Kashmir’s Leather Industry’s crisis: artisans, traders leaving businesses

Trading raw animal hides has traditionally been a profitable occupation in Kashmir, with a potential to generate Rs 600 crore in annual revenues. However, trade in raw animal hides in the region has fallen 90 per cent since 2017 when several states imposed bans on cow slaughter.  Kashmir's rawhide traders and leather goods craftspersons are living in fear due to vigilantism and the threat of harassment, a situation exacerbated by recent bans.

Kashmir's rawhide traders once ran a thriving small-scale leather industry in Srinagar, supplying raw hide to manufacturing centers like Jalandhar and Kanpur. However, a decline began as vigilantes increasingly targeted trucks carrying meat and rawhides across India. In the past, the delivery of leather consignments to various locations where raw leather was transformed into bags, jackets, and shoes was frequently disrupted by cow vigilantes. Sometimes truck drivers transporting consignments of unfinished leather were beaten up badly by cow vigilantes in states like Haryana.  With growing fear of attacks by cow vigilantes, many traders stopped transporting leather and started winding up their leather business. Hundreds of such businesses were hit across the country by state  governments’ bans on the slaughter and transportation of cows around 2017 and attacks by cow vigilantes. Now the leather industry is facing the death knell at a time when unemployment in Kashmir is soaring. According to the All Kashmir Raw Skin Dealers Association, animal hide traders in the valley have experienced a 90% decline in business since 2014. 

According to the association, these traders had been engaged in the rawhide business for generations, mostly based in the downtown area of Srinagar. They collected hides of sheep, goat, cow and other animals from different places in Kashmir and transported these to various Indian cities and to leather makers in Kashmir. The Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute, Srinagar, estimated in 2016 that the region had the potential to generate Rs 600 crore annually from the rawhide industry. 

According to local raw hide traders, 90% of the hides in Kashmir go waste because there are no takers in the domestic market. Traders had maintained connections for decades with factories in Jalandhar and Kanpur, which themselves have been forced to close down in recent years. 

Traders said that there is still a demand in the international market for cow hides but following the bans by several state governments on cow slaughter, domestic traders have been unable to cash in on that demand. Some traders had to throw most of their stock to the dogs because they just pile up, as nobody was taking them.

Kashmir’s leather industry dates back to at least the Mughal period during which rulers' active support in promoting the region's arts and crafts saw Kashmiri leather workers gain fame for their exquisite leather items including shoes, boots, bags and belts. The leather industry of Kashmir was primarily concentrated in the old city of Srinagar, capital of the erstwhile Mughal province of Kashmir. 

Leather work flourished in the valley on account of a thriving large-scale leather trade. The climate of Kashmir offered ideal conditions for producing fine hides with a grainy texture with minimal risk of scratches. 

Sheikh Manzoor, a member of All Kashmir Raw Skin Dealers Association, Srinagar, came into the leather business in 1996, and started accumulating hides of  cows and sheep. He sold these to outside dealers and also processed some leather in Kashmir. Manzoor was in the leather business for over 20 years. His business prospects changed dramatically from September 2014 onwards, he said. Some of his colleagues had to sell their houses to repay business loans they had taken. “I lost every penny I had earned.”

Manzoor recalled that  buyers, upon realising the effects of the vigilante incidents, stopped buying leather from Kashmir. “They became apprehensive about other bans that might follow,” he said.  

The incidents involving cow vigilantes in other parts of the country led to the closure of business for most of the small-scale leather makers of the valley.

Owner of the Golden Tanneries in Srinagar, Mohammad Asif Bashir, said that after the cow slaughter ban, traders required hides to be transported in the wet blue form, a moist, chrome-tanned leather named thus for the blue tint from the chromium oxide tanning agent. This was so that the hides would not be stopped by vigilantes. 

Sheikh Atif, who runs a leather business in Srinagar, blamed the government for not doing enough to revive the leather industry in Kashmir. Atif said the local demand for raw hides has dried up as there is poor infrastructure and lack of modern machinery. “... small-scale artisans are almost out of business,” he said, while raw material sent in the wet blue form to domestic markets is  processed and returned to Kashmir’s markets “for 10 times the price”.

Atif said there were challenges, including tough competition from cheaper imports originating from different parts of India and overseas. He said despite these obstacles, the leather industry in Kashmir has upheld its reputation for producing high-quality leather products including bags, jackets and belts.