Dancers perform with the japi at a Bihu Festival at Srirampur in North Tripura. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, April 20: It is everywhere, adorning the living rooms of the rich and the famous within the country and beyond.

For the Assamese, welcoming a visitor with a japi, the community?s traditional headgear, has been a matter of pride. Over the years, the japi ? like the ubiquitous gamocha ? has also become one of the state?s most visible symbols.

But far from the people?s consciousness , the traditional japi-making industry in Nalbari district is staring at an uncertain future due to lack of financial and logistical support.

?Japis cannot be made with machines. Unless the government does something to help the industry, there will be no japi-makers left. People are already shifting to other trades,? says Sunil Kalita, a young japi-maker from Sutarkuchi village.

Ostensibly introduced by the Ahoms, japis are made of strips of bamboo and dried palm leaves that are locally known as tokow-pat. The designs on the headgear are created with pieces of cloth, mainly red and yellow. The phoolam japi, called so because of the intricate designs on it, is the speciality of a cluster of villages in and around Sutarkuchi, which churns out over a lakh japis annually. The bulk of these products is exported.

Murikona, Arikuchi, Sutarkuchi, Mughkuchi, Bolamughkuchi, Tilana and Teresia villages form the hub of the japi industry.

Before it became a decorative item, the japi was a coarse, large-brimmed hat worn by farmers while working in their fields. Only women of noble and rich families used to wear embellished japis.

A typical Assamese peasant hat is similar to the headgear of farmers in China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

Craftsman Jatin Kalita attributes the gradual decline of the business of making these hats to the ?machinations? of middlemen and private moneylenders. ?Craftsmen hardly get anything, while the lion?s share of the profits is taken away by the middlemen,? he says.

Gullible craftsmen indeed have no option but to depend on moneylenders and middlemen because they do not have access to either easy credit or the major markets.

?We have to carry our products to the nearby haats (markets) and do retail business with individual customers or depend on middlemen to sell our products in bulk. Retailing in local markets is not a profitable exercise,? says another disgruntled craftsman, Haren Bharali, urging the government, NGOs and financial institutions to come forward and save a unique tradition from certain death.

Prithibhusan Deka, president of the Gramya Vikash Mancha, believes the biggest challenge for craftspeople engaged in making japis is to reach the market without the help of middlemen and get access to soft loans, preferably micro finance.

Deka?s organisation works for the socio-economic uplift of craftspeople.