A new study led by a University of Nottingham historian offers a comprehensive examination of apprenticeship in artisanal production during the second half of British colonial rule in India, revealing that no single, uniform system of training existed – instead uncovering a diverse and shifting set of practices shaped by custom, commerce and colonial intervention.
At a time when the Government of India expands vocational training under the Skill India Mission and reforming the Apprentice Act (1961), the research by Dr Arun Kumar, Assistant Professor in Modern British Imperial, Colonial, and Post-Colonial History in the Department of History, provides essential historical context and challenges long-held assumptions about how artisanal skills have been transmitted over generations.
Spanning traditional guild-like relationships, commercialised workshop training, and state-regulated indentures, the findings show how apprenticeship served multiple purposes for craftspeople, entrepreneurs, and the colonial government.
Artisans are at the centre of small commodity production in contemporary India and constitute an important segment of the total labour force. Historians have been struggling to understand the nitty-gritties of labour reproduction in the artisanal economy."
"My research endeavour has been to highlight that artisans need to be understood in their specific context and within the wider economy. Recent shifts to bring artisanal products into the global luxury market are a welcome step, but this needs to be accompanied by real, transformative changes in the socio-economic conditions of artisans who labour hard to produce these luxury craft products."
The study, published in the South Asia: Journal of South Asia draws on a wide range of archival sources – including industrial inquiries, ethnographic observations, trade treatises and testimonies from artisans and colonial officials – and identifies three major strands of apprenticeship that coexisted between 1850 and 1950.
The first strand was a customary and community-regulated tradition rooted in caste, kinship, and artisanal moral economies. These apprenticeships relied on rituals such as nazrānā (gift-giving) and nimak khāwā (salt-taking), emphasising loyalty, secrecy, and gradual skill acquisition. This system remained central to carpentry, masonry, weaving, metalwork, and other crafts in both North and South India.
The second emerged in the early 20th century as artisanal workshops became increasingly commercialised. Merchant-capitalists in sectors such as embroidery, brassware, woodcarving, and carpet weaving expanded production and reshaped labour relations. In these workshops, traditional ustād–shāgird hierarchies survived but were transformed by the pressures of commercial production. Apprentices were often bound through advance payments or debt, weakening the ritual and community structures that had previously shaped such relationships.
The third strand consisted of formal, indentured apprenticeships introduced by the colonial state within institutions such as railway workshops, ordnance factories, technical schools, and reformatory schools. Governed by written contracts and enforceable terms, these programmes reflected British efforts to standardise technical training and to 'correct' what administrators saw as the inefficiency, rigidity, or caste-bound nature of indigenous artisanal training. These interventions generated ongoing debates about the extent to which traditional systems could be reconciled with modern industrial requirements.
Dr Kumar added: "The pluralities of artisanal training are important to understand the marginalities of artisanal labour. Who is trained where and how has important implications on the life trajectory."
The findings speak directly to contemporary policy debates. As India seeks to expand apprenticeships into new sectors, build partnerships with private industry, and create large-scale pathways for youth employment, the study underscores the importance of understanding how artisanal communities have historically learned, taught, and valued skill.
Rather than imagining modern vocational training as a clean break from the past, the research suggests that policy initiatives must recognise and engage with longstanding cultural logics of apprenticeship that continue to shape artisanal labour today.
