Buzz over Chinese manja robs the joy of kite-flying

The streets are awash with the colours of kites, threads and toys that are part of the Sankranti celebrations in Hyderabad. The terraces in Ameerpet, Kukatpally, Aramghar, Malakpet and other parts of the city erupt in whoops of joy or despair as kite flyers across the city prepare for Sankranti. In Dhoolpet, kite shops and sellers bounce off each other as the newest stock is brought in from the homes where manufacturing of kites is a cottage industry. “All the kites that you see here are home-made. I make the regular colourful ones that retail for ₹120, ₹240, ₹360 a dozen. Some special hand ones cost ₹75 per piece,” informs Mahavir Singh a third generation kite maker. The area is a hub of wholesale and retail trade for the surrounding areas of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

This cottage industry with hundreds of families crafting kites and manja in Dhoolpet, Dabeerpura, Malakpet, Ganga Bowli now faces a grim challenge after a series of fatal and near fatal accidents due to the glassed monofilament thread. The non-biodegradable thread has led to a number of road accidents as well as bird kills dating back to 1975.

“I had my neck slashed last year near Khairatabad junction. Luckily I braked by two-wheeler at the right time and pushed out the thread before more damage could happen,” says Yash Singh, who is also in the business of selling kites in Dhoolpet. “The Chinese manja has changed the conversation about kites from happiness to unhappiness. Everyday we are having police inspections and enquiries about our stock and business,” says Mr. Yash.

On Friday night at 10 p.m., a posse of police marched through the arterial road that connects Aghapura to Purana Pul through Dhoolpet warning the shopkeepers against stocking the Chinese manja. “Earlier it used to come from China. Now it is manufactured locally in many States and Telangana is a big market and it is transported here in containers by September before the crackdown begins. The earlier brand was called Himalayan now it is mono gold, mono king, mono sky and a host of other names,” says Krishna Singh, a 5th generation kite maker.

While some dealers stock and are able to sell the Chinese manja, the whole industry has to appear clean. Most of the shops now have signboards that proclaim: ‘China manja not available here’ or ‘Don’t ask Chinese manja’.

There is a legal vacuum about the synthetic glassed thread. The Telangana government proactively imposed a ban on ‘procuring, stocking, sale and use’ of Chinese manja and glass-coated manja in January 2016. The National Green Tribunal banned the synthetic manja in July 2017. But the Ministry of Commerce and Industry took to legalese when asked about the status of the ban in Lok Sabha. In 2019, the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry informed the LS that “as retail trade is a State subject, the State governments have been requested to take appropriate action on the matter.” The Minister invoked global trade as a caveat: “it has not been found feasible to regulate/restrict import of synthetic/plastic threads alone, which may have multiple uses, without imposing a similar restriction/regulation on domestic sources, as it would violate India’s commitment to WTO.”