From Ritual Walls to Global Markets

The study examines the historical transformation of Madhubani Art (Mithila painting) from a ritualistic domestic practice to a commodified element of the global creative economy between 1970 and 2020. Traditionally practised by women on the mud walls and floors of homes in the Mithila region of Bihar to mark auspicious occasions, weddings, and festivals, the art was deeply embedded in gendered cultural labour and everyday domestic life. The late 1960s Bihar famine marked a turning point when the All-India Handicrafts Board and external promoters encouraged women to shift the art from walls to paper, enabling income generation and wider public recognition. The primary objective of this study is to examine the evolving political economy of cultural labour in Madhubani painting by analysing its development as a livelihood source for thousands of rural women artisans, alongside emerging challenges of precarity, middlemen exploitation, stylistic homogenization, and uneven benefits across Brahmin, Kayastha, and Dalit artists. Adopting a historical-analytical research design, the study employs qualitative content analysis of policy documents, exhibition records, cooperative reports, secondary literature, and selected artist narratives. This study endeavors to find the transition of this art form through state NGO, and global market interventions. It symbolizes economic opportunities among diverse women artisans. It promotes artistic expression, precarity and gender imbalance within this artisanal practices. This study represents empowerment and exploitation under global capitalism. Sustainable models ensuring fair compensation, artistic autonomy, and cultural integrity are essential for its future

Commodification · Empowerment · Exhibition · Handicraft · Informal sector · Livelihood · Politics · Precarity · Wage labour · Crafts, Textile, and Design · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Diaspora