Silver Jewellery Making as an Occupation- An Artisan's Perspective

Silver Jewellery making is a cultural heritage, an established and promising business, and a portrayal of traditional Nepali craftsmanship that showcases the beauty and ingenuity of Nepalese handicrafts.

“There are enough silver jewellery artisans in Nepal, however, heavy influx of Indian artisans, mostly from West Bengal take away a considerable share of the Nepalese employment opportunities.”

Silver Jewellery artisans have unique traditional skills and techniques of Nepali craftsmanship. The skill of silver jewellery making passes from generation to generation. The new artisans assist their seniors or family

members, who are already in the business, to learn the skills of jewellery crafting. These artisans sharpen their craftsmanship skills by using silver. After mastering the skills of craftsmanship, they start working with gold items. However, some of them continue with silver jewellery but most of them craft gold as well as silver items depending upon the orders.

Shyam Bahadur Sunar, who has been running a jewellery shop in Chitwan, since last 30 years, opined that he learnt the skill from his father and have been playing with silver since early childhood. “Most of the artisans begin as volunteer in jewellery shops. In addition, there is no technical training institute as such for silver jewellery artisans”, he said. Likewise, no automated or sophisticated machines are used in most of the steps of silver jewellery making process. The artisans use simple instruments for melting, casting, sizing, rolling, carving and cutting, heating, cleaning, soldering, refining and shining that are simple and easy to handle.

The artisans usually work at jewellery shop however; they also work at the workshop which is sometimes far from the shop. Therefore, those artisans working in isolated workshops get orders from more than one

jewellery shops. They are paid on the basis of number of finished products they produce. The artisans can earn from Rs. 15,000 to 40,000 depending upon the orders and season. During marriage and festival seasons they receive more orders.

On difficulties facing the silver jewellery industry, another artisan, Rajendra B K said, “There are enough silver jewellery artisans in Nepal, however, heavy influx of Indian artisans, mostly from West Bengal, take away a considerable share of the Nepalese employment opportunities”. There are cheap and machine finished products from India. Though they are relatively cheap, the jewellery crafted by hand is much more preferred by the importers. “Handmade Jewelleries are liked by many foreigners because every item is different from each other. They also love the traditional Nepali jewellery designs”, he added. This is the

unique selling point of the Nepali silver jewellery. Besides the competition from Indian artisans, the current rise in the silver price triggered a lower demand for silver jewellery. This in turn has led to a decrease in the volume of work for the artisans.

The demand of silver jewellery is increasing along with the new market that includes European Union, Russia, South Korea and South Africa and Japan. In addition, the silver jewellery contributes 13 percent to the total handicraft export from Nepal. Likewise, Government of Nepal has listed silver jewellery as one of the promising export items in the Nepal Trade Integration Strategy-2010, is another milestone attained by the sector. Therefore, if we can provide proper training to that silver jewellery artisans, the sector adds

another ladder to employment creation for Nepali youths.


                                                                                                           

This article was published in Nepal Trade Magazine, Issue 2, January 2012, GIZ
http://www.nepaltrade.org/sites/default/files/magazines/Nepal-Trade-Issue-2-English1.pdf
WTO, Enhanced Integrated Framework,
http://www.enhancedif.org/en/document/magazine-nepal-trade-issue-2-english