Mohammad Akhtar of Mominpura had 10 saris woven for a Bangalore-based customer who was to arrive in Varanasi to collect them in the first week of March. That changed with the twin blasts of March 7 at the Sankatmochan Temple and the Cantonment station—now Akhtar has requested municipal commission acquaintances to let him work as a nallah cleaner until the buyer from Bangalore arrives for his Rs 5,000 order.

‘‘I’m not the only one who’s unable to earn enough to even give his family a square meal,’’ Akhtar says. ‘‘There must be at least 60,000 other weavers who have been pushed into poverty because of the blasts. We hate terrorists and rioters—we’re always the ones who take the worst hit.’’

After the blasts, Varanasi’s sari market went into lock-down for a week, says Dr Lenin Raghuvanshi, convener of the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, an organisation which has earned respect among the weavers because of the help it has provided in price negotiation for small weavers. “The Banarasi sari market has gone down by 30 per cent after the bomb blast,’’ Raghuvanshi says. ‘‘Buyers from other parts of the country have stopped coming here and even local traders, the gaddidars have stopped making payments—they are using the opportunity to exploit the weavers and give them only half the normal rate.’’

Adds Siddiq Hassan, convener of the Bunkar Dastkar Adhikar Manch (BDAM), “A large section of weavers will never be able to recover from the bomb tragedy. It will be no wonder if some of then die of starvation, as has happened after every such incident in Varanasi.’’

... contd.