Artisans Rahul Dattatrey Gorey (left) and Kalamudeen Ansari stitch new recycled rubber bags for ‘Chamar Studio’ by designer Sudheer Rajbhar at a workshop inside Dharavi slum in Mumbai.
MUMBAI: The sound of men punching holes into colourful rubber sheets reverberates across a tiny studio in India’s largest slum — an unlikely birthplace for luxury handbags made by a marginalised community seeking to reclaim its identity.
“Chamar Studio” owes its name, derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘skin’ and long used locally as a slur, to leather craftsmen who lie at the bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy.
As members of the Dalit caste, formerly known as untouchables, life has always been a struggle for India’s leather workers, who are largely Hindu Chamars or Muslim.
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