despite the drought, the air is moist with surprise rains, and the hills are verdant.

In this remote corner of Malenadu, near Sagar taluk in Karnataka’s Shivamogga district, an unusual experiment in Gandhism has been taking shape for nearly four decades through its handlooms. It is a scene far removed from the industrialised world. Everything is slow and handmade, with women working on cotton yarn waiting to be dyed with colours extracted from plants and trees, handloom pedals being pressed to turn the yarn into fabric, and hundreds of wooden blocks with traditional patterns soaked in colour for hand printing.

At the centre of this experiment is theatre personality and Gandhian thinker Prasanna, who has spent much of his life searching for ways to turn sustainable ideas into action. His journey began on the stage. He was one of the important figures associated with Samudaya, the progressive theatre movement that emerged during the Emergency years. Theatre became his way of questioning society and responding to the anxieties of his time. Later, as a teacher at the National School of Drama in Delhi, he mentored many actors, including Irrfan Khan.

His search for an alternative way of living took him beyond the stage and eventually to Heggodu. Here, theatre gradually gave way to another kind of stage—one played out on handlooms. The Charaka women’s cooperative emerged from his experiment with Gandhian ideals. What began in the 1990s as an attempt to create alternative livelihoods for women in Malenadu has grown into a handloom cooperative and a handmade cloth brand named DESI, produced locally with natural materials and the skills of Malenadu’s women.

The Charaka Mahila Vividhoddesha Kaigarika Sahakari Sangha was formally registered in 1996, with the objective of creating employment in a region where agriculture alone could not provide adequate livelihoods throughout the year. Women who were not traditionally weavers learnt to weave. Yarn is dyed naturally, woven by hand and stitched by villagers. The Charaka handloom gradually became an economic activity. Today, Charaka has a monthly production capacity of roughly 30,000 metres of naturally dyed cotton handloom fabric, and its network extends beyond Heggodu to weaving communities in other parts of Karnataka. But its significance lies less in the volume of cloth it produces than in the economic relationship it has attempted to create around the cloth.

The colours themselves tell part of the story. At Charaka, natural materials such as areca-nut husk, myrobalan, pomegranate peels, indigo and other local plant products are used for dyeing. The process is slower and more labour-intensive than industrial textile production, but that slowness is not necessarily a disadvantage. It allows the process of production to remain visible, with attention paid to each piece of cloth they make.

The yarn passes through several hands before becoming fabric. The loom demands time and attention. Block printing is done manually, and the fabric is examined at each step. Kurtas, shawls, towels, bags, household textiles and other products are made from it.

The most visible expression of this philosophy is the women who work within the cooperative. Charaka has created employment and a measure of economic independence for rural women who might otherwise have remained dependent on agriculture or household incomes. The model also attempts to go beyond wages, with workers receiving benefits such as provident fund and insurance, while the cooperative has developed systems through which its members can manage their own financial needs.

This is where Prasanna’s understanding of Gandhi becomes more tangible. For him, Gandhism is not about repeating Gandhi’s words or merely adopting the outward symbols associated with him. It is about asking how an economic system affects the person who actually produces something. Who makes what we wear? Where does the money go? How much of the value remains with the producer? Can a village create its own livelihood rather than becoming a source of cheap labour for distant markets?

These questions are now shaping Charaka’s next phase. Prasanna wants to see Charaka become the “Amul of handlooms”—a producer-owned model in which the people who make the product remain central to its economic journey.

There is also an attempt to reverse the conventional relationship between producer and market. Instead of constantly carrying handloom fabric to commercial centres such as Delhi and Mumbai, Charaka wants buyers, designers and textile professionals to come to Heggodu, see the production process, examine the fabric and understand where and how it is made.

To connect with the B2B model, Charaka recently organised Gandhi Santhe (Gandhi Market), where buyers of Charaka fabric came together to display their products and experiments. The event included workshops on dyeing and block printing, as well as cultural performances and local food stalls.

Prasanna’s experiment goes beyond the cooperative; it attempts to bring the consumer closer to the producer and make the value of a product visible through the effort that goes into making it.

Terence Peter, chief operating officer of the cooperative, says, “Each process goes here through human hands under natural processes. Part of these products are used for our own brand and part goes to buyers who make their own designs and product portfolios.” He takes guests through the production process in a facility plastered with mud on its walls and topped with tiled roofs.

Some visitors at Gandhi Santhe are devoted users of Charaka products. They have come to witness the process and see the place where the clothes they wear are made. Today, the DESI brand has stores in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Shivamogga and Mumbai, while its products are also sold at weekend fairs in Bengaluru.

Prasanna, however, says that in an evolving market, expanding the reach of the products to consumers is also important. He is considering setting up a team to promote the handmade clothes and reach more people willing to buy them.

A few kilometres away, at Honnesara village, another part of this experiment takes shape. The ashram for shramajeevis, or working people, is conceived as a space where rural life, traditional skills and village industries can be experienced.

The ashram is unique in the modern context. Its four-square-lined buildings, made of natural mud, stone, wood and terracotta tiles, are an example of minimal living. Stone slabs are used as cots, and bathrooms are located away from the rooms. The buildings house offices, guest rooms, the handloom unit, dyeing unit, canteen and even a small rustic-looking theatre.

Electricity and necessary modern equipment such as speakers, microphones and lights are among the few modern elements that blend into the rudimentary architecture. A garden with flowering plants occupies the centre of the four quarters arranged around the square garden.

The place is deliberately removed from the fast pace and infrastructure of the city. Here, making, repairing, growing, weaving, working with one’s hands and understanding the relationship between production and the land become part of a larger lesson.

For a younger generation increasingly accustomed to buying almost everything from distant markets, the ashram offers a different vocabulary of life. Its purpose is not to recreate some romanticised version of Gandhi’s India, but to make people confront basic questions that modern consumption often hides: Where does food come from? Who makes what we use? What happens to communities when traditional occupations disappear? What does self-reliance mean in an interconnected economy?

This is where Charaka and the ashram come together. One experiments with how villages can produce garments with minimal industrial infrastructure; the other, with simple living. Both emerge from the same Gandhian idea of swaraj — not merely political freedom, but a measure of social and economic self-reliance. The forest, rain and soil of the village are witnesses to this experiment.

In a country where Gandhi often lives in speeches, government commemorations and political statements, a small village in the Western Ghats is attempting something practical. It is trying to practise his ideas of self-reliance every day—through a loom, a cooperative, women earning their own livelihoods, natural dyes, village industries and an ashram.

It lives in every product sold through the DESI brand of clothing for the modern world.