From Royal Patronage to Rural Livelihoods: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis of the Silk Industry in Kashmir (15th–21st Century)

Abstract

This work maps the development of the silk industry in Kashmir from early medieval times to the Sultanate, Mughal, Dogra and post-Independence eras to the present using only primary archival records, imperial gazetteers, archival reports and present-day institutional data. The study reveals that sericulture in Kashmir was not an imported industry but an indigenous industry nurtured by the temperate climate and mulberry forests. Silk weaving received its first royal encouragement from Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (1420-1470). During the Dogra period (1846-1947) sericulture was promoted from a traditional home industry into a state-sponsored industrial sector, with government filatures set up, laws protecting the industry, imports of disease-free silkworm seed and foreign experts like Thomas Wardle. Post-accession reforms by the Central Silk Board (established 1949) and various Five Year Plans brought modernisation of production technology, lifting India's raw silk production from 2,894 MT in 1973-74 to 38,913 MT in 2023-24, while employment in sericulture in the country grew from 5.4 million to 9.48 million over roughly the same period. In Jammu and Kashmir, cocoon production increased from 738 MT and a Rs. 455.67 lakh in 2008–09 to 1,084 MT and Rs. 2,110 lakh in 2017-18 with cocoon prices rising from Rs. 192 to Rs. 750 per kilogram. However, active silkworm rearer numbers have dwindled from more than 60,000 in the 1940s to 5,000 currently, due to structural issues such as competition from high-value horticulture, lack of infrastructure and generational apathy. The paper recommends multi-stakeholder approach involving government, research and training institutions, cooperatives, finance and civil society for the revival of the sector as a rural livelihood system..