V 



THE SCOPE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF A SHELL-BANGLE 

 INDUSTRY IN OKHAMANDAL 



At the present clay the Indian shell -bangle industry is limited to Bengal, where 

 in Dacca, Calcutta, Nadia, and other centres it gives lucrative employment to large 

 numbers of skilled artisans. How economically important it is as an art industry will 

 be realised when we learn that the value of the raw material required ranges between 

 2 and 2| lakhs of rupees per annum as given by the importers, an amount probably 

 understated so considerably that it is quite safe to put the average actual value at 

 2 J lakhs. This is the wholesale value ; the shells usiially change hands twice before 

 they reach the actual bangle-workers ; in turn the latter sell their products to bangle 

 merchants who distribute them to shopkeepers and peddlers throughout Bengal, Behar, 

 Assam, Bhutan and Thibet. The value increases several times in this process of 

 manufacture and distribution till it is certain that the final retail value of the products 

 of this industry at a conservative estimate is considerably over 15 lakhs of rupees, or 

 £100,000. From one shell an average of three wide bangles can be cut ; the wholesale 

 value of good shells may be taken at from 1 to 2 annas each, whereas the one and a half 

 pair of bangles that one shell produces will be sold at anything from 9 annas to rupees 18 

 according to the amount of ornamentation. Certainly the three bangles yielded by 

 one shell have an average retail value of not less than one rupee. On this basis the 

 shells increase in value eight times on the import value if we take the latter at the high 

 rate of 2 annas each. 



The tools employed by the shell-cutters and gravers are of the simplest and most 

 primitive description ; they consist of heavy double-handled saws employed in sawing 

 the circlets which constitute the working sections for the bangle carver {vide PI. IV, 

 Figs. 1 and 2) and of small handsaws (PL V, Figs. 1 and 2), bow-drills and files for smoothing 

 and carving the patterns. No labour-saving devices are used ; the tools with the 

 exception of European-made files, are undoubtedly identical with those used 1,500 years 

 ago, in particular the great saw — the most important of these tools — which is referred 

 to in an ancient Tamil poem quoted on page 59. 



The present concentration of the shell-bangle industry in Bengal is consequent 



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