Ground beneath their feet

The Hindu

03-07-2025

For Shantaram Narayan Sonavane, 50, from the Dhor community, the day begins early. By 7.30 a.m., he is at his tannery in Dhor gali (lane) in Ichalkaranji city, around 30 kilometres from Kolhapur in Maharashtra. It is at this time that he receives the animal hide from a government-approved slaughterhouse. The buffalo hide is steeped in a limestone slurry, called chunadi, for 10 days.
Every day, he takes the hide out from the tank, works on it, and puts it back in the slurry. He can identify the freshest leather of just-culled cattle, distinguishing it from older, salt-dipped hide that loses its strength. 'The fresher the hide, the better the chappal,' he says. Shantaram is a hide supplier to the Kolhapuri chappal artisans.
On the 11th day, the loosened hair on the hide is removed with a 'ship', an instrument shaped like a boat, and put into teakwood drums. The drums contain a liquid with hirada (myrobalan fruits) and babul tree bark. Both tanners and artisans believe these natural ingredients have properties to both preserve the leather and offer wearers of finished chappals health benefits.
After three days of being transferred into different teakwood drums, the leather is brought out, stitched into a round bag and hung. It is filled with the hirada-babul liquid again for eight days. 'This helps give it a good colour, fill up the pores, and make it immune to fungus. This has to be done in a teakwood drum only. There should be no iron, no cement anywhere close to the tannery. The leather does not take kindly to those, and immediately loses its quality,' he says. This process, using only vegetable dye, called bag-tan, is exclusive to this region, and is key to the making of the Kolhapuri chappal. The end result is always a camel-coloured leather. Anything else would mean that the leather has been exposed to lab-made chemicals.
On June 23, at the Spring-Summer 2026 Men's Fashion Week in Milan, the 112-year-old Italian luxury brand Prada presented what it referred to in its catalogue as 'leather sandals'. They looked like Kohlapuri chappals in design and material. Social media, alive to cultural appropriation, especially by erstwhile colonial powers, called out the exclusion of any cultural citation. In the days after, Prada, itself a heritage label, acknowledged the traditions and practices that go into the making of the chappal, expressing its willingness to work with the artisans and craftspeople, in an e-mail to the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (MACCIA).
The Kohlapuri chappal has had a geographical indication (GI) tag since 2018, for the product made in eight districts, four each in Maharashtra and Karnataka. For a chappal to be called a Kolhapuri, it must be made in these districts, be wholly nature-derived, vegetable-dyed, and hand-stitched with leather thread. Nylon thread or nails mean it is not a Kohlapuri chappal.
Artisans lament that Kolhapuri chappals are losing their market, with people's lack of knowledge on what the original product is. 'This started happening 60-70 years ago, when the demand for Kolhapuri chappals went up, but the production was steady. That is when traders from other States started copying the design and selling it as Kolhapuris,' says Shivajirao Powar, president of Kolhapur District Footwear Association.
The decline of demand and knowledge
Traditionally-made chappals require care, with oil rubbed on them to preserve their sheen and prolong their life. Many do not want to invest that kind of time anymore. In addition, designers across India did their own spin on the chappal, mimicking the original, but adding colour, embellishment, and sometimes a heel.
The leather processing for a Kolhapuri chappal takes 21 days. Shantaram explains that each part of the Kolhapuri chappal is made with this leather, but from different parts of the animal: the soles from the buttocks, the braids on the T-upper from the tail or legs, or from sheep skin.
His family has been doing this for generations, but he laments that Dhol gali, which used to have tanneries within each home, has only two units now. His son, an engineer, is preparing to write an entrance exam for a government job, and is not interested in carrying on the family business.
'What's the point? There is no dignity of labour. It is a lot of hard work. You need strength to lift and hang the heavy leather pieces, process them. The body smells because of the work. The money is not great. Most importantly, there is a shortage of the babul tree bark, which is the most important component in vegetable tanning,' says Akshay Shantaram Sonavane, 26, Shantaram's son. His mother, aunt, and uncle have all been a part of the family business, handling the equipment, processing the hide. None of his generation wants to be a part of it. They prefer desk jobs. The sub-text is that tanners are Dalits, often looked down upon in Hinduism's religious and social heirarchy.
'This is a work of art and skill,' Shantaram says, adding that the Maharashtra government sometimes calls him to understand the original process of vegetable tanning. 'But the sad part is, our role is never acknowledged. We don't get land for setting up our tanneries. We don't get bank loans or government funds,' he says.
In a month, Shantaram, his wife Rajashree, brother Tukaram and his wife Madhavi, process 300 kg of animal hide. Each kilogram earns them ₹240, he says. 'Alcoholism is very common in our community. After the stench of the hide and the hard work of lifting these bags, people drink to ease the pain and the smell,' says Akshay. His family though, has been able to save up and build a four-storey house.
Vegetable tanning has become expensive and rarer now, making artisans turn to tanning with lab-made chemicals. Besides the shortage of over 20-year-old babul trees and skilled leather processors, people from the community now turning adults don't want to be ostracised: black nails are characteristic of dyers. The residue of the plants used in vegetable dying used to be burnt along with cow dung as fuel — this market has disappeared with gas fires taking over.
When chemicals are used in the hide, the properties of the chappal change immediately; they wear out faster, say artisans. 'Till 10 years ago, there were 50 vegetable tanning units in Kolhapur; 10 in Ichalkaranji. Now, there are no units in Kolhapur; Ichalkaranji is left with two. Earlier, Nipani had 70 units; it now has only 10. There is no help from the government,' says Tukaram.
Many artisans travel great distances to get the hide to make Kolhapuri chappals the original way. One of them is Ashok Laxman Mane, 52, from Shirol. The artisan, who works from his village, is from the Chambhar community, a Scheduled Caste, in a system that believes he is almost at the lowest social level. He has loyal customers, who reach out to him directly to place their orders. His YouTube videos are his marketing outreach. 'I don't supply to middlemen or to shops,' he says. Most artisans don't have Mane's social-media skills, and are forced to make chappals as per designer specifications, adding a creative-industry hierarchy, one more layer of discrimination that a Kolhapuri chappal artisan faces in life.
Gender blender
Sagar Sanjay Jadhav, 36, from Peth Wadgaon in Hatkanangle taluk in Kolhapur, has been making chappals for five generations. 'We buy the leather based on weight from the Dhors. We then dip it in water and clean it with a brush. There are several types of Kolhapuri chappals: Kapshi, Kurundwadi, Mauje Kapshi, Maharaja. We have separate stencils ready for each design. Once the leather is washed, we cut it as per the stencil. Then we soak it in water again,' he says.
Thereafter, the leather is beaten (ghatne in Marathi) and smoothened (khurapni). It is beaten again to toughen it. The stencil is used again and different parts of the chappals moulded. The upper and lower parts of the sole are cut separately. After elaborate work on them, they are stuck together with the help of local soil near the riverbed. These processes are performed by men. The upper and lower soles are then stitched by leather thread by the women. The men craft a design with iron instruments and hammer the chappal yet again. Specialised iron tools are used for this. 'Women do 80% of the work; men do 20%,' says Powar.
The prices of chappals are decided on the basis of the design. The more intricate the hand work, the more expensive the chappal.
Bharti Sunil Gadekar, 49, from Kolhapur, has made the detha veni (braid for the chappals), stitching it to the soles for the last 20 years. This has meant a constant pain in her neck, back, fingers, hands, and legs, as she sits hunched over her work all day. 'I hail from Mangur in Karnataka. My father used to make leather chappals, but I never made anything till I got married. Here, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law used to make chappals. I learnt from them,' she says, adding that she lost her husband at a very young age. 'I began to do this to run the household,' she says, noting that both her sons, who are in class 11 do not want to learn the art. She stitches five or six pairs of chappals daily, and makes ₹25 per pair. Prada's pair was slated to cost over ₹1 lakh.
She is one of the few in Kolhapur's Subhash Nagar, who works on the chappal. 'If you walked around some decades ago, you would hear the constant sound of the iron instruments as chappals being made. Now, the whole area has grown silent,' says Shubham Satpute, 28, of Inga Leather, a boutique that sells different designs, ranging from ₹1,599 to ₹6,599.
Now and beyond
'These days, the leather comes from Chennai, as slaughterhouses and tanneries have been shut down here. That leather is chemically tanned. The people who used to earlier run tanneries, have now become distributors,' Powar says.
Artisans too use machines to cut the leather and glue to stick the layers of the soles, says Satpute, who runs a leather studio and was recently a part of a programme held to honour the Vishwakarma community, traditionally artisans of different types. Flaunting his photograph with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he says the art needs a lot more to flourish. He runs a boutique to sell 'authentic Kolhapuri chappals' of different types, and understands that e-commerce helps take a business from local to global.
After the Prada controversy, his reels on Instagram explaining the nuances of Kolhapuri chappals went viral, garnering lakhs of views and new followers for his studio's Instagram page. The publicity is not enough for him to sustain his business, he says. 'There should be some international collaboration, so the artisans benefit. At present, only the middlemen and shopowners make money from margins and commissions. The artisans are still exploited and underpaid,' he says.
Lalit Gandhi, president of MACCIA, calls for the Kolhapuri chappal to be patented. 'A patent will help the artisans, who have been the most exploited in the chain. There is not even a cluster for the Kolhapuri chappals in Kolhapur at present,' he says, adding that the Chamber has begun the process. He hopes the artisans will come together to form a collective. With Prada showing an interest in engaging with the artisans, most in Kolhapur feel this will be an example for ethical fashion practices. 'Prada has offered to hold a meeting with the local artisans and with our industry representatives. We have suggested a joint task force which could focus on developing co-branded limited-edition collections rooted in traditional Kolhapuri designs,' he adds.
Maharashtra Social Justice Minister Sanjay Shirsat says that he has called for a meeting next week 'to take measures to address the issue'.
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Edited by Sunalini Mathew