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Prem Bery
Prem Bery with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy at the Central Cottage Industries Emporium in India during Kennedy's goodwill tour of India (1962)
Known forSocial work

Prem Bery was an Indian social worker and director of exports of ready-to-wear clothes at the Central Cottage Industries Emporium (CCIE), in Janpath, New Delhi, India. She co-founded the 'Refugee Handicrafts', with Fori Nehru and Kitty Shiva Rao in 1947, and took up the post of its honorary secretary in 1949, three years before it merged with the CCIE.

Early life

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Prem Bery was from Lahore and evauated the city in 1947.[1]

Refugee Handicrafts

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In Delhi in 1947 Bery co-founded Refugee Handicrafts with Fori Nehru and Kitty Shiva Rao.[2] The aim was to utilize the skills of refugee women in order to increase their family incomes.[2] The three housewives provided materials for the women to sew, knit, embroider, cut and perform other needlework.[2] They then collected the completed products and sold them from door-to-door.[3][4] In 1949 Bery became the organisation's honorary secretary.[5] The business expanded and Inderbhai Haksar offered his shop 'Patel Brothers' in Connaught Place for the sale of the refugee merchandise.[2][4] With the help from the Indian Cooperative Union the business moved to its own building on Barakhamba Road, and was later relocated to the old American barracks at Janpath, where it was absorbed into the Central Cottage Industries Emporium, then being run by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay.[2][5] There, Bery was appointed director of exports of ready-to-wear clothes, and remained there for several years.[5] In her role as director, she was typically responsible for hosting state visitors there.[4][5]

Bery was noted to be part of Delhi's social elite who contributed to preserving India's handicrafts.[6]

Personal and family

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Bery's husband was the Government's dental advisor, Narendra Nath Bery.[7]

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References

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  1. ^ Sackley, Nicole (2022). "10 - The Bankura Horse as Development Object : Women's Work, Indo-American Exchanges, and the Global Handicraft Trade" (PDF). In Fischer-Tiné, Harald; Slate, Nico (eds.). The United States and South Asia from the Age of Empire to Decolonization: A History of Entanglements. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 235–266. doi:10.1017/9789400604421. ISBN 978-94-006-0442-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 August 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e Nehru, B. K (2012). "Part IV - ICS: Government of India (1939-1949)". Nice guys finish second: memoirs. New Delhi: Penguin Books. pp. 211–212. ISBN 978-0-14-341782-8. OCLC 1117765699.
  3. ^ Kaushik, Vijay Kumari (1998). "11. UNO and Women". Women's Rights and World Development. Vol. 5. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons. p. 358. ISBN 81-7625-015-5.
  4. ^ a b c Varma, Indira (2023). "18. Cottage Emporium: the house of romance". Lest We Forget: How Three Sisters Braved the Partition. Westland. p. 137. ISBN 978-93-5776-855-9.
  5. ^ a b c d Salvi, Gouri (1999). Development Retold: Voices from the Field. Concept Publishing Company. pp. 99–120. ISBN 978-81-7022-798-4.
  6. ^ Sharma, Kaamya (4 March 2019). "The Orientalisation of the Sari—Sartorial Praxis and Womanhood in Colonial and Post-Colonial India". South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 42 (2): 219–236. doi:10.1080/00856401.2019.1577700. ISSN 0085-6401.
  7. ^ Dental World: Quarterly Journal of the Pierre Fauchard Academy. The Academy. 1962. p. 131.
  8. ^ a b c "First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's (JBK) trip to India and Pakistan". www.jfklibrary.org. 1962. Archived from the original on 16 February 2025. Retrieved 16 February 2025.

Further reading

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