In this article I analyse the history of weaving in a Chamar community on the outskirts of the city of Banaras, eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP). I explore the recruitment of rural Chamar men as apprentices to the city's Muslim master weavers, the consequent emergence of a class of Chamar artisans and its gradual disappearance from the 1990s onwards. I argue that the weaving era represented a historical moment of relative prosperity for the Chamar community, where strengthened ties with urban Muslim weavers enabled a progressive disentanglement from relationships of domination by rural landed elites. As a consequence, a positive Chamar self-representation was crafted in ways which contrasted with the trends of identity consolidation for ‘Untouchable’ communities—as well as other castes—that started during the colonial period. Further, an important phase of social mobility was initiated through weaving. With the onset of economic liberalisation, as the handloom sari industry has lost its momentum, weavers have increasingly abandoned their occupation to join the ranks of unskilled casual labourers. Surrounded by compelling socio-economic imperatives that their meagre wages can not meet, former weavers appear to belong to a ‘lost world’ as they try to make sense of the laws of local and global bazaars.
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