GST on handmade goods shows India's history of bias against artisans

Handmade products are now being taxed for the first time since independence, and the inputs cost more

The Modi government’s radical economic policies of demonetisation and the goods and services tax (GST) have had a profound and debilitating impact on the agrarian fabric of the country. While the note ban has broken the back of the rural economy, the GST has exacerbated the predicament of the rural artisans. Though the implications of GST for traders in the urban economy are being discussed extensively, its impact on the weaker and marginalised sections of the rural economy has been largely ignored. For decades, millions of rural artisans have been making ends meet through their traditional skills with hardly any