P. Gopinathan Biography 
P. Gopinathan is a master weaver of handloom textiles from Neyyattinkara, Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala. Manjavilakom is his village, where he was born. He is the founder of Eco Tex Handloom Consortium, an organization promoting handloom weaving in Manjavilakom, which employees over 1800 women in the village. Weaving his own tale of misery P. Gopinathan was honoured with Padma Shri by government of India in 2007 for his overall contributions towards Kerala handloom industry, art of weaving and promoting the dying art.
The master weaver of Machavilakam has brought joy to at least 1,000 families in Manjavilakom village on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram. He feels that minimum wages should be raised so that more people are attracted to this profession. He weaves a tale of misery, one in which he is neck deep in debt, all because he helped the poor in his hamlet with his own money. The consortium which he set up is in debt to the tune of almost Rs1 crore. His house on a 19-cent plot had been pledged with a bank for Rs6 lakh to clear the consortium’s debts, when he was honoured with the civilian honour, Padma Shri.
Gopinathan was born in a small village called Manjavilakom, in Neyyattinkara taluk, in Thiruvananthapuram. He was born into a poor weaver's family with 10 children. At the age of 10, he discontinued his studies due to the poor financial condition of his family. Then he moved to Nagarcoil, a town in Tamil Nadu, very close to his village, where he learnt more skills of the art of weaving. Later, he moved to Madurai and Salem to study how to set up looms. At the age of 30 he returned to his hometown with plans to set up his own loom, with the money he saved over the years.
He set up his own loom in a small shed and later in 1972 organized 30 local women, under a Mahila Samajam to train them. He donated his land to the association for them to house their looms. Under his leadership the organization grew to 26 with 300 looms working in an 80-cents plot in 1978. From there on his organization branched to employing over 1800 women in the village.
Published: November 23, 2018
Updated: November 23, 2018
