The Women Who Saved Their Craft — And How Okhai Took It to the World

In the 1990s, the Okhamandal region of Gujarat — a stretch of arid, windswept land in the Jamnagar district along India's far-western coastline — was enduring one of its most punishing droughts. The Rabari and Vagher tribal communities who had farmed this land for generations watched their crops wither. The sole source of income for thousands of families was disappearing beneath the cracked earth.

But these women had something that no drought could destroy. Passed down from mother to daughter across generations — practised quietly at home, stitched into wedding clothes and festival wear and everyday life — was an extraordinary tradition of handcraft. Mirror work that caught the light and turned cotton into jewellery. Appliqué that layered colour and geometry into something approaching poetry. Embroidery so intricate, so distinctively tribal, that it bore the fingerprint of a specific community in a specific place.

What had always been art practised at home was, out of necessity, about to become something more.

In 1995, a team from the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development — the social development arm of Tata Chemicals, which had been operating its manufacturing facility in Mithapur, Okhamandal, since 1939 — conducted a survey of 42 villages surrounding the plant. The aim was straightforward: find a way to help drought-affected women move from agriculture to a stable, alternative livelihood.

What they found in those villages changed everything.

The Tata Hand That Reached In

Tata Chemicals had arrived in Okhamandal in 1939 to manufacture soda ash. Over the following decades, alongside its industrial operations, the company had quietly built one of India's most committed corporate social development programmes. In 1980, it established the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development — a body that would eventually become the institutional backbone of a brand the world would come to know as Okhai.

In 2002, TCSRD formally brought the artisan programme under a single brand identity. And in 2008, it was registered as a trust — the Okhai Centre for Empowerment — with artisans as its members. The name came from the land itself: Okhamandal, the province that had given birth to the programme, and to the women who made it possible.

The early years were about training, not selling. Women were organised into self-help groups of approximately twenty members each, led by one woman who coordinated the group and passed on design templates and raw material kits. Skill assessment was rigorous. Every artisan was graded for quality, and it took anywhere between six months and a year to meet the required standards. The foundation was being built slowly and deliberately — because Okhai's founders understood that the quality of the craft was the only thing that would make the business sustainable.

The Woman Who Saw the World in the Stitches

In 2015, Okhai found the leader it needed to make the leap from craft programme to commercial brand.

Kirti Poonia was a software engineer who had joined Tata Consultancy Services in 2007 and risen through the Tata Administrative Services leadership programme to become senior manager for corporate strategy and business development at Tata Chemicals. On a company visit to Mithapur — the same town she had passed through years earlier on a college trip without fully appreciating what she had seen — she encountered the Okhai artisans again.

This time, she stopped. She looked closely. And she had the clarity that would shape the next decade of her professional life.

"These women were amazingly talented," she has said. "I realised that their products were so exotic that the world had to see them."

She took on the responsibility of leading Okhai full time. And the timing, as she has acknowledged, was perfect: the e-commerce wave had just arrived in India.

In 2015, Kirti launched the Okhai website. Within a short period, products were listed on Tata CLiQ, Amazon, Nykaa, Myntra, Jaypore, and several other platforms. A brand that had spent fifteen years building its craft foundation was now, for the first time, reaching customers far beyond Okhamandal.

From Gujarat to a Map of Indian Craft

As Okhai scaled, it made a decision that fundamentally expanded its identity: it would go beyond Gujarat.

Okhai began bringing artisan communities from wherever Tata companies had a presence across India. Saurashtra handicrafts from Mithapur in Gujarat. Karjobi — a form of thread embroidery — from Babrala in Uttar Pradesh. Jute craft from Haldia in West Bengal. Chikankari from Lucknow. Eventually, the platform was supporting artisans practising Aari work from Kashmir, block printing from Ajrakhpur, Kalamkari printing, Madhubani painting, Blue Pottery, Dokra metalwork, crochet from Bihar, macramé, silver filigree, and Kauna and Sabai grass basketry — a living atlas of India's handcraft traditions.

Products expanded too: womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, home linen, laptop sleeves, jewellery, accessories, and home décor. Each made using natural and sustainable fabrics — cotton, linen, silk — and shipped in biodegradable packaging.

On 25 October 2020, Okhai opened its first physical store — a 950 square foot space in Kala Ghoda, Mumbai's heritage arts district, inside an old heritage building with large windows and materials sourced sustainably, including stone tiles, bamboo hangers, brass fittings, and linen curtains. One wall of the store featured the arts and crafts of Gujarat, where Okhai's first self-help group centre was established. The store was not just retail — it was a gallery, a statement that handcraft deserved the same architectural dignity as any luxury brand.

The Marketing Strategy That Competitors Could Not Copy

Okhai's most powerful marketing insight has never been a campaign. It is a belief: that the artisan's story, told honestly, is the most compelling content a brand can produce.

The artisan as the protagonist. Every Okhai product is presented in the context of the person who made it. Customers do not just buy a block-printed kurta — they learn about the community that developed that tradition, the woman who made this particular piece, and the livelihood her work supports. This narrative approach creates a purchase decision that carries emotional weight. The customer becomes part of the story.

Radical collaboration over competition. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2020, when artisan communities across India faced catastrophic income loss, Okhai made a decision that was unusual by any commercial standard: it invited competing artisan organisations onto its platform. Starting in April 2020, Okhai launched one new artisan group per week — introducing its customers to 85 different artisan groups and crafts within a year. Organisations like Jaypore, itokri, GoCoop, Rangsutra Crafts India Ltd., and Zwende were brought in without rebranding — Okhai let each retain its identity while using Okhai's digital reach. "We didn't want to rebrand them, we wanted to let them have their identity and use our platform," Kirti Poonia said. The result: Okhai's social media following grew by 150% during the pandemic year.

Teaching artisans to sell digitally. Rather than creating a dependency on Okhai's central team, the organisation taught artisans to photograph their inventory, build Excel sheets of available stock, and in some cases upload directly online — all via video calls during the pandemic. This crash course in digital commerce was transformative. It turned artisans from producers into micro-entrepreneurs who could eventually operate independently.

The dropship model. Okhai follows a dropship approach — purchasing items from artisan groups and shipping directly to customers. This means Okhai takes on the marketing, promotion, and logistics burden while ensuring artisans are paid at the point of sale, not consignment. The model eliminates the exploitative middlemen that have historically drained value from Indian handicraft supply chains.

The physical store as trust anchor. When Okhai opened in Kala Ghoda, the intent was not primarily footfall. It was credibility. As Kirti Poonia noted: "Having a physical store instantly ups the trust level of online shoppers, especially those from abroad." With approximately 90% of sales online, the store's role was to make the brand tangible — to let customers touch the mirror work, feel the hand-embroidery, and understand why the prices were what they were.

The Numbers Behind the Mission

Today, Okhai supports over 25,000 artisans from across India — a number that has grown from the original 350 women in Gujarat who started it all. Over 470 families in the Okhamandal region alone have seen their incomes rise, with each family of seven to eight members improving its economic condition directly.

Artisans earn between ₹500 and ₹11,000 per month depending on their skill level, hours, and design complexity — all while working from home, at their own pace, around the needs of their households. Women who once took money from their husbands now give money. Women who once kept their daughters home now fund their education. Women who once had no credit history now maintain bank accounts and savings.

Okhai recorded revenues of ₹23 million in 2016–17, which was double the turnover from 2014–15. After the e-commerce expansion and the pandemic pivot, annual growth hit 67% in FY20.

A Brand With Its Soul in the Right Place

The Tata Group has described Okhai as a brand with its soul in the right place. That is an understatement.

Okhai is, in the truest sense, a brand built not to extract value from a tradition but to return value to it. It began because a drought took away a livelihood, and because women reached into their heritage and found something worth saving. It grew because Tata Chemicals had the institutional patience and social commitment to let something small become significant over twenty years. It scaled because one woman — Kirti Poonia — saw the world in the stitches and decided that the world needed to see them too.

From 42 drought-affected villages in Gujarat to 25,000 artisans across India, from a trust registered in Okhamandal to a flagship store in Mumbai's most celebrated arts district, from a craft passed quietly between mothers and daughters to a brand sold on every major e-commerce platform in India — Okhai has made its journey the most honest way possible.

One stitch at a time.