Retracing Bapu’s footsteps

The National Institute of Design is all set to give a fresh lease of life to ‘patti chappals’, the quaint leather footwear that Mahatma Gandhi used to make and wear. Considering that walking was his most preferred means of commutation, this is what we call one of the most befitting tributes to the Father of the Nation on his 150th birth anniversary today. The project will be announced today.

What’s more, in keeping with Gandhiji’s ideology of working for the less privileged, NID will train cobblers in making these redesigned chappals and provide them toolkits to make them later on. The idea behind the project, institute officials say, is to bring it back in fashion as well as revive it as cottage industry and provide livelihood to cobblers.

Besides the ‘patti chappal’ project, NID will also announce the launch of an International Open Elective course on Tuesday. It will be a year-long programme.

The course will commence from January 2019. Pradyumna Vyas, director of NID, claimed that a proposal in this regard has been sent to Ministry of Commerce.

“Patti Chappal, also known as Chamar chappal, not only reminds us of Gandhiji, but it is also a concept that promotes inclusivity, sustainability and humility in itself. It has the power to help revive cottage industry if we can come up with a design that can attract youngsters or current high-end buyers. For the same, we will ask our faculty, students and international participants in the elective to design the patti-chappal in the present context,” he said.

Elaborating on the project, Vyas said that their aim was to take the design sense and application to the cobbler community and to encourage them to take up challenges in developing new designs for the market.

“The idea is to have new designs of patti chappals and train young and enthusiastic cobblers from various pockets of India, provide them toolkits to make the chappal and revive it in the present context,” said Vyas, adding that the proposal has been discussed with Tridip Suhrud, cultural historian and director of CEPT Archives.

Talking to Mirror, Suhrud said it was time people started focusing on the causes Bapu deeply felt for. These included leather (the material used for making patti chappal) and leprosy, pointing out that these were connected with untouchability, the vice he fought against all his life.

“Patti chappals are made of leather. Material leather and people with leprosy were considered untouchable. Very few know that Gandhiji worked with leather even before he worked with Khadi. So contemporising patti chappal is important. His idea was that no one in the country should have to walk bare-foot,” Suhrud said.

Welcoming NID’s initiative, he added, “The proposal will be a gamechanger as there are several cobblers who need to be provided livelihood. Design innovation is required and as technology transfer has not been provided in the area, training cobblers is required.” He opined that it would be a good idea to customize them as per the climatic condition of the region where they would be worn. “Patti chappal may not be required to have uniform designs as India has traditional designs as per agro-climatic conditions and it will be nice to design, use fabric, material as per the climatic condition of region.”

Officials at NID said they would be working on contemporising patti chappal, following which they would invite participating students and faculty of the soon-to-be-launched international elective course to work on it and then train cobblers.

Gandhi’s tryst with the patti chappals

Suhrud revealed that Gandhiji learnt to make patti chappal in Trappist Monastery in South Africa. When he was imprisoned in South Africa, he was given hard labour there, as part of which he made these ‘Trappist’ chappals with leather. Interestingly, when he left South Africa, he gifted a pair of these chappals to General Jan Smuts who had imprisoned him. The chappals are now kept at Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History.