A fabric woven in blood

Animal activists who had trekked rugged mountains swept by dry icy windsfound carcasses of the slaughtered animals all over the place. The animalhad reached the brink of extinction while the rich and the famous continuedto drape themselves in its exotic hair. According to the Wildlife ProtectionSociety of India, which took the battle to the court, about 20,000 chirusare slaughtered per year to feed the fashion. Today, the chiru8217;s populationis estimated at about 65,000 from one million only about half a centuryago.

Shahtoosh probably came to Kashmir as part of the barter system; in allprobability, some Tibetan sold it for a rock of salt to a Kashmiri. But thetrade has flourished in Kashmir since 1975. When the fibre was declared acontraband the demand rose dramatically. Ashok Kumar, president of the WPSI,says the wool is mostly plucked by poachers in Tibet and smuggled to Kashmirthrough Nepal. Besides Kashmir, where the shawls are mostly hand-woven,shahtoosh shawls are also being manufactured in Hong Kong and other Asiancountries.

As the conservationists got more clues to the origins of shahtoosh, Kashmiritraders found themselves in a spot: they faced growing pressure to shutshop. Globally, the Western world launched a crackdown on high fashionboutiques and issued subpeonas to the rich and famous who flaunted theirshahtoosh. The battle between the shahtoosh lobby and the naturalists wasfought in court, where after hair-splitting arguments, the court upheld thecontentions of the latter.

Ashok Kumar dismisses the claims that shahtoosh was a fibre shed by animalroutinely and collected painstakingly by locals. 8220;The Tibetan antelopelives in the Tibetan plateau and the wool protects it from sub-zerotemperatures. If the protective coat of wool is removed, the animal cannotsurvive. There is ample evidence to show that Tibetan antelopes are killedin large numbers. Samples of wool taken from shahtoosh shawls have pointedends, called apical points. This shows the wool was never sheared.8221;Besides, there are no bushes or trees to hold the floating wool on thewind-swept Tibetan cold desert of Tibet or Ladakh.

Under the CITES, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Speciesshahtoosh has been a contraband since 1975. India, being one of the 152signatory countries to the CITES, had duly banned the sale and trade ofshahtoosh and granted the Tibetan antelope the status of the most endangeredspecies. Jammu and Kashmir, the only place in the world which permits themanufacture of shahtoosh shawls, had given protection to the traders underits special status. Since Jamp;K has its own Constitution and statute, thegovernment had been refusing to update its wildlife laws and declare chiruan animal which needed to be conserved. Till his recent announcement seekinga ban on shahtoosh, Jamp;K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah had been defiant. Onone occasion, when a reporter asked his opinion on the controversy, he flewinto a rage: 8220;I will never ban the shahtoosh.8221; He viewed it as aconspiracy against Kashmir. The Jamp;K government even argued in court that therow was a Pakistan-hatched ploy to damage Kashmir8217;s economy!

Abdullah had often argued that animals are more important than human beings.He felt thousands of craftsmen would lose their livelihood once a ban on thesale and manufacture of the shawl was imposed. Kashmiri folklore hasaccounts of poor mothers who made threads of pashmina and shahtoosh to makean extra buck and finance their children8217;s education. In reality, shahtooshwas given to the 8220;experts8221; as the greenhorns could not be trusted with it.The earnings weren8217;t worth the labour involved and the women would happilyexchange it for any other fibre. Despite the hullabullo, the Jamp;K governmenthad not even conducted a survey to assess the actual number of peopleinvolved in the trade.

Abdullah8217;s anger had remained a mystery till some top-rung governmentofficers let the cat out of the bag. A senior officer dealing with thecontroversy on behalf of the government revealed that a small lobby ofshahtoosh traders was pulling the strings of the government. Notsurprisingly, the group was headed by a close relative of Farooq Abdullah.Facing the inevitable, the relative had even met officials and asked them todefer the ban.

Conservationists look at the world differently from vote-hungry politicians.They say human beings can choose their way of earning, but once extinct, ananimal will never get a chance to live again. According to the UnitedNation8217;s World Resource Report 1998-90, half the world8217;s plant and animalspecies may be at risk and could vanish by 2050.

The fashion world would have to share much blame for this catastrophe. TheUnited States had to ban the import of leopard skin after the rich andfamous like Jacqueline Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth led a fashion campaign ofwearing leopard skins in the early sixties. Within 10 years, the animal hadbeen wiped out in Africa.

Conservationists like Ashok Kumar say the shahtoosh trade is alsocontributing to the dwindling population of the Asian species. 8220;The bulk ofthe cross border trade between India and Tibet is by barter.8221; He gave theinstance of a lone traveller to Tibet who had recorded an exchange of twobags of Tibetan antelope wool for one bag of tiger bones.

Having given a verbal commitment to ban the trade, Abdullah will have do actfast. The Jammu and Kashmir Act needs to be amended soon and all shawls inpossession of traders need to be confiscated. In case the government dragsits feet on the modalities of the ban, the unscrupulous shahtoosh makerswill pile up stocks for clandestine sales. For there will always be somehuman beings who believe that God created the earth and everything on it fortheir indulgence.