SOCIO-LEGAL IMPACTS OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS ON RURAL EMPOWERMENT IN INDIAN HANDICRAFT INDUSTRY: A CRITCIAL ANALYSIS

India is a craftsmanship country. Throughout the centuries some of the most outstanding hand made products of the world have been made in its villages and small towns such as the silk sarees made in Varanasi wooden toys in Channapatna bronze figurines in Swamimalai carpets in Bhadohi and shawls in Kashmir valleys. They do not consist of commodities. They are centuries old they are made by the immediate topography by the local custom by the labour of men whose trade has been none other. But these craftsmen were granted in most of their history but meager legal status and even less material compensation in comparison with the value of their product. The legal horizon was also changed interestingly with introduction of the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act 1999. The Indian law had worked out as it had never had before a means of rendering the identity of a product to be relative to its place of origin and of securing against the misuse of the identity by foreigners. A Geographical Indication or a GI tag is not a mere name. It is a privilege to the legislation. It informs the world that a product is manufactured in a particular place that it possesses certain characteristics due to that place and the name cannot be commercially used by other individuals who are not part of that society. This theoretically is a powerful tool to the rural producers. In practice between theory and practice there has been an immense gap.