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Journalism of Courage
REHMAT ALI Mansuri is so used to the din of brass being beaten into shape around him that even a temporary silence feels unusual. “I feel anxious when the sound dies down,” he says. But the manner in which events are unfolding in the city, it may not be long before hammers and hydraulic presses fall silent for good.
With less than a week to go for the Assembly election, however, the issue has found no mention in the election campaign of candidates contesting from Bhandara —BJP’s Arvind Bhaladare, Congress’s Jaideep Kawade and former Shiv Sena MLA Narendra Bhondekar, who is contesting independently after being dropped.
For 12 hours a day and six days a week, Mansuri and seven other employees turn sheets of brass into plates for sale at the local market, continuing an age-old trade from which Bhandara derives its prominence.
Naresh Malhotra, who runs Laxmi Metals, is an enthusiastic narrator of the city’s history. He says while skilled artisans have fashioned brass pots by hand for several centuries, the golden age of the industry in Bhandara dawned with the arrival of mechanisation after Independence. “Skilled manpower and technical know-how arrived from Jagadhri in Haryana, and locals brought in the investment,” he says. By 1980, he says, Bhandara had close to 500 factories employing nearly 20,000 people. With the introduction of cheaper stainless steel utensils that year, he adds, a gradual decline started in the demand for brass. “After steel came aluminium and plastic. We cannot compete in terms of price,” Malhotra says.
The 40-year-old Bhandara native learned the trade watching his father make two pots a day, but eventually tried his hand at allied industries. Two years ago though he returned to his mother industry. Along with brother Bharat, Malhotra runs two factories on the outskirts of the city but is already looking for a way out. “The GST has killed this industry. We cannot survive when the government imposes 18 per cent GST on brass products,” he says.
Bhandara’s BJP MP Sunil Mendhe had submitted a representation from factory owners to the Union Finance Ministry last year, seeking relaxation in GST rates. However, it went unheard.
According to a fellow factory owner Pappu Bhandari, the government’s decision to charge steep tax on brass goods is unjustified. “The only people who purchase brass pots today are adivasis and that, too, as a gift to their daughters at weddings,” he says. The largest demand for brass pots today is from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Telangana, he adds.
Another factory owner says the industry’s crisis does not bother candidates of major political parties. “Elections here have always been decided only on caste lines and never on development issues. Since most factories are owned by Punjabis and Marwaris, we are simply not a vote bank for them,” he says.
Malhotra says keeping a factory running is becoming increasingly unprofitable. “We remain closed from May to August when workers go off to work in rice fields. Between September and October, we receive orders for Dhanteras and then shut again in November. Between December and April, we manufacture pots and utensils for the wedding season. These are the only two windows of demand that are keeping the brass industry here alive.”
But just as Malhotra is firm about his children not following him into the trade, Mansuri is also uncertain of introducing his teenagers into the labour-intensive and poorly-paid profession. “At present, there is a resurgence as affluent families in big cities demand unique crockery and home decor but beyond that I am not sure how long brass factories will survive. Bhandara will lose its identity unless the government revises GST,” he says.
