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Image by Michael Peron, La Rochelle, France

Recently I collaborated on a project with Indian-based designer Ishan Khosla as the research co-ordinator for an exhibition under the working title Sweeping Change: Transforming Attitudes Towards the Humble Jharu (Broom) which featured last week at Delhi’s prestigious Gandhi Smriti. As we gathered information we begun to appreciate that each jharu has a unique story to tell – from where it’s fibres were sourced, how it was skillfully crafted, who’s hands have grasped it in service and what corners of the nation it has swept. The iconic jharu weaves its way through India’s social, cultural and economic fabric – from cultivation to craft, selling to sweeping.
 

Skilled craftsmen at work in a bustling jharu factory at Delhi’s Lahori Gate. 
Images by Ishan Khosla

On the ground in Delhi, Ishan and his team team interviewed and photographed local broom makers and businesses. Broom making constitutes a specialised craft which provides an essential everyday item – fusing utility with artisanal technique. From micro-enterprise to large-scale industry, the scope of jharu production is as vibrant as it is varied.
 
Selling brooms in Jamalpur, Ahmedabad. Image by yours truly

Vendors, who are predominantly mobile, ply the streets with single jharu varieties or colourful selections of every imaginable sweeping device displayed on a single bicycle. It is estimated that they facilitate the majority of local trade in brooms – reaching far flung rural villages and dense urban neighbourhoods. With their trademark calls to beckon buyers they contribute to a culture of distribution which is liberated from fixed locations – playing a vital role in last-mile delivery of the humble jharu.
 
“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.” – Mahatma Gandhi. Images by Navroze Contractor via Arna-Jharna, Rajasthan

Those who sweep provide Indians with the pleasure of clean homes, schools, offices and streets, though often fail to gain respect. Sweepers play an important role in both civic and private life yet perform one of the most under-valued services in India. Often a caste-based occupation, sweeping duties range from government employees performing municipal duties to informal workers going from house to house cleaning toilets. Elsewhere sweeping is an elevated task such as in many temples where the inner sanctum can only be cleaned by the chief priest – using the finest of natural plant fibres or peacock feathers. 
 
Image courtesy of MP Ranjan from the National Institute of Design archives

The sweeping of homes, streets, temples, mosques and beyond requires a variety of jharu of nuanced characteristics. Various materials yield multiple manifestations to meet this diverse array of settings. The scope of natural materials from which most brooms are created reveal a rich biodiversity and further specifics about its intended usage. Size, shape and texture tell us much about the broom’s function and site of use – whether it be indoors or outdoors, public or domestic.

The Hindu goddess Shitala Mata by Kailash Raj, via Exotic India Art

The jharu’s symbolism surrounding cleansing and cleanliness is evident from the realms of religion to sites of protest. The image of a broom can incite a range of responses from reverence to controversy. Shitala Mata, the Bengali Goddess of Disease, sweeps away ailments with her broom. The Dispeller of Suffering – her benevolence is sought by countless devotees who seek the purity she provides. The jharu further represents spiritual cleansing and is associated with the goddess Lakshmi. It takes on added significance at the Diwali festival during which homes are meticulously swept to welcome in the new year – with Lakshmi supposedly entering the cleanest houses first.
 

“If we do not take the broom in our hands we cannot make our nation clean”
– Mahatma Gandhi. Image courtesy of the Gandhi Smriti

Gandhi firmly believed that all work was dignified work and held sweepers and scavengers in high regard in his support of abandoning the cultural concept of untouchability. Even as a child in Rajkot he boldly declared “I don’t think our sweeper or anybody is untouchable. Is he in any way different from me?” he asked his mother in defense of his friend and family servant, Uka.  Much later his three symbols of revolution became prayer, the spinning wheel and the broom – representing inner strength, productivity and social equality. He further acknowledged the broom’s symbolism declaring that “prayer is like a broomstick meant to cleanse one’s soul.”
 

Bhopal protestors. Image by Ascanio Vitale, Rome

Brooms have also served as a symbol for protest – significantly against the company behind the Bhopal disaster. In 2002 activists brandished donated brooms while chanting Jharu Maro Dow Ko! (Beat Dow with a Broom!) as a way of telling Dow Chemicals to clean up its act while conveying the ultimate insult of being hit with a broom. The potent symbolism of the broom has seen it featured in further protests from Manipur to Delhi’s India Gate on a diverse range of issues.
 
Images by Ishan Khosla (left) and yours truly (right)

The jharu exhibition was a part of the launch of the Jiyo! initiative by Rajeev Sethi’s Indian Heritage Foundation, supported by the World Bank.

“Less profitability has been driving craftsmen away from their traditional jobs. There is demand for their products, only that they need to be marketed and managed. Just like the Amul revolution has made farmers partners in dairy business, if craftsmen are made partners in the profit and if there is proper management, the trade will once again revive.” – Rajeev Sethi via Times of India

Clearly Jiyo! holds some hope in forging an identity that goes beyond cricket and Bollywood possibly signaling the arrival of the Swadeshi brand of the new century.
 
Image taken in Ahmedabad’s Walled City – by Sana Kadri, Mumbai

The humble jharu passes through many hands on its journey from field to floor. As we reflect on its power to clear the path before us, let us also consider the many who have been part of its story – and indeed those who have featured in a myriad of traditional craft stories across the nation.

Behind the scenes: A vast amount of information needed to be collated and filtered within a daunting timeframe as part of our research which required historical, social, material, and economic detail. I took the coordination of research in my stride from afar in New Zealand – grateful for the committed eyes and ears I had on the ground via Ishan’s studio and some great leads from the Broom Project by Rajasthan’s Desert Museum. Via a series of Google Documents our dispersed team were able to quickly assemble and arrange findings, Flickr enabled us to track down some incredible imagery, Facebook facilitated some quick-fire input around relevant terms in various Indian languages and we found it useful to compile findings spanning the nation onto a Google Map. Through employing basic cloud technology and social media platforms the distance from Wellington to Delhi and beyond didn’t seem so great after all.

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Overlap: Intersections of Desi & Diasporic
Mumbai’s Pavement Purveyors (CNN)

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