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Abstract
The leather and leather industry is one of the oldest manufacturing industries in India to have been on the international market since the middle of the nineteenth century, with demand for its goods both domestic and international from the outset. The industry is also one with strong ties to the social structure through caste and culture. Therefore, a large number of people engaged in the industry (entrepreneurs as well as workers) even today come from traditional leather-working castes (belonging to lower castes in the caste hierarchy) and the Muslim community. In this paper, an attempt is made to trace the growth of the leather craft from a study of this literature.