Entrepreneurship Among Tribal Women in Artisanal Clusters in the North East: A Case Study of Mizoram

Abstract

The North-Eastern (NE) states of India have the largest concentration of handlooms in the country (more than 65 per cent of the total looms). However, a large majority (62%) of the looms in NE states are engaged in domestic production only. Thenzawl, a remote handloom cluster in Mizoram, located in India’s North-East has thrived and grown and become a pool of entrepreneurship for the underprivileged tribal women. The weavers in this remote town have redefined the quintessential ‘marginalised woman weaver’ as a strongly motivated woman entrepreneur, who has transformed the role of weaving from being a mere wage earning activity or a domestic chore to a commercially viable enterprise, notwithstanding the number of looms owned. This paper has attempted to trace the growth of the Thenzawl handloom cluster, in terms of number of enterprises, number of looms, number of products manufactured and so on, on the basis of mapping undertaken by the researcher and also offers suggestions to initiate cluster development initiatives to enable the enterprises to sustain and grow.