Lalita Vakil
A Chamba embroiderer who has helped revive the double-sided Chamba rumal and trained thousands of women in it, honoured with the Padma Shri in 2022.
Lalita Vakil is an embroiderer of the Chamba rumal, the double-sided embroidered cloth of Chamba, and has played a key part in bringing the fading craft back into view. She was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of art, from Himachal Pradesh [1].
A craft on the edge
Vakil was born on 14 April 1954 into a middle-class family in the old town of Chamba, and took up the craft at 14 [2]. She learned the techniques of do-rukha, the double-sided stitch in which the design looks the same on both faces of the cloth, at a time when the form was close to dying out [2].
Old designs, new uses
She has developed new designs and made modern everyday pieces that blend the traditional patterns with present-day taste, helping the craft find buyers today [2]. She has shown her work at many exhibitions in India and abroad [2].
She has also trained younger women so they can earn a living from the craft, teaching thousands of artisans under the government’s guru-shishya scheme and on her own initiative [2].
She received the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2018, the Kala Shri award in 1998 and 2002, and the Kala Ratan in 2006 [2].
Sources
- [1] Padma Awards 2022: list of awardees — Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
- [2] Padma Awards 2022: citation for Lalita Vakil — Padma Awards, Government of India. Accessed 24 October 2026.
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