Chhote Lal and Kanni Devi are perched behind a loom,
weaving rugs in the courtyard of their two-room home in Nareth, Rajasthan, a
rural village on the outskirts of Jaipur, India.
Devi has a wide, captivating smile accentuated by red
lipstick, a new luxury in her life.
Lal, 40, and Devi, 35, have been weaving for Jaipur
Rugs, India’s largest rug manufacturer, for more than 15 years. In 2013, they
were selected as one of India’s best artisans by The Times of India. They were
flown to Delhi, a first for the couple, and recognized for their skills. Devi
points to a laminated copy of the article, which hangs in their living
quarters. The title reads, “Carpet Weaver to Master Artisan.”
Lal is the son of a shoemaker. He learned rug weaving
as a young man, earning 50 rupees, or $1, per day. Devi says she was worried
when they married: “How could he take care of me with such little money?”
Lal used to work for rug contractors, middlemen who
employed weavers to produce carpets for exporters. In 1998, he was introduced
to a man named Nand Kishore Chaudhary, the founder of Jaipur Rugs. Chaudhary
had a different business model: Pay weavers almost twice what they were making,
enable them to work from home, and provide them all the materials they need.
Chaudhary, a tall, discerning figure, is revered by
his employees. His business philosophy is rooted in the villages of India, not
in the rise of congested urban factories, and he believes weavers who work from
home—with access to their children and families—are happier and more productive.
In 1978, a then-25-year-old Chaudhary borrowed $200
from his father to purchase two looms and an old bicycle to start his rug
business. He set up the looms in his home and started learning the art of
weaving from nine trained but unemployed villagers.
“I discovered that some of the most beautiful rugs in
the world were made by those who did not have the most basic rights in
society,” he recalled, speaking in Hindi.
He was recently married at the time, and his wife,
Sulochana, supported his new venture despite pushback from their families. She
cooked, fed, and took care of the weavers, who often slept and ate at their
home.
Two years later, they moved from Rajasthan to the
neighboring state of Gujarat to work with tribal communities, teaching them how
to weave. Tribal communities in India have long been resistant to development
and particularly to outsiders, Chaudhary says. For three years, he worked to
transform that mistrust—and eight years later, he had built a network of 15,000
tribal artisan families in the state.
That network has scaled exponentially since. Today the
company relies on more than 28,000 artisans across five states in India who
produce rugs that are sold in more than 40 countries. Some are simple doormats;
others are intricate works of art in silk, priced at $10,000 each. Knot quality
determines price and prestige: The finer and tighter the knots, the higher the
value.
There are 82 processes in carpet making, Chaudhary
says, from buying the raw materials to final delivery. Jaipur Rugs monitors
each one, sending an inspector every two weeks to the villages to track
progress. Quality control, he acknowledges, is the hardest part. In 2009, the
company was throwing out $10,000 worth of product because of defects and loose
knots.
It eliminated waste by setting up more checkpoints at
the village level and then in the warehouse. Completed rugs were delivered to
the Jaipur offices for inspection. Color-coordinated digital blueprints were
designed, printed, and sent to villagers to create consistency. Colors also
made it easy for villagers, who were illiterate; they simply had to match
thread colors to the pattern.
Despite his grand visions, Chaudhary is a realist. He
believes the real lessons of business (and life) are learned in practice, not
in the classroom.
“Knowledge gained without practice is ego,” he says.
In 1999, when Chaudhary set up Jaipur Rugs as a
private company under his name, he had to hire a managerial team. He opted for
well-educated, experienced candidates. That, he says, resulted in a period of
tumult. Chaudhary, a man of the villages, was at odds with city-bred
professionals who carried degrees from illustrious business schools around the
world but had little understanding of the weavers’ lives.
To give them perspective and to “break the ego,” he
says, he set up a unique program: the Higher School of Unlearning. He partnered
professionals with older, less-educated managers who were entrenched in the
business.
“You have to appreciate the wisdom that people at
grassroots level have. They’re probably the best managers in the world,” he
says.
Next year, Chaudhary wants to restructure the company
again, giving the artisans more rights and making them stakeholders. In
addition, he is developing a method to connect customers directly to the
artisan.
Although the company continues to grow—revenues topped
$30 million in 2013—Yogesh says it goes beyond just making money. “It’s hard
enough to scale a business with one bottom line to focus on. Growing while
simultaneously creating social value is a tall order,” he says.
But Jaipur Rugs classifies itself as a social
business. In 2004, Chaudhary set up a foundation to formalize the efforts of
the company. In 2008, he learned the term “CSR” (corporate social
responsibility). “Too late?” he jokes.
The foundation is another arm of the business,
providing the families of the artisans access to education and health care
through literacy and medical camps. It also facilitates the process for weavers
to acquire an artisan card; in India the status comes with benefits such as
subsidized medical care.
“Many don’t know how to navigate the paperwork, or
they can’t read and write. So, we fill in,” Chaudhary says.
Lal and Devi proudly display their artisan cards. The
two have health insurance, their children go to school, and they’ve upgraded
their home from a one-room mud-caked structure to a two-room brick house.
Between them, they earn up to 15,000 rupees ($300) a month. And Devi is loving
her new lipstick.
Asked if they have aspirations to move to Jaipur, away
from the village, they reply, “Why?”
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