Amazon goes where no retailer has gone before to salvage India's dying art

With such workshops, Amazon aims to increase the appeal of its site by adding hundreds of exquisite handmade arts

Abdul Gafur Khatri lives on the fringe of great salt marshes in far western India. He doesn’t own a smartphone. He’s never surfed the web. Still, the 53-year-old thinks the internet may be his last hope of reviving a fading art called Rogan that’s been passed down through eight generations of his family.

“If I can sell online, demand will go up,” says the grey-haired artisan, one of the last living custodians of a skill that uses gummy, colored pastes to paint intricate motifs on cloth.

On a blistering summer day, Khatri arrives with dozens of other craftsmen in the town of