In a state where jobless youth spend their entire lives waiting to land a lowly government job, there is a village in Haryana in which every resident earns for himself. It is one of the biggest producers of rosary beads, exporting them to countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, France, the UK and the USA. Raman Mohan narrates the success story of Mangali.

WELCOME to Mangali, a little known village 12 km from Hisar in Haryana, where work goes on at a feverish pace from dawn to dusk in more than 100 units, producing wooden beads for rosaries for the domestic as well as the export markets. It is hard to find in this dusty hamlet, groups of hookah-smoking villagers playing cards at all times, a common sight elsewhere in the state. None of the units employs outside labour. It’s all a family affair.

Perhaps that is why you come across few mud dwellings in this village. Most houses are brick and mortar structures and "modern" by rural standards. And the village has accomplished this with no help from the government at all. It all began way back in 1923 when a member of the Khati (carpenter) caste learnt the art of making sandalwood beads from his maternal uncles in Gurgaon district. He died a long time ago but the movement he began on a modest note has come of age.

The pioneer’s son Chander Bhan is now a weary old man of 70 who thinks retirement is still "at least a decade away". He recalls that when his father set up the first hand-operated drilling machine, it drew derisive comments from fellow villagers. "In those days we Khatis made charpoys, doors and windows, simple furniture and, at the most, carts to be driven by animals. Carving beads was considered a lowly job. However, my father was tough, streetwise and progressive. He did not care. Soon fellow villagers were urging him to teach them the art", Chander Bhan recalls.

In a few years the village had about a dozen units operating from animal sheds for want of more space in the house. Hand-operated drilling machines were messy and involved a lot of physical labour, therefore, production was modest. The villagers continued working this way for more than five long decades before Chander Bhan’s father installed the first electrically driven drill in 1974. Until the early eighties, Khatis owned all the units. However, with the increase in demand and the arrival of the easy-to-operate electric drills, villagers belonging to other castes too began making beads.

Today the village is one of the biggest producers of beads made of sandalwood, red wood, ber wood, shisham and Ebonite. These beads are exported to countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Abu Dhabi, France, the UK, and the USA. Mostly, these beads are used for making rosaries for members of different religious communities. Rosaries for Hindus have 108 beads, while those for Muslims have just 100. The rosary beads were earlier carved from sandalwood only. But with the cost of sandalwood skyrocketing, the poorer communities have begun using beads of cheaper materials like redwood, shisham and ber wood. However, beads meant for export are still made from sandalwood.

Twentytwo-year-old Subhash, who learnt this art from his grandfather Manohar Lal, says until the nineties, a few units made ivory beads too, which were used to make necklaces. However with ivory becoming scarce, none of the units deal in ivory beads now. He says the business really flourished till the early nineties when sales tax was imposed on sandalwood. This came as a big blow to these cottage units. Exports fell considerably and the state government just sat tight, doing nothing. However, the popularity of godmen like Bapu Asa Ram has given a new lease of life to the business. The Bapu’s Ahmedabad-based ashram is a major buyer of Mangali’s rosaries. Though the villagers hesitate to give the exact figure of their earnings, it is estimated that a family earns on an average Rs 5000 a month from this business.

The imposition of sales tax on sandalwood also exposed the artisans to harassment by tax inspectors. Seventyfive-year-old Amar Singh, who has been handling beads for as long as he can remember, says: "We cannot afford to buy sandalwood on our own. Exporters supply us wood in Delhi and we have to bring it to the village by bus. But on the way, inspectors want us to either pay tax to the government or give half the amount of the tax to them as bribe. What do we do? We haven’t bought the wood. We only get paid for our labour."

Bead-making is a laborious task. It keeps the entire family busy throughout the day. Seventy-year-old Angi Devi, who was born in a family of bead-makers in Naurangpur village of Gurgaon district and came to Mangali after marriage, says: "Everybody chips in the moment he or she is free. The young boys work on the drill. The aged and the young, including women, help thread the beads. Even toddlers are not spared. They can always collect the waste from under the drills. It is a cooperative effort in more ways than one."

Though these villagers are beset with numerous problems, they have not received any help from the government. Their main problem is shortage of power. Although the drills are powered only by a small motor but if there is no power, the entire process of bead-making comes to a halt. The enterprising villagers instead of waiting for the government to come to their rescue have installed diesel generators. Today, every unit has a generator which not only operates the drills, but also takes care of other household needs.

Nothing that is good comes cheap. Bead-making is costlier now, thanks to government apathy. The artisans have to bear the increased cost of operating the gen-sets. "If we hike labour charges, we lose out to our counterparts in UP and Delhi. There is no choice," said Chander Bhan.

Not only that, even banks offer only a meagre loan of Rs 5000 to Rs 10000 for installing drills. This sum does not take care of the cost of raw materials. Bead-makers say if they were offered banking facilities for buying wood, they could earn much more as they would not have to depend on exporters of Delhi. They also want a sandalwood depot set up in Hisar so that they can buy it locally. So far, however, none of their pleas have been heard.

Despite large-scale production of beads in villages of Gurgaon and at Mangali, the Haryana Government has not yet considered exporting beads through the state import-export corporation, leaving the producers at the mercy of private export houses which make a hefty profit at the cost of poor artisans. These problems have taken a lot of sheen off the bead-making business that the villagers have carried on for almost 80 years now.

With so many problems and increased competition, the villagers are diversifying into other spheres. Two years ago one of the bead-makers, Sita Ram, began making iron chains for animals. He learnt this art from his mother’s family in the Naurangpur village of Gurgaon which gave Mangali the art of making wooden beads. He explained: These chains do not require machines run on power as these chains are made by hand. All I need is a small piece of iron rail with a small slit. The hammer does the rest of the job.

Sita Ram has done well and sells his chains himself, without a middleman eating into his profits. Traders come from all over the state and also from the neighbouring Rajasthan and Punjab to buy his chains in bulk. He claims that these chains are lighter yet sturdier as compared to the machine-made chains which have a tendency to get knotted. Despite being hand-made, the chains cost much less than the machine-made chains. However, he has not yet given up making beads. So long as other family members are available for bead-making, he devotes his time to making chains. He reverts to bead-making when others are busy elsewhere.

Despite these villagers’ preoccupation with beads, they continue to be farmers too. They just utilise their spare time for boosting the family income. Their hardwork has yielded fruit. The village claims to have a much higher per capita income than most villages of its size. The row upon row of pucca houses is proof enough of their claim.

However, the best thing about the village is that it has taught dignity of labour to its residents. Perhaps it is the only place in Haryana where love’s labour has not been lost.